Beauty in the Tension, the fifth studio album from New Brunswick songwriting quartet The Olympic Symphonium, will be released in February 2018. It is the result of rural isolation, small comforts, and inspiration in the form of two pairs of ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ pajama pants.
For six days last winter, the band holed up in the legendary Old Confidence Lodge studio in Riverport, Nova Scotia to focus on 13 new compositions. Working long days with the help and stamina of engineer Diego Medina, the group laid down a batch of songs that were road-tested and ready to be captured in this magical Oddfellows Hall cum studio.
Delicious home-cooked meals and harmony vocals were provided by Jennah Barry, a fellow resident of Nova Scotia’s south shore, and additional instrumentation was provided by Michael Belyea (Jenn Grant), Tim Crabtree (Paper Beat Scissors) and composer/arranger Drew Jurecka. Sonic inspiration came from Pink Floyd, guitarmonies, and Chicago’s power-ballad ‘Glory of Love’ which the band riffs on in their song of the same name.
“I wanted to channel the feeling I got from this music combined with my surroundings as a jumping-off point for a song,” says band member Kyle Cunjak. “So I started writing lyrics freeform.” The song eventually morphed into a love song directed at Cunjak’s car, a 1991 Honda Accord.
“When this song was coming to life, I was 5600 kms away from home on a sort of spiritual journey through America trying to run my car into the ground before it rusted out,” says Cunjak. “But that thing got me back home and through the summer before I recycled it and put it to rest. RIP.”
Listen to ‘Glory of Love’ // Pre-Order Beauty In The Tension on 180g LP, CD, or Digital and get two songs now