The title Volume V signifies the latest chapter in the ongoing story of Other Lives, their fifth record of magnificent musical and emotional depth. From the first notes of the opening track and lead single ‘Mystic,’ it’s clear that the cinematic breadth of their arrangements and melodies had risen several dynamic notches, with a fuller orchestrated reach and more towering drama across the album’s eight songs and two instrumentals - evidence of the band’s hunger to keep progressing while retaining the essence of what makes Other Lives so unique and irresistible. Volume V follows on five years after their fourth album For Your Love, a record lovingly nurtured but then swallowed up by the Covid pandemic. According to founder member Jonathon Mooney, “"We started with a roadmap for the new album: to not overthink it. But the songs still set off a million ideas in our heads that we couldn’t not bring to life: to try different instrumentation, to find the right combination of notes and timbres that make Other Lives what it is.” The way that Volume V broadens Other Lives’ horizons is equally bound up in the way the band’s music evokes the open spaces and endless skies of their home state of Oklahoma. The band’s creative core, multi-instrumentalists Jesse Tabish (also their lead singer), Jonathon Mooney and Josh Onstott, emerged in the early Noughties from the rural township of Stillwater, north of Oklahoma City, west of Tulsa and east of the Carl Blackwell and Lake McMurtry lakes, from where they made their self-titled debut album and 2011’s Tamer Animals, their debut album for PIAS that inspired MOJO magazine to label them, “The next must-have pastoral American sensation.” The trio then moved out west to Portland where they recorded their 2014 album Rituals and then 2020’s fourth album For Their Love, mostly captured in the vicinity of Oregon’s Cooper Mountain region, with Tabish’s wife Kim becoming a vital part of Other Lives, adding not just instrumental and songwriting skills but multi-layered backing vocals to enrichen Jesse’s gorgeous plaintive presence. When the pandemic isolated the Tabishs from the other band members, the couple collaborated to create Jesse’s solo album Cowboy Ballads Part 1, released in 2022 after they had moved back to Stillwater. It’s also the location for Volume V, even though Jesse and Kim have moved on to Cleveland, Ohio while Jonathon lives in New York City and Josh in Los Angeles. As Jesse explains, “The idea was to mark a full swing, with the band not having recorded in Stillwater for 15 years; what would it be like to be together again in our home town, and have that feeling influence the record? It’s always been a magical place, quite removed from popular culture. There’s a quietness here that allows you to be with your own thoughts. But there’s something a little haunting about Stillwater too.” The majority of Volume V was recorded in The Sheerar, a former church that is now the Stillwater History Museum. “Being back in our home town was, in more ways than one, a sanctuary for us,” says Jonathon. The Sheerah’s acoustics partly accounts for the album’s more cathedral-esque take on Other Lives’ signature sound, which has the roots in a form of Americana but expanded via classical and post-classical forms, and the influence of iconic composers such as Ennio Morricone and Henry Mancini. It's why Jonathon can hear the influence of Arvo Pärt in ‘One For The Kids’ and both Ravel and Debussy in ‘Mystic’. “The orchestration is more melody-focussed, as opposed to the more percussive drones that we had in the past,” says Jonathon. The second key ingredient, says Jesse, is two-fold: Patrick Conlon who recorded Other Lives’ orchestral arrangements on strings while his wife Christina Giacona played the woodwind. “It’s the first time Other Lives has worked with someone on the outside,” says Jesse. “We sometimes get up our own ass with arrangements, and end up with too many layers, which cloud the mixing process. This time, I was more dutiful and grown-up with my arrangements. Patrick and Christina’s playing and recording was so present and clear, we were so blown away when we heard what they’d done.” The third key ingredient is mixer Danny Reisch, who brought out the best from Volume V (as he did Jesse’s Cowboy ballads Part One). Volume V continues to build on the momentum – spiritual as well as musical - established by For Their Love: “To pick ten songs that spoke to us,” says Jesse. “Ten songs, because I like shorter albums, like early Beatles and Beach Boys records. Personally too, I wanted to be more present and transparent as a singer, and the words to be more open and giving.” ‘Mystic’ – turned into a song by Josh after Jesse’s original instrumental - underlines one thread of the album’s rich emotional sweep, referring to the thinkers, or ‘mystics’, of past times, and implicitly lamenting the political climate of Other Lives’ home country. “Where is their voice in society?” Jesse wonders. “I recently saw an old clip, from the PBS channel in the 1950s, of Leonard Bernstein introducing Glenn Gould playing Bach, and it broke my heart a little. This was television that people used to watch at 6pm. I feel we have lost respect for culture.” The album’s respective second and third lead singles ‘Show Us Some Love’ and ‘What’s It Gonna Take’ illuminate the diversity of Volume V’s viewpoint. The former is a love song of sorts, with all the heightened passion and complexities that a relationship contains – in this case, it’s evoked by dialogue between the Gods and man: “about why the other won’t give enough love,” Jesse explains. The latter - written immediately after the Ukraine invasion – taps similarly universal feelings. Says Jesse, “’What’s It Gonna Take’ is not a pacifist song, it’s about defending your homeland against aggression.” Seven of Volume V’s eight lyrics were co-written by Kim, and in the case of ‘One For The Kids’, all of them. It’s also her first Other Lives lead vocal. “It’s Kim addressing her inner child, telling her that it’s going to be alright,” says Jesse on her behalf. “But her vocal, and the mood, is more stoic, almost a warrior attitude.” ‘Versailles’ is another love song, from Jesse to Kim, written when she was in (her native) Germany dealing with visa problems, while Jesse was, “alone, feeling sorry for myself.” The track title also underlines Other Lives’ love of France, and the country’s love for the band. “We feel it’s our second home,” says Jesse. “And growing up in Stillwater, loving classical music, France was a daydream to us.” The root of the album’s restful finale ‘The Wake’ is two-fold. As Jesse explains, the first part is another lament, knowing the animalistic side of human behaviour may lead to our demise as a species; the second half is the liberation in acknowledging your animalistic side: “to be yourself, and have fun with it. To live the life that you want to.” There is a more playful side to Volume V: ‘Read My Mind’ is a love song too, but also a vampire saga, adding a twist to the tale. ‘Cisa Cisa’ comes from another angle, a flash of spontaneity, when Jesse was, “drunk on the couch, and Jonathon stuck a microphone in my hand and told me to sing the first thing that came to me. It’s in the linage of Cocteau Twins, not being able to put your finger on quite what the words are, and tapping the magic of that. There’s something honest about that process.” Given the five-year gaps between the last three Other Lives albums, the band plan to follow up Volume V more swiftly with a sixth and seventh chapter; a promise of more magic and magnificence to come. “I see Volume V as the beginning of Other Lives’ second act,” Jesse concludes. “We’re all getting older, and we have some regrets about not putting out more music – so this might be our Neil Young phase! Releasing more music over a shorter space of time.”