They recorded their latest album in a home studio at Blackheath but electronic duo Hermitude will officially launch the new work at the Sydney Opera House on Thursday, June 2.
The high-profile concert on a stage jutting into Sydney Harbour is a key plank of this year's Vivid Festival - and its live curator Ben Marshall couldn't be more excited.
"I hope people in Blue Mountains come down to Sydney over the next week or so to catch Hermitude own the Opera House and enjoy Vivid Sydney," he said.
The chart-topping duo of Luke Dubber (Dubs) and Angus Stuart (El Gusto) took a pared down approach to Hermitude's seventh album, Mirror Mountain, after arriving back in Australia from Japan just before COVID-19 closed the country's borders.
"A couple of weeks later we were setting up in my lounge room in Blackheath," Stuart said on the group's official website.
Using gear brought up from their Glebe studio, the musical collaborators got to work in a setting that would be familiar to many Blue Mountains residents.
"The space itself was beautiful... The lounge room has two double French doors looking out to native bushland," said Stuart. "The room curves out towards the bush and is north facing so it has a lovely amount of light come in and cast long slow moving shadows throughout the day."
Describing Mirror Mountain as a "love letter to our hometown", the pair released the album on May 6.
The video for the single, Promises, was also filmed in the Blue Mountains.
Nabbing the Blue Mountains musos for this year's Vivid festival was a no-brainer for Ben Marshall, who is also Sydney Opera House's Head of Contemporary Music.
"I've loved Hermitude since hearing their debut album Alleys to Valleys while working in the sales department of their record distributor in 2003," he said.
"Their elegant and beautiful connecting of the city to nature really resonated with me and I always kept an ear out for them over the years as their sound developed, and I also get along with, and have huge respect for, their manager (and co-founder of their label Elefant Traks) Tim Levinson, aka Urthboy.
"It's been exhilarating and wonderful to see them hit new heights in recent years, and the thought of having them blow up the Northern Broadwalk stage jutting into the harbour for Vivid LIVE at Sydney Opera House this year was too good to resist."
For more information or tickets to Hermitude's album launch visit the Vivid LIVE website.
