Explosions In The Sky are an iconic instrumental rock band from Texas that have become the gold standard for bold, emotional, cinematic music and are known for their incendiary live concerts. They’ve slowly grown from playing DIY spaces and opening for Fugazi to having headlined Radio City Music Hall, Royal Albert Hall, the Greek Theatre, and the Sydney Opera House.
The band lineup has remained the same since its inception back in 1999 these being Mark Smith (guitar), Michael James (bass), Munaf Rayani (guitar) and Christopher Hrasky (drums). They’ve achieved remarkable commercial success from an especially non-commercial corner of the music world, selling more than 1.3 million copies over six studio albums, and scoring five major motion pictures in the process. They’ve become the sound of modern sports films, documentaries and television, due largely to their genre-defining ‘Friday Night Lights’ score, and they’ve been asked to tour with artist fans as diverse as Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, The Flaming Lips, and Death Cab for Cutie, while managing to not sound like any other popular artist.
Thus far they have dropped seven studio albums: ‘How Strange, Innocence’ (2000), ‘Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever’ (2001), ‘The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place’ (2003), ‘The Rescue’ (2005), ‘All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone’ (2007), ‘Take Care, Take Care, Take Care’ (2011), ‘The Wilderness’ (2016) and most recent offering ‘End’ (2023).
‘End’, the enigmatic seventh album but not the final studio album by Explosions In The Sky, was inspired by darkness, but became a loud, dramatic, wild rumination on life and death:
“Our starting point was the concept of an ending—death, or the end of a friendship or relationship. Every song comes from a story, or an idea one of us has had that we’ve all expanded on and made its own world. Maybe it’s our nature, but we kept feeling that the album title was ultimately open to a lot more interpretation—the end of a thing or a time can mean a stop, but it can also mean a beginning, and what happens after one thing ends might pale in comparison to what it becomes next,” says the band about the album.
‘End’ is perhaps the “grandest” Explosions In The Sky album – melding the quiet restraint and crushing feel of their early releases with the sonic texturing and ornate experimentation of their later releases, and their increasingly deep film and television scoring catalogue, influenced by personal tastes stretching from classical to soul to experimental ambient music.
“It never fails to amaze me the power of music when love is at its core. It is the reason we get out of bed every morning. To hope that we can continue to show that beauty is still around and in all of us. Thank you for doing what you do and helping us through this life.” – Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins), in a message sent to Explosions In The Sky after hearing ‘End’.
In support of this recent platter Explosions In The Sky played 6 gigs in Australia and New Zealand back in May and will be jetting across to Europe next month (August) to play 10 concerts, with one of these being in Brighton at the Chalk venue, after which they will out across Canada and the USA in September for a further 11 performances.
The Explosions In The Sky Brighton concert at Chalk has been organised by Melting Vinyl and will be taking place on Friday 16th August. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased HERE and HERE.
Support for the Brighton concert will come from Eva Lunny who is a harpist, composer and ambient music producer from Brighton. Inspired by sonic pioneers such as Aphex Twin, Tim Hecker and Brian Eno, as well as renowned harpists Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane, Eva creates a mix of ambient soundscapes and neoclassical pieces for her live show, bringing audience members on a journey of sound and reflection.
