The Hungry Villagers are going on hiatus from the live shows, to work on the full-length album, as well as our individual projects. Half of the Villagers (being Dave and I) have relocated to the hills of Georgia, bordering
Tennessee, close to Chattanooga, where we will be setting up a recording studio with our father. The release date for the Villagers Debut has been slated for January 2010, with some of it to be recorded at Tierra Studios in Houston, and some of it in Georgia. We are all excited with what is happening, and inspiration is coming from all around us. We just have to be ready to catch it.

–Abraham

“Make sure you pump up your wheel before trying to push your wheelbarrow”

Abraham wrote a guest post on Blender.com’s blog. Here it is:

Being a teenager in South Africa in the late 90’s and early 00’s had its upsides to it. Finding good indie rock was not one of them. In fact, it was a bit like Robinson Crusoe shipwrecked on a deserted island in that respect. But when we did discover groups and artists from far off lands that moved us, the feeling had to be something like Mr. Crusoe discovering the footprints in the sand, which definitely made the joy and mystery of it all the more magnified.

Texas. The artistic footprints left for us in the sand by many Texans had a huge influence on the music we have made and ultimately in leading us over here to reside in Texas. From our vantage point across the distant oceans, we heard something coming out of Texas that wasn’t coming out of anywhere else… and to this day it’s still hard to put your finger on it – something of a fighting spirit.  Fighting to preserve something in music that otherwise seems to have all but disappeared.

We started hearing it in the music of Okkervil River (discovering them in South Africa was quite a find), Explosions in the Sky, Daniel Johnston, Midlake, and also in the books of Cormac Mccarthy.  So to our impressionable souls we felt a strong pull to this place Texas. After playing in different bands around South Africa, somehow us brothers found ourselves here. In Texas. And as I am writing this we are preparing for our show next week at SXSW in Austin. It’s easy to take things for granted after you have been overloaded with exposure to all our electronic media. But we feel the need to keep coming back to that impression of the footprints and the amazing feeling of finding, after much searching, music that fills you up to the brim and explodes out of the top of you….. God Bless the deep heart of Texas!