WITH the ANU School of Music in the midst of a renaissance, it’s no surprise to learn of innovative bands coming from its student numbers.

One such is Indie pop band “Archie”, whose members, Grant Simpson as lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Olivia Faletoese, bass guitar and backing vocals, Alexander “Xandy” Wanjura, drums, backing vocals and Geromy Houghton as lead guitar, all met while studying at the school.

Under the watchful eye of local record label and artists’ services company, Warm Water, they’re releasing a new single, “Running to”, this weekend.

According to managing director of Warm Water, Billy Bianchini, the Archie musos were already part of the Canberra music scene before they enrolled in ANU, where their skills in instruments and music technology were fine-tuned.

Most members of the band are on the home stretch of their studies and Houghton is already a graduate.

Bianchini and producer Keo were also students there in the music technology stream, while Faletoese and Wanjura were both in the jazz stream, taking all the opportunities presented to perform in concerts and gigs at the school.

That connection is front and centre of the new single “Running to”, which features a sax breakout by jazz legend and saxophonist John Mackey from the school, described by Bianchini as “a real music al guardian”.

“John’s open to helping the people he works with, he one of the best sax players in the world but he was still kind enough to help us out,” he says.

The vocals of the record were engineered by Jess Des at Studios 301’s state of the art in Alexandria, Sydney.

“They were so lovely and Jess was an amazing source of clarity when we ran our song past him,” Bianchini says.

With Archie’s pre-covid era releases like “Stranger Danger” and “Blink”, live launches were an inspiration to the band, but now as manager, Bianchini’s been finding it quite tough navigating the virtual launch, which will take place everywhere at midnight this Saturday.

And the song, “Running To”?

It’s essentially a break-up number with lyrics by Simpson, about someone whose stoicism in a complex relation means that instead of running away from his other half, he’s running to her, hence the words in the chorus, “It’s you I should be running from.”

Sounds grim? Not at all Bianchini says: “Grant likes to be the one telling the story and conveying the emotion, but leaving people happy at the end… he’s our crooner.”

“Running To,” by Archie, released here linktr.ee/archie.band/ Sunday, August 23.