It's a mysterious thing, this music-making.

A group of people enter a strange space - walls covered in carpet, metal boxes everywhere, swathes of buttons and cords and leads and blinking lights and bewildering space-age machinery - and weeks later emerge, blinking, from the darkness, album in hand.

What exactly happens within the hallowed walls of the recording studio? Who knows; we can be but content to listen to the fruits of the secret labours of those who understand things like which end of a guitar to plug into an amplifier. Fortunately, Papa Vs Pretty's new album, White Deer Park,unfolds some of the mysteries of this musical alchemy.

It wasn't only the metal boxes that stepped up to the plate for the recording of White Deer Park, the band, now a four-piece thanks to the addition of Luke Liang's guitar and keyboard wizardry, really aced their sound through a long and prolific period of songwriting.

Due for release in early 2014, White Deer Park, is the sophomore album from Papa Vs Pretty. Produced by Dave Trumfio (Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Grandaddy), recorded at 301 in Sydney and Forgotten Valley Studios and mixed at Kingsize Sound Labs in Los Angeles, White Deer Park is the follow up to their critically acclaimed, ARIA award nominated debut album from 2011 United In Isolation.

The first single from White Deer Park is My Life Is Yours, a soaring song of cascading melodies - which caps off an album that represents the cream skimmed from the top of year's worth of experimentation. A video teaser for the single gives viewers a hint of what's to come with an audio track featuring the melodramatic strings from the single, which can be viewed here.

"We wrote over 80 songs and the culling process was intense!" lead singer and principal songwriter Thomas Rawle recalls, only slightly wearily. "I started writing My Life Is Yours before I first went to L.A. to write and finished when I got back; L.A. was a total life changing experience and it set the tone for what followed."

Fans will be able to hear songs from the new album in person as Papa Vs Pretty announce My Life Is Yours single launches in Sydney and Melbourne in September. These will be the band's first shows in almost a year; they will bring to life the mysterious magic that was created in the recording studio.

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PAPA VS PRETTY 'MY LIFE IS YOURS' SINGLE LAUNCH SHOWS

All shows over 18s

Wed 25 Sept - Oxford Art Factory, Sydney

Thurs 26 Sept - Howler, Melbourne

Tickets on sale now from moshtix.com.au and papavspretty.com.au