FOREIGN/NATIONAL Support: Vilde 21.07.17 in Berlin, Kantine am Berghain

After two years living abroad Mark returned to his hometown on the southern coast of Australia, the idyllic but isolated Mornington Peninsula. Holed up in his family home as he contemplated where to next, he returned to writing music. After recording a handful of bedroom-muted, lo-fi guitar pop songs, Mark realised that at 23 and living back with his parents his life was back to where it had begun. To stave off the reality he quickly put together a band around the songs, recruiting his brother Sean and a group of his mates, Foreign/National was formed.

The following year resulted in more low-quality demos and the occasional live show, nothing more than a group of guys hanging out listening to music, talking about music and occasionally playing music. At the invitation of a friend the group went into the studio to record a first single, the result ‘Paris’ would be the spark of it all, and after a brief write up on a small Melbourne blog, the song started finding it’s way onto blogs the world over. From New York to Los Angeles to London to Berlin and back to Melbourne, the track racked up thousands of plays per day and gained play on LA’s legendary radio station KCRW.

What followed would be intensive rehearsing, recording and touring culminating in the band’s debut EP spawning the tr ack ‘ Life Tourist’ which garnered praise from the UK press including NM E, Line Of Best Fit & DIY. Taking a break from live shows the band continued to write and evolve their sound taking in influences from 70’s disco & motown, German krautrock and Brazil’s tropicalia movement. The release of their next s ingle ‘ Always Blue’ would mark a significant creative shift for the band, being the first song not written by Mark, but by guitarist Tom Stephenson. The band also begun what would be a long term collaboration with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard guitarist Joey Walker, with Walker taking over recording and production responsibilities for the rest of the band’s releases.

After various support slots on tours for th e likes of C old War Kids, DMA’s, City Calm Down and a slew of Australian festivals, the band turned their attention to a debut full length. Debunking in an old beachside house on the sunny Mornington Peninsula, the boys and Walker spent five days tracking what would become their fi rst album ‘Depaysement’. A long and rigorous mixing process followed that saw the band experiment with a range of sounds and instruments including djembe, field recordings and an Iranian seetar. Foreign/National finally emerged in late 2016 with the le ad single ‘Too Sentimental’, a song that artfully oscillates between the band’s usual warped, lo-fi, oversaturated sound and a wider, cleaner aesthetic.

Now on the eve of the album’s February 2017 release the band look abroad for the first time. After building a devoted online follow ing overseas, F oreign/National will play its first Europe & UK shows this July. Welcome to the wonderful world of Foreign/National.