A Billion Heartbeats Mystery Jets

• 1Screwdriver05:21
• 2Petty Drone04:45
• 3History Has Its Eyes On You03:54
• 4A Billion Heartbeats04:56
• 5Endless City03:56
• 6Hospital Radio06:03
• 7Cenotaph05:11
• 8Campfire Song04:27
• 9Watching Yourself Slowly Disappear04:58
• 10Wrong Side Of The Tracks04:37
• Total Runtime48:08

Info for A Billion Heartbeats

Mystery Jets announce that their sixth studio album ‘A Billion Heartbeats’ on Caroline International.

All great albums start from a unique perspective. But try a window on the Strand, in an abandoned office block, overlooking the kind of political upheaval London hasn’t seen in a generation. Blaine Harrison was living as a property guardian right around the corner from Trafalgar Square when he found himself witness to an entire year of protests. Every weekend from January 2017 on, people were marching for a different cause: "In the space of six months it was Black Lives Matter, the huge ‘Our NHS’ march, Unite for Europe," he recalls. "Then the solidarity sleep-out organised by Help Refugees, where we slept in Whitehall for the night... The protestors would wake me up in the morning. I’d just walk down and join in.”

Over the course of that year, Mystery Jets' sixth long-player, A Billion Heartbeats, was born. "This album wasn’t about making pointed opinions,” says Blaine. “It was about being a mirror for what’s going on, reflecting back the way people are feeling.” By turns tender and fierce, abstract and full of classic rock energy, A Billion Heartbeats achieves a balance of passion, fear and hope. Amid the colourful cavalcade of rich harmonies, heavy guitars and rallying cries, the album’s essential message - about personal responsibility, and the power in becoming engaged. In a sense, it's not just their "state of the nation” record but their “state of a generation” record too.

We increasingly hear from musicians that music should be an escape these days - that there’s enough suffering in the world, enough misery on the news, without writings songs about it too. A Billion Heartbeats makes all that sound like a bit of a cop-out. These are songs of protest that get the heart racing in joy; high on hope, and serious in their message. Proof, basically, that music speaks louder than words.

Blaine Harrison, vocals, keyboards, guitar
Kapil Trivedi, drums
Henry Harrison, keyboards, guitar
Jack Flanagan, bass

Mystery Jets
The Syd Barrett-worshiping indie outfit Mystery Jets formed in the early '90s when the group's shock-headed frontman, Blaine Harrison, was only 12. The band was initially called the Misery Jets, in honor of the Heathrow-bound jets that habitually roared over their native Eel Pie Island, but they changed their name when Blaine (who, again, was very young at the time) misspelled "misery." The Mystery Jets were essentially a family project, with Blaine on drums; Blaine's dad, Henry Harrison, on bass; and Blaine's friend William Rees on guitar. Henry eventually switched from bass to guitar, Kai Fish joined up as the group's bassist, and Blaine switched from drums to keyboards. The group tried out a drum machine and a local kid named Max before finally latching onto drummer Kapil Trevedi. Five Tracks EP, recorded soon after Trevedi joined the group, was released on 679 Records in 2005, and their first full-length album, Making Dens, was released the following year. Zootime, a collection of Making Dens tracks plus remixes and songs from 2006 EPs such as You Can't Fool Me Dennis and Diamonds in the Dark, was released by Dim Mak in spring 2007. Released in 2008, Twenty One peaked at number 42 on the U.K. albums chart and boasted the single "Young Love," featuring indie folk queen Laura Marling. The band's third full-length, Serotonin, arrived in 2010. Following a secret show at the 2011 SXSW festival, the band set up a mobile studio and recorded the Texas-informed Radlands record, which was released in April of 2012. Shortly before the release of the album, Fish left Mystery Jets, replaced by Pete Cochrane for their upcoming U.K. tour. The fifth studio album Curve of the Earth was recorded over a three-year period beginning in 2013. The album was entirely self-produced in their homemade studio, marking a shift into progressive rock territory, with Harrison citing Pink Floyd and King Crimson as major influences.

This album contains no booklet.