Australian alt-country quartet, Lost Ragas, have followed their 2013 debut with the sophomore release, ‘Trans Atlantic Highway’, an album that epitomises the band’s beautifully dark and haunting soundscape.
“I guess I could say it's a progression,” says frontman, Matt Walker, “I think the songs are a little bit more confident and the production is more confident too; Roger [Bergodaz], our bass player, recorded and mixed it all. It's just a one-two punch, you know: the first one came out and the second one isn't radically different, it's just a new bunch of songs.”
Although Lost Ragas’ first LP, ‘Phantom Ride’, received critical acclaim and established the band’s sound and style, Matt says the road to recording and releasing ‘Trans Atlantic Highway’ was a much more complicated journey. “For a while we weren't sure if we were going to put out the second album,” he explains.
“We recorded it just before Christmas and it was just before half the band were travelling overseas. I went over to India for a few months, and [Roger] and his family moved to Brooklyn in New York [City] and weren't sure if they were coming back.
“So all these people doing all these things: our drummer [Simon Burke] is a pilot and teaches people how to fly; Shane [Reilly] our pedal steel player was still in Melbourne playing pedal steel and wondering what the fuck is happening with his band because everyone's moving around.”
With the future of Lost Ragas in serious question, the band decided to get together for what may have been their last studio session before dispersing across the globe. “It was almost a reactionary thing where we all made time to go into the studio before we all disappeared and we thought: 'fuck, we just gotta record some songs … this is what we love doing and we've got some songs, let's at least record these songs before we don't know if the band's going to be able to keep going’.”
In true country fashion, Lost Ragas have an organic, no-nonsense approach to recording which produces a fuller and more natural musical harvest. “We just get in the studio and we run the song brand new, we've never rehearsed it before; one of us brings in a song and we just play it and work on the arrangement until it feels good and then we start pressing record until we get something we like. We like to keep it fairly stripped back, it's not a band we like to labour over and put too many layers of things in there.”
Having regrouped in Melbourne and released ‘Trans Atlantic Highway’, Matt and the band have hit the road to promote the album, which includes a launch date at in Adelaide with Max Savage and The False Idols. “We just did Sydney and Melbourne,” Matt says, “it went great, really good and we were really happy with them. We'll definitely be doing more shows throughout the year, but it's just gotten the ball rolling for now.
"Adelaide should be great; we always have a great time in Adelaide. We've got quite a few people come and see us there.”
Far from being just another musical side project for one of Australia’s most prolific singer-songwriters, Matt aims to take Lost Ragas has far as he can and currently has his sights set on overseas markets. “Basically we just play around the traps at the moment, until we get picked up for some more festivals.
“We did a tour with The Felice Brothers from the States a few months ago, which was really cool. Hopefully we'll get overseas, we were hoping to go overseas this year but didn't quite get it together,” he laughs, “maybe next year.”
Lost Ragas play The Wheatsheaf 12 July. ‘Trans Atlantic Highway’ is out now.
