The Shifting Sands and Emily Fairlight went into the studio in Los Angeles in 2019 with the expectation of recording a song or two for fun on the back end of a tour. In less than 48 hours, ‘Sun Casts a Shadow’ was created.
Sun Casts a Shadow is a stripped-down, timeless blend of Fairlight and Mike McLeod’s songs, voices and guitars. Fairlight’s material carries the weight of experience, with McLeod’s harmony vocals and guitar adding colours from The Shifting Sands’ South Pacific Cosmic Rock palette to these vignettes of heartbreak and hope, while Fairlight’s voice brings character and a spectral quality to The Shifting Sands’ songs.
With a pandemic devastating the international tour-scape in 2020, Emily's prolific writing continued back in NZ and another album has been recorded, showcasing a broader sonic palette and the continued maturing of Emily's songcraft.
In the way that In The Pines marked a kind of unpressured bookend to the Triffids’ auspicious beginnings, before they took their next, bold, step, Sun Casts a Shadow is a quietly intriguing bridge between Fairlight’s past and future; a chapter in a story with many more to come.