'When Summer Falls, Break Down the Walls' - New Album by Brookes & Johnstone
When Summer Falls, Break Down the Walls is the latest collaborative project between educator and producer Zed Brookes, and farm worker Andrew Johnstone. They have been making music together for 35 years, and this is their second full-length album.
Johnstone says, “The album was basically complete when I found myself in the company of filmmaker Costa Botes (Forgotten Silver, The Making of 'The Lord of the Rings'). He’d come up from Wellington to film my cows but was increasingly turning the camera on me, which is how we all ended up in the studio.”
The first single from the album is ‘Girl With the Silver Eyes’. “We had our own idea of what the album’s ‘big’ song would be, but when we asked people what song they liked the most, ‘Girl With Silver Eyes’ won the day.”
Johnstone would like to mention a good friend who had been helping with the film: “Sadly one of the film's great supporters, former University of Waikato Media Studies lecturer Geoff Lealand passed away suddenly a few days ago. He was terribly excited about this project and had devoted considerable effort to promoting it. We are missing your presence Geoff, and thanks for all your positivity.”
Some notes on other tracks:
‘Summer Honey’: “Costa wanted some footage of us making music. We set ourselves a challenge to write and record something in two hours, which we did. It was named after the jar of honey sitting in Zed’s kitchen. Our foray into EDM is no folly, Zed’s a lecturer at the School of Audio Engineering and EDM is one of his subjects.”
“’Catbus’ came to me on the bus as I headed home from Zed's studio; I whipped out the phone and sang it into the microphone while tapping out the beat on my thigh. Back in the studio the whole process took five hours and as for the song, it’s all about the healing power of imagination, Hayao Miyazaki style.”
Zed Brookes has been involved with Tandys Recording Studio, The Zoo Studio and later WINTEC’s recording facility at the Department Of Media Arts, and helped revolutionise the Waikato scene by providing scores of bands and musicians with the opportunity to lay down world-class tracks with cutting edge equipment. His diverse credits include Midge Marsden, Knightshade, The Datsuns, Katchafire, The Narcs and way too many more to mention.
In between time he has also found time for his own music, including Step Chant Unit, whose 1985 hit ‘Painting Pictures’ went top 30 on the New Zealand Single Chart charts (the first Hamilton band to achieve this feat).
Andrew Johnstone is a musician, journalist, artist and cow whisperer, and is the subject of Costa Botes’ new documentary When The Cows Come Home, which debuts at the 2022 NZIFF in July 2022 before going on general release. Watch the trailer here:
Listen to When Summer Falls, Break Down the Walls here:
