Talk about your bittersweet moments.
Veteran Sydney indie-pop heroes Dappled Cities have just put out their well-received fifth album, IIIII, and played a stellar show at the City Recital Hall as part of the Vivid festival proceedings — and now they're set to lose a founding member as bassist Alex Moore prepares to depart the band.
The group actually made the announcement at last night's Vivid show, but have now formalised things with a message to fans on social media, explaining, "Amidst all the joy and excitement of last night's show, we made a sad announcement … our wonderful bass player of 20 years is leaving the Dappled City".
"Us guys have been best friends and played music together since we met as 14 year olds," the band wrote. "He built this band, he made touring fun, he has us in stitches basically whenever he opens his mouth — so it's a weird feeling.
"Alex — you're the best. The band is now going to [be] 100% less funny without you around. Keep being brilliant. Keep being wild. We'll miss you. Love x Dap City."
IIIII was officially released in early May, and Dappled Cities undertook a three-show tour of the east coast with fellow local indie royalty Red Riders to welcome it in style. The run finished on a high note with last night's hometown performance, the band describing the outing as "something real special … grand, wild and intimate, all at the same time".
Dappled Cities' first proper studio album since 2012's Lake Air (not counting 2014 B-side collection Many Roads), IIIII came after a relatively extended period of inactivity for the band that led to speculation about whether they would split entirely, though frontman Dave Rennick was swift to put that to pasture in a recent interview.
"There were never 'problems'," he told The Music at the time. "It's always just part and parcel of being a hardworking and ambitious band... Exhaustive is such a negative word, but you just hit a point where you lose a bit of perspective, and you just need to take a step back, and that's just what we needed to do."
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