The Map Room is an indie-pop duo from New Zealand. Their forthcoming album Weatherless features “Hold Me Up To The Sun”.
Background
As the work of Brendon Morrow and Simon Gooding, The Map Room was partly inspired by the duo’s travels through South America. The two met while studying audio engineering in Australia, and when they returned to New Zealand in their hometown of Auckland, they began writing music together. In the course of a year-long trip from Argentina to Colombia, the two found their sound by writing and playing shows along the way.
Cobbling together a portable recorded and a couple acoustic guitars from a shop in Buenos Aires, Brendon and Simon set off on their journey, writing and recording what would be fragments of new songs. As Simon puts it, “as our year unfolded, lyrical themes of movement, displacement and strange encounters began to rise to the surface.” Turning these demos into fully-formed songs the pair performed along the way, their sound ultimately expanded to bridge solo acoustic guitar to full band dynamics, rich with synthesizers, piano and electric guitar.
Thoughts
“Hold Me Up To The Sun” is an immediate dive into the duo’s trance-like state of being. The mindshare commanded in the course of the song is never at odds with their creative direction. Cohesion in storytelling aside, you find yourself fascinated by the endlessly engaging walk through the very same corridor. All you are left to wonder is just how many steps they got in that day of filming, where did they get that cow, and what do they have against those blocks?
Stylistically, there doesn’t seem to be much that was held back in their production. Front and center in Brendon and Simon’s creation is a genuine stake in authenticity. Nothing short of artistically sound and true to the nature of their song, The Map Room are at a place of self-awareness that puts them squarely in tune with the heart of their music. We’re sold. 5/5.
Support
Weatherless is currently available for pre-order on The Map Room’s Bandcamp page. Weatherless will be released soon, on April 7th. You can follow Brendon and Simon on Soundcloud, Twitter, and Instagram.
