That Gold Street Sound Rain

Melbourne groove makers That Gold Street Sound are releasing the second single, Rain, from their forthcoming long-player, Trick Of The Light, which is due for release early 2019. A follow on their first single Only Lonely, which hit the airwaves back in August, Rain is a gorgeous soulful track that showcases what audiences can expect from the band's debut album. Featuring a 15-piece guest choir, the track is uplifting, rapturous and builds a feeling of hope within the music and vocals.

Trick Of The Light is an album That Gold Street Sound have been working towards for the past six years. It follows on from their previously well-received singles and their 2013 self-titled EP. A mixture of straight-up soul and traditional funk, it was recorded over two-years but features songs that were written across the past decade. Rain was one of those tracks, and progressed over the years into its current format. When it was originally penned, it was a folk-country song with a different chord progression and a completely different vibe, that took on a life of its own.

"I came up with a new chord progression, but I was struggling to write lyrics for it so I thought I would go through some old lyric books and see if I could find some inspiration," says guitarist Jim Griffiths. "The lyrics just worked. When I put them together I was imaging how Shaanika would sing it and when we played it as a band, it felt like it had finally become what it was supposed to be. Then, when we were in the studio, we kept adding layer after layer. The Hammond – played by Sam Cope (Blue King Brown, Dynamo, Buttered Loaf) – glued the whole track together and we went crazy on the outro with the multiple percussion, guitar and horn parts, wails, backing vocals and the choir. It just kept developing musically and it ended up sounding epic and joyful."

Despite the vibrant soulful sound of Rain, initially it wasn't flagged as a single. It wasn't until the band took the track into the studio and started adding layers that they thought it was the right track to stand on its own from the album. "It just kept sounding better and better," says Jim. "Then when we added the 15-piece choir to it, it pretty much chose itself. When we all stood back and heard it completed for the first time, it had developed into this beautiful, uplifting, joyous song and we thought, this is our next single."

The inspiration behind the song came from a trip from the city to the country, where Jim grew up. "I was thinking about how much more relaxed it is and how removed it is from the hustle and bustle of the city," he says. "I was thinking about how the grass is always greener, but also how you can't appreciate the good times without the bad. There was a drought at the time and the idea of earth being so dry that it repels water kind of stuck in my mind. It was the way I was feeling at the time – all these good things were happening to me, like breaking of a drought, but I was finding it hard to appreciate them. It is funny that it spent so many years sitting in a drawer and then got this new life breathed into it by the band so many years later."

That Gold Street Sound have been playing around the traps of the Melbourne soul scene for more than half a decade. Revered for their funk sound, they've played on stages at St Kilda Festival, Strawberry Fields, Melbourne Music Week and Moomba to name a few. Thanks to their enigmatic live sound, they were awarded the Best New Act accolade on the Live n Local stage at St Kilda Festival, earning themselves dollars that went towards funding their debut release. That Gold Street Sound are fiercely independent, 100-per cent self-managed and dedicated to putting on one hell of a live show, jam-packed with original material.

That Gold Street Sound's new single Rain is released to radio on Friday 2nd November 2018. Their forthcoming album Trick Of The Light is due for release on 16th February 2019.

For more information, please visit www.thatgoldstreetsound.com