Having spent much of 2005 and 2006 touring the US and Europe in support of their Australian Music Prize-winning album ‘Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By’, The Drones mark their return to Australia with the release of their much-anticipated third album, Gala Mill.
Recorded in a mill on an isolated 10,000 acre farm on Tasmania’s east coast, Gala Mill is an album full of extremes - moments of stark, ghostly beauty are set against outbursts of the dark, intense noise for which the band is renowned. The album’s sense of place is palpable - barking dogs and birdsong are heard between tracks, and the island’s history and atmosphere resonate through the songs.
Singer Gareth Liddiard says, “We just wanted to go somewhere interesting, to steer clear of the boring old studio. Studios can feel like hospitals for sick bands. And acoustically, recording the album where we did played a huge part in how it ended up sounding.”
Bassist Fiona Kitschin explains, “The family who owns the farm and the mill have been there since the 1840s. It’s beautiful. There are all these orchards around it, a creek near there you can swim in... and it’s meant to be haunted. A woman apparently comes upstairs into the bedroom and cries. Although,” she laughs, “We never saw anything. It’d probably be a better story if we had.”
Like its setting, Gala Mill is unmistakeably Australian - not in a sense of flag-waving patriotism, but rather in that it is unafraid to address Australian history and mythology. Liddiard says, “That was a conscious thing. To make an Australian sounding record is something that’s been frowned upon over the years - it’s not cool. But cool is not cool, you know? You should just be what you are, it’s sad watching Australians trying to be Americans and Americans trying to be English and the English trying to be Americans.”

Infused with a rich sense of history and yet utterly modern, both thought-provoking and viscerally compelling, Gala Mill marks the welcome return of one of Australia’s most intelligent, innovative and important bands.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. JEZEBEL
2. DOG-EARED
3. I'M HERE NOW
4. WORDS FROM THE EXCECUTIONER TO ALEXANDER PEARCE
5. I DON'T EVER WANT TO CHANGE
6. WORK FOR ME
7. I LOOKED DOWN THE LINE AND I WONDERED
8. ARE YOU LEAVING FOR THE COUNTRY
9. SIXTEEN STRAWS