The Aerial Maps are a critically acclaimed Sydney band built around the writing and vocals of Adam Gibson, whose “Best-of” album from his two-decade career debuted at Number 1 on the Australian Independent Records chart in 2020. Formed in early 2008 with Gibson, plus Simon Holmes (ex-The Hummingbirds), Simon Gibson (ex-Disneyfist, Sneeze, Modern Giant) and Sean Kennedy as the core original line-up, the band is influenced by the bright landscapes and long distances of Australia, of the like described by bands such as the Triffids, Not Drowning Waving, the Go-Betweens and Midnight Oil.
Their debut album, In the Blinding Sunlight, was released in 2008 and was met with wide acclaim, earning 5-star reviews and substantial airplay, with the song ‘On the Punt’ in particular reaching a wide audience and becoming an underground Australian favourite. In 2009, ‘On the Punt’ was selected for an ABC Records compilation release titled Songs For Dad and in 2010, In the Blinding Sunlight was named as Best Spoken Word Release 2005-2010 at the Overland Poetry Awards. The Aerial Maps’ second album The Sunset Park, a "novel in song", was released in 2011, again meeting with strong critical acclaim.
Following that album, the band toured extensively around Australia, playing shows with acts such as David Bride, Mick Thomas, Angie Hart, and The Gin Club, building a loyal and devoted following with their “story-songs” of love, loss, and landscape. With a similar line-up, the band briefly morphed into Adam Gibson and The Ark-Ark Birds, releasing Australia Restless in 2015 and Cities of Spinifex in 2017.
Sadly it also in 2017 when founding Maps’ member Simon Holmes passed away, bringing to a close the initial iteration of the Aerial Maps.
It was Holmes’ passing that spurred Adam to reconvene his musical cohort again under the name of The Aerial Maps and, after a 5-year hiatus, began a new era of the band. With a new sense of purpose and a new line-up consisting of himself, Simon Gibson, Alannah Russack (ex-Hummingbirds), Peter Fenton (ex-Crow), Mark Hyland (ex-many bands), and Jasper Fenton, the band played extensive shows, with bands such as Halfway, and embarked on the recording of a new album.
The result of which is now here in the form of the album, Intimate Hinterland.
A widescreen experience that takes the listener on a journey through the Australian landscape, with all the associated hope and heartbreak, Intimate Hinterland is a collection of 7 brand-new songs. Heralding their first album release in almost 10 years, it is joyful return for a band who have a sense of timelessness in their sound, where a decade is just a blip and the distance between, say, Far North Queensland or the back of Broken Hill can be covered in the blink of an eye, (or the verse of a song). A travelogue-in-song and thus an antidote to lockdown, Intimate Hinterland returns the Maps’ to their place as what The Courier Mail once called “one of Australia’s most special bands.”