Papernut Cambridge - Channel Suite

Humour, emotion, introspection, music biz musings, and a ton of good tunes. Could this be the finest Papernut Cambridge album yet?

 

There’s a track on Papernut Cambridge’s latest album with lyrics that are basically a list of home recording tips. It reminds me of The Timelords’ (KLF) seminal book The Manual (How To Have A Number One The Easy Way). While The Manual focussed on artistic approach and finances, Papernut Cambridge’s song ‘Grimston Green Hustle’ zones in on how to achieve a strong coherent sound while making an album – volume levels, limiting, EQ, gain, continuity of sound, mastering, reducing “s” and “t” sounds, track sequencing, keeping happy accidents. It’s invaluable, demystifying advice.

“The Cambridge” has had a changing line-up over its ten-year existence. For this album it’s something of an all-star affair which includes Robert Rotifer, Robert Halcrow, Darren Hayman, Jack Hayter, and of course bandleader/vocalist Ian Button. Not only does band leader Ian Button possess the know-how of navigating a studio, but he also puts it to good use. Channel Suite was released on New Year’s Day and is packed with songs that in a justful world would be clogging up the charts and radio playlists. While the modern world may not always be fair and just, it does allow us to access a wealth of music on a physical format or streaming service of our choosing. With that in mind I urge you to check out Channel Suite. You’ll be in for a treat.

The record kicks off with ‘End of The Downs’, a heartfelt homage to the landscape and countryside near Button’s Folkestone base. Soft wind chimes give way to strident superpop not heard since the likes of Edison Lighthouse were regulars on Top Of The Pops. The track’s joy and optimism are rendered via an uplifting melody and series of key changes. ‘La Cucina’ is a similarly upbeat paean to the joys and trials of creativity. Ostensibly about cooking, it’s really about any creative endeavour, and addresses the rewards along with the constant re-evaluation and dedication they require.

There’s an opportunity to learn something here too - ‘Cassiopeia’ is about the star constellation in the northern sky named after vain queen Cassiopeia, mother of Andromeda, in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivalled beauty. (Yes, I did need to look that up on Wikipedia!)

My current favourite song on the album, however, is ‘Trip to America’. Such a journey, (undertaken for pleasure as opposed to business Button tells us in its lyrics), should be a joyful, exciting prospect, but here it’s sung about with a tinge of melancholia. Why that should be we don’t find out, but it’s this unexplained mystery that gives the song its strange power. “I can’t go there now wide-eyed like I did before” sings Button. Maybe it’s about loss of innocence, or loss of wonder. Whatever its subject matter, the song is curiously beguiling.

There are plenty more songs jostling for top spot though - ‘Chez Pascal’ showcases Button knack for sketching out characters. It’s a side of his writing that was given full flight on the recent Toni Tubna album. ‘Cobwebs’ is The Modern Lovers taking a drum machine for a short rejuvenating trip to the sea front. Then there’s ‘Jump in Your Heart’ – the closing catchy pop number complete with whistling. That song alone is enough to put a smile on your face and a spring in your step.

Pop music – just when you think it’s burnt itself out and can no longer inspire or move you, a record comes along to reaffirm your faith in its powers. Channel Suite is one such record. Humour, emotion, meta-music biz musings, atmospherics, some sadness, some introspection, and a ton of bloody good tunes. It may well be the finest Papernut Cambridge album yet.

 

For this release Papernut Cambridge are... 

Ian Button - vocals, guitar, bass, programming, percussion
Robert Halcrow - bass, baritone horn
Robert Rotifer - guitar, backing vocals
Darren Hayman - electric piano, synths, percussion
Jack Hayter - viola

 

Click here for Papernut Cambridge on Facebook. 

Click here for Papernut Cambridge on Twitter. 

Click here for Gare Du Nord Records.

 

The Telephones - Prosaic Turbulence

Ring Ring! Psych-tinged indie from Derby's finest

While the country continues to go to the dogs it's heartening to know there are still some things that make me proud to be Englishman. Our politicians may be sadly lacking in talent but our women's football team have an abundance. And thankfully for us music lovers, so do our musicians. The latest group to confirm this is a five-piece group from Derby called The Telephones. The band's most recent album, Prosaic Turbulence, has been on pretty much constant rotation on my daily commute to work over the last few weeks. Here's three bullet points on the band to pique your interest...

1 - The tag-line on their Twitter profile bills them as “modern psych situationist rock 'n' roll” - a pretty neat calling card.

2 - All five members of the band are writers with songwriting credits awarded in various permutations.

3 - Like many of my favourite groups they don't have a fixed lead vocalist. I'm guessing whoever is the main writer for each song takes the lead vocal.

Their sound is rooted in post C-86, pre-Britpop indie. The latter of those chronological bookends is especially important I think - Pre-Britpop indie took inspiration from literature and left-field art and films. The mainstream indie that took hold with the rise of Britpop was more about laddism and lager. As much as I'm partial to a lager or two, I know which strain of guitar music I prefer, and I'm guessing The Telephones are of the same mind. The fact that their lyrics have depth confirms it for me, as does the name-checking of Leeds indie band The Pale Saints on one of the album's standout tracks 'Pale Saints Again').

There are also hints of The Byrds, The Stone Roses, and '60s psych on Prosaic Turbulence. Primary influences all well and good but it's the personal stamp on them that counts. Here it's the songwriting that impresses most, inhabiting that part of the Venn Diagram where sweet lyrical depth and memorable melodies overlap.

Prosaic Turbulence is streaming now, though if physical copies are your thing it's also available on CD or limited edition heavyweight blue vinyl via the band's Bandcamp page. Do check it out!

 

The Telephones are -

Andy Richardson – vox, guitars, bass, percussion

Jim Widdop – guitars, pedal steel, vox, percussion, keyboards

Rob Manners – vox, bass, guitars

Lee Horsley – Hammond, piano, electric piano

Tris Alsbury – drums, percussion

 

 

Click here for The Telephones on Facebook

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Click here for The Telephones on Bandcamp

 

Gabriel's Dawn - Gabriel's Dawn

Carrying the baton for jangly guitar pop! Musical sunshine from the Midlands.

I've recently had my faith restored in jangly guitar pop and it's all thanks to Gabriel's Dawn, a band who hail not from the sunny enclaves of Laurel Canyon, but from the mean streets of Leicester and Newcastle under Lyme. The band cite their influences as The Byrds, Love, Buffalo Springfield, through to '80s/'90s indie bands such as Teenage Fanclub, The La's, and on into the 21st century with El Goodo, The Stands and The Coral. It's a thread that pretty much mirrors a large part of my own record and CD collection!

What all these bands and scenes have in common is guitar-based music that's big on melody, literate, and with a non-macho mindset (not "fey" as claimed by detractors). There's also a love for 12-string guitar chime, plenty of arpeggiated chords, and beautiful vocal harmonies. In short it's a kind of musical sunshine. As befitting music that has its roots in '60s folk rock and '70s country rock, the lyrics are as important as the backing, and so it is on Gabriel's Dawn's eponymous debut album.

There's a transatlantic push and pull at play - while wide-eyed wonder of Americana permeates songs such as 'Loose Canyon', it's offset with a defiantly British cynicism and humour elsewhere, most notably via the lyrics of 'Real Love'. Who could fail to fall for a song that references underage smoking, Bargain Booze, staying in bed, and the debris of countless takeaway meals. And it does so while sounding like a lost Stone Roses B-Side - scuzzed-up British bohemia at its finest. Songs such as 'We' and 'I Don't Believe (in The Summer of Love)' battle it out for the strongest earworm award. Which one wins? Well have a listen and decide for yourself. Then again there's the less immediate slow burners such as album closer 'Gentle Chimes', a Byrds-eque take on the creative process which yields more with each repeated listen.

World domination may elude Gabriel's Dawn but I guess that was never the band's intention anyway. One thing I know for sure is that I've feel in a better mood after each listen to this accomplished debut. What more could you want than that!

Available on limited edition vinyl and CD via the band's Bandcamp page from May 30th, and digitally via all the usual platforms from June 27th.

Click here for Gabriel's Dawn on Twitter

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Bearhug - Eight Song EP

  

The rediscovery a four-track cassette recorder sparks a series of homespun CDR releases.

The rise of affordable digital home recording over the last couple of decades has in many ways been a great boost to musicians. Not only can they save massive amounts of money by not hiring expensive studios, the technology's boundless capability has theoretically made anything possible. You can literally recreate a 40-piece orchestra in your box bedroom. 

A good thing then surely? Well yes but there has been some negative knock-on effects. Firstly the struggle to survival experienced by some dedicated full-time recording studios. But even sadder than that, to my mind at least, was the almost overnight extinction of four-track cassette recorders. In my late teens and early twenties much of my spare time was spent laying down rudimentary tracks, experimenting with drones, tones, tape speeds. It was a voyage of discovery that led me to find out about mic placement, how to double track vocals, and the instant psychedelia achieved by flipping the tape over to enable a backwards guitar solo or the effects of reversed cymbals.

I'm reminded by all this by way of a self-released CD that I received in the post recently by an artist called Bearhug who makes music on a rediscovered four-track recorder that had been laying dormant in an attic for several years. Bearhug plans to release a new EP/mini album each month, some under different names. There will be 40 numbered CD copies of each release and a video posted online to accompany one song from each release.

I'm heartily in favour of this homespun cottage-industry approach. It's done not in pursuit of perfection but to celebrate spontaneous creativity. And before you start thinking it's marginal and twee, I bet you'll have records in your collection that were made in the same lo-fi spirit. McCartney's debut solo LP, Beck's early work, or Michelle Shocked's The Texas Campfire Tapes are just three example that spring to mind.

Featuring eight songs with a total playing time just a chorus shy of 13 minutes, Beahug's first mini album is a playful affair. Kicking of with 'Harry Hooper', a song about the baseball star with lyrics read from the blurb of a book. It's a sweet melodic affair, recorded quickly featuring just ukulele and vocals. Elsewhere there's lo-fi electronica, industrial fugs, experimental indie, a delightful untitled ukulele instrumental, a track about Sylvester Stallone, and my personal favourite track 'Graham's Melting Circuit Boards'.

It would be nice to think that this is somehow the start of a revival of lo-fi four-track recording, and that there'll be a groundswell of cottage industry CDR labels. Unlikely perhaps but the music here, along with the attitude in which it was made is something to be celebrated. It will be interesting to see what Bearhug does next.

Stephen EvEns - Dustbin Man

Timely tribute to society's key workers. A taster from Stephen Evens' forthcoming full-length LP.

We're hearing a lot about key workers at the moment. That concept along with “fabric of society” and “all in it together” has come to define the age. Celebrating so-called ordinary workers will no doubt be claimed by the Tories as their idea. Anyone slightly attuned to the politics of the past decade will know how bogus and ridiculous that claim is. 'Dustbin Man' is a track by Stephen Evens, released today but recorded well before the coronavirus crisis. What remarkable empathy, sympathy and prescience it shows. Not only that but it damn well rocks too! A post-punk bovver-boy groove, heavy bass, and shrewdly astute lyrics. Stephen very kindly told us about how the song came to be -

"I’ve worked as a dustman, really. When I was a student. I lasted 2 days. I was rubbish.

When I wrote this song, quite while back, there’s no way in hell I could have predicted what was going to occur. But it looks like I have. I always knew I was special.

It’s a celebration of all those people who do the jobs you can’t and/or don’t want to do. They deserve you love and respect and a bloody great big pay rise."

The song is taken from Stephen EvEns' forthcoming album Employee Of The Month (to be released on Onomatopoeia Records on June 5^th). More about that fine album to follow nearer the release date. 

Stephen also plays Online Balcony Festival this weekend, on Saturday April 11th, kick-off 1pm, to raise money for NHS Charities Together – he will be performing at 3:30pm on the GigSlutz stage for more info see here - https://www.facebook.com/events/512048626149587/

Play the track loud and raise a glass to your fellow workers. Underpaid maybe, but dignified and valued now as never before. Respect.

Click here for Stephen EvEns on Twitter.

Click here for Stephen EvEns on Facebook.

Click here for Onomatopoeia Records.

Hurtling - Future From Here

London's alt-rock trio hit the ground running with an epic debut album!

About a year ago it occurred to me in a quiet moment of reflection that there had been a decline in the quality and quantity of left-field guitar bands over recent times. (Yeah I know I'm a saddo but all kinds of stuff goes through your mind when you can't get to sleep at 2am after a day of too much caffeine). When I traced that thread from The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream through to Television/Tom Verlaine, and on to Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, My Bloody Valentine, The Pixies, The Breeders, Nirvana and so on, it was difficult to think of any current bands who were pushing guitars into new sonic territory. This was before I'd heard of Hurtling, a three-piece band from London led by singer/guitarist Jen Macro. Interestingly Jen has a connection to the previously mentioned thread by being a longtime touring member of My Bloody Valentine.

If you're familiar with Hurtling's single 'Summer' from earlier in the year you'll get the gist of what they're about – they make driving indie-rock that's melodic and has an innate understanding of textures and dynamics. They make alt-rock music that draws from grunge, shoegaze and the deep wells of their own emotions. Like all great guitar bands they're not afraid of cranking up the volume, shifting some air and letting guitars do what they do best - filling the room with attitude and spirit, and being a means of expressing sentiments and rage in a manner that the human voice often can't.

None of that would work of course without a killer rhythm section and killer songs. Check on both counts – bass and drums push and pull in all the right places, helping secure that sweetspot between pleasing pop and the thrill of experimentation. Then there's the songs. 'Summer' perfectly captures the optimistic rush of the season's sunny rays, but peppered throughout the album are moments of shade, darker tracks and sentiments which Jen describes as an “exploration of loss and hope”. Check out 'Let Go', a heartfelt plea set against a backdrop of beautifully rendered guitar atmospherics, or the ominous heaviosity found on 'Don't Know Us'.

Future From Here will take you on a journey through emotional peaks and troughs, its songs are personal but sure to resonate with anyone who's prone to examining their own headspace and feelings. Wedded to that are hooky guitar lines, riffs and textures that indicate left-field guitar music does indeed have a future from here.

Hurtling are -

Jen Macro – vocals, guitar

Simon Kobayashi – bass

Jon Clayton - drums

Click here for Hurtling's website.

Click here for Hurtling on Facebook.

Click here for Hurtling on Twitter.

Click here for Onomatopoiea Records.