Skeleton Key Records

(This review first appeared in issue #70 of Shindig! magazine.)

Duncan Fletcher talks with Neville Skelly whose label is spearheading the latest North-West musical renaissance.


Chess, Stax, Motown. All labels built on strong regional representation and deep family ties. Decades on since the inception of those powerhouse American labels, a small but dedicated team of music lovers on Merseyside are intent on building their own visionary dynasty. Skeleton Key Records is owned and run by velvet-voiced song-smith Neville Skelly and Coral main-man James Skelly. The Liverpool-based label's first release was a vinyl version of James' solo LP Love Undercover in 2013 made during Coral downtime.

“We both admired Labels like Elektra and A&M where the roster was eclectic and thought wouldn't it be great to do something like that where it's simply all about the music. We felt that at certain majors the accountants were running things so we thought we're the ones who eat, sleep and breathe music, we can either sit around moaning about how shit it is or do something about it, so we did!” says Neville when asked how the label came into being. “We run it between us and jointly decide what artists we want to sign. James produces the bands and I deal with everything connected to the releases along with bringing in the team to help promote the records.”

The family ties and talent are also evident in much of the accompanying artwork. Neville explains - “A lot of the artwork is done by Ian Skelly and his partner Anna Benson. They're so talented! Ian's done all the cover artwork for The Coral albums. So it was an easy call to make. We also encourage some of the bands to get involved with designing their own covers if they can.”

Skeleton Key's prolific string of releases include the street poetry/indie-pop mash-up of She Drew The Gun, the mixture of melody and metallic riffs made by Birmingham's Cut Glass Kings and the soulful fragile folk of Marvin Powell. Coral fans can't fail to have missed the mid-noughties “lost album” The Curse Of Love surfacing in 2014, it too bears the hallmark of quality that is the Skeleton Key logo.

Although Neville admits running a label has been a steep learning curve, 2017 has already borne two critically acclaimed LPs - Edgar Jones' The Song Of Day And Night and The Sundowners' Cut The Master. The label ethos of nurturing the artist and letting creativity find its course has certainly reaped rewards. Says Neville - “One of the reasons we set up the label is we felt bands weren't getting the opportunity to grow and develop so it's great to see Sundowners just getting better and better with each release. They are one of the best live bands in the country and it will be great to see them smashing it at Glastonbury and loads of other festivals this year.

With new music due soon from Serpent Power, Marvin Powell and all being well a new Neville Skelly LP for 2018, you get the feeling this is only the beginning. Oh and hopefully the ink will soon dry on a contract with hotly-tipped psych-folksters The Fernweh. That's one hell of a stable!

The Sundowners

(This feature first appeared in issue #67 of Shindig! magazine. For the full unedited Q&A, click over the jump at the bottom of the post.)

The Wirral quintet come of age with new LP Cut The Master. Duncan Fletcher gets caught up in its lush majesty.


It's no surprise that an album as fully realised as Cut The Master results from deep, encyclopedic musical listening and a love of cult horror films. Though references are many, the band's sound is unique. Lead guitarist Alf Skelly explains their influences - “ I was listening to a lot of Rotary Connection, Radiohead and I've always been obsessed with Scott Walker, Axelrod, DJ Shadow. 'Great Beauty', the first track we recorded was inspired by the film The Great Beauty and Scott Walker's 'The Plague'. The whole album references a lot of music we love - Jane Weaver, Townes Van Zandt, Nancy Priddy, Wendy & Bonnie, Common People, Can, Christine Harwood, Martin Denny, United States of America, Mammas and Papas, The Yardbirds, Gainsbourg's Melody Nelson and an underrated band who have inspired us from the start - Shocking Blue.”

The heart of the record however lies in the dual female harmonies of Niamh Rowe and Fiona Skelly. Niamh expands on how two voices are better than one - “I really love Simon and Garfunkel's arrangements for harmonies, they're not obvious at all, I have no idea how Art thinks of them, they just weave so beautifully with each other. Another heartfelt pairing I love that is Emmylou and Dylan on Desire, she can sing with anyone and it will sound amazing but there's something so emotional and endearing of their voices together.”

Unlike their self-titled debut LP which was shaped by three years of touring, Cut The Master was written and arranged in the rehearsal room then recorded at Liverpool's Parr Street Studios. Alf is keen to recognise the input of elder brothers James and Ian (The Coral) - “We had taken the recordings as far as we could and James came in and breathed new life into it, he took out a lot of layers, back to how we'd do it live... James is a really great producer, he gets straight to the point, he works so well alongside Ian and Rich Turvey who both go above and beyond for us, we wouldn't be where we are without any of them.”

Finders Keepers supremo Andy Votel also co-produced a couple of tracks and provided short cinematic interludes between the tracks. Alf explains how their friendship developed after playing the Finders Keepers stage at Festival No.6 last year - “We got up and performed Can's Monster Movie with Malcolm Mooney who is the real deal. We'd rehearsed in Hoylake playing 'Mary, Mary So Contrary' and 'Yoo Doo Right' with him in our backward seaside town! He couldn't get his head around a bacon butty so he signed it for me haha! I still have it! It was one of the best gigs I've been involved in... Andy made the album for us, he brought the edge we wanted with his instrumentals, there's no plug-in or pedal that can do that. The way he is about music he's a one off - he told Niamh "I don't polish a turd, I turd a polish" which cracked us up! We're working on a few more bits with him this summer that we'll be announcing soon.”

Cut The Master is out now on Skeleton Key

(Click over the jump for the full Q&A)

Sundowners - Cut The Master

(This review first appeared in issue #66 of Shindig! magazine.)

Skeleton Key CD / LP

“Times change and we move on” sing Niamh Rowe and Fiona Skelly on album opener 'Before The Storm'. Indeed they do. The Sundowners have blossomed from their Byrdsian roots into confident, forceful purveyors of contemporary psychedelic rock. Cut The Master, their second long player is in part produced by The Coral's James Skelly and Finders Keepers supremo Andy Votel, with the latter providing short cinematic interludes between the tracks. A nice touch which aids the album's flow but it's the band and the songs that are the real stars here.

Space-rock, folk-rock, sinewy bass-lines, propulsive beats and a synthy ambiance combine into a truly special brew. And then there's those dual female vocals. Low points? There aren't any. This is modern psychedelia at it's best, an album that hits big with analogue textures and timeless melodies. The Wirral five-piece have stepped up. There must be something in the water up there!