Brother and sister duo Ben & Samantha Hope AKA “Glider Pilots” are about to release their new E.P “Some Where out There”. They will be staging a launch gig at The Drift restaurant Rydges Tradewinds Cairns Esplanade on April 9th at 7:00pm.
The E.P is an impressive DIY effort from the duo who wrote, recorded, mastered and designed cover art for the E.P themselves. They are also working on film clips for every song on the E.P which they will also be producing themselves. As is the fashion of the day, a limited run of vinyl is in the works too.
Ben came up with the name Glider Pilots, he explains “I tend to fall into the rabbit hole of wikipedia. Some how I ended up reading a page about lenticular clouds, and how glider pilots fly through them, the two words just stuck and I was like “hmm I’m taking that.”
The Duo certainly seem to be prolific writers, it hasn’t been that long since they released the song and film clip for Brand New Day I asked the Glider Pilots how their music was evolving and Ben responded:- “We wanted a bigger sound so we had to get more creative with the use of our instruments” Sam was quick to chime in “As we are a two piece, we’ve had to come up with ways to play more than one instrument at a time” Ben expanded with “Brand New Day was already an evolution from our first EP, In Another World, you can see this new EP as a refinement of the concepts we explored in Brand New Day”
Given the duos love of using analog synths and the layered sounds they achieve in their recordings, I wondered how they pulled this off live. Ben assured me “It’s all live, all analog, the closest we get to backing tracks would be the drum machine, but that is still triggered and changed by Sam throughout the songs. Sam added “We play everything that is humanly possible; the guitar, the synths and the drum machine. Sometimes the songs have to be altered because, well, Ben can’t play two guitars at once. Ben concedes “I got a bit carried away at times with the recording; Bass guitar, lead and rhythms, I have to shuffle them around for live performances”
The future certainly looks bright for the duo, when I enquired what’s next for the Glider Pilots, Ben was quick to respond “EP number 3, got heaps of ideas!”
Glider Pilots play their CD launch at The Drift restaurant Rydges Tradewinds Cairns Esplanade on April 9th at 7:00pm and will also be playing a showcase set at Resonate at the Grand Hotel on Thursday April 14th.
Check out our exclusive preview of “Some Where Out There” below. You can pre order on itunes HERE
Todd Macalpine
© Copyright 2025 | NQ Music Press