// RED SKY IN MOURNING //AN INTERVIEW WIH DISJOY //

Cardiff band Disjoy have released an album containing sound content of rare violence and disorder. Red Sky imagines the forefathers of punk and in doing so reacts to the injustice of society and political farce. Speaking to Disjoy in transit to Berlin Quiffed Owl learnt that this album was inspired by a specific event that directly effected the band – one member in particular – and the ensuing struggle to cope with traumatic loss.

Disjoy are the reincarnation of their former band LUVV. Vocalist and guitarist Matt Short and bass guitarist Ben Mainwaring salvaged the ethos and back bone of LUVV when other members left. Mainwaring tells me, “for the most part we have found ourselves in this position through necessity, as members of our former band had to commit full time to their band [Chain of Flowers]. So I wouldn’t say it was a conscious choice.”

Yet from LUVV’s ashes a robust desire to succeed has forged Disjoy, and with it a profoundly different punk sound than what preceded it. Mainwaring expands by pointing out that when the four became a three piece, with a brand new drummer and Short adding to his vocal responsibilities by claiming Lead guitar, their direction was forced some what. “ I wouldn’t really say we’ve done anything differently to our former bands. Since we’ve got together we’ve always written the same way, it’s always been very raw and from the heart but I think the added influences from former members obviously added something to the songs we were writing. So I think Disjoy is just us at our most stripped down, pure and natural.”

Disjoy were in their early stages as a band when disaster struck. The album is devoted to Mainwaring’s late father who died suddenly and in tragic circumstances in 2016. It is to Mainwaring’s credit that Disjoy have even been able to carry on at all in the light of such tragedy and emotional turmoil – let alone release a record of such focussed energy.

“He [Mainwarings father] was helping a collective we were involved in to try and create a new DIY space in Cardiff when the accident happened”, Mainwaring recalls. “Red Sky is from a funny phrase he used to say to me when I was growing up. So this record is dedicated to his memory”.

Red Sky explodes from a Peter Hook like bass line, low slung and unholy. The first track and first single from the album, Divided, is an unstable and violent lament to the disenfranchised. Short spits and sneers his Carmarthenshire propaganda around a tight reoccurring rhythm, Divided is a genuinely fine punk single and the most accessible on the record. Asked about the process of writing their songs, Mainwaring explains “we usually start with a riff that Matt will come up with and bring into practice. Then we usually play along and try to arrange it as best we can”.

The records second track Control cements the direction of Red Sky: no nonsense will be tolerated here. Your ears will bleed and your heart will race. The distorted buzz and electric prayer fizzes through the track. Matt Short elaborates on the records overall anarchic tone, “there’s a lot out there that I don’t think we agree with…that factors into any darkness that we might have in our music. The political climate at the moment is a big factor in the anger and just the trials and tribulations of being a human being”.

The title track is a contradiction of classic post-punk with visions of Joy Division’s Shadowplay – yet here Disjoy introduce a paranoid and distorted anguish cloaked in hate, where rhythm section and home-made pedal samples grate against Short’s possessive shrieks. This album is designed to be heard live and that is reflected in the raw production from start to finish. This is not an easy listen – Red Sky is not sugar coated for wider accessibility. This is undiluted punk music made for punks.

Red Sky will be released by the label that Ben Mainwaring has recently founded. Pretty Hate Records will release the album on cassette and vinyl as well as an online format – this DIY approach is defining the course of alt-rock today, and as more and more alternative music venues are closing it may be the only way that people can keep alternative music alive in an increasingly main stream society.

Speaking about the threatened closure of Wales’s most iconic venue, Clwb Ifor Bach, Disjoy emphasise the vital role these small clubs have to play in nurturing and supporting new music and young musicians. “It’s hugely important that we don’t lose Womanby Street. We’ve lost a lot of venues in Cardiff & Newport (Lepub and TJ’s) over the years and I think it’s extremely important that we stop the rot before it’s too late. People need music and new bands need places to play”.

Disjoy have begun a busy live period this spring and play with, amongst others, Sarcasm, The Violent Hearts, The Wolf Hounds and Japanese outfit Melt- Banana; and along with allies such as Cardiff’s Chain Of Flowers, we can expect a continuity of  boundary prodding, raw punk coming out of Wales’ capital for the immediate promising future.

Words by Jimmy Gallagher

// ANTI-POSTER PUNK // A look at the variety in trans-Atlantic post punk //

Chain Of Flowers in their home city of Cardiff – Buffalo Bar 2016

Some would suggest that punk music was over by the beginning of 1978, this revolutionary development in music culture containing only three chords in a two and a half minute package of guitar angst and anti-establishment verbal’s. It could surely only have a limited shelf life because of the formulaic constraints punk applied to itself. The use of any instrument other than drums, guitar and bass were forbidden and anything that resembled progression would have been seen as a U-turn to treachery and an admittance of conformity to the music of the ruling middle classes. Yet punk does remain in ethos, style and sound. It is an evolution of the purists version in 76-77 but the same rules do not apply. This is post-punk.

Post punk came in new waves in the UK and U.S.A throughout the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s each washing up an added defining feature onto the punk landscape. These were shared by and built on by the next flag barers. Garage punk, hardcore-punk and Anarcho-punk are immediately identifiable from each other but are unmistakably punk; The Fall for instance, could not be mistaken for Black Flag and Napalm Death are a stark contrast to Conflict, but never has this form of music been so diverse and eclectic as it is today.

In Canada and the northern states of America a wealth of bands have adapted what punk is capable of, and in doing so have inspired its advancement with innovative design. The catch is that the majority of people won’t recognise the names of the bands who are creating an era defining sound in a truly golden age of punk. None are the same but all are alike, and that is in keeping with the post-punk tradition.

Parquet Courts at Trinity Centre – Bristol 2016

Parquet Courts from Brooklyn, New York City are a prime example of what post punk has become, or invariably, what they have made to be post punk. In 2012 their album Light Up Gold bared all of the energy and uncleanliness as The Clash’s Give Em’ Enough Rope did but the undeniable optimism in rhythm momentum and lyrical content seem a world apart. Not to say it’s better or more informed, it is not as consistently political. Just listen to Stoned And Starving or Dust for clarification of that point. However the Ted Heath/Maggie Thatcher revolutionists would spit out there fried spam sarnies in shock to the enlightened new age of punk music, but perhaps they wouldn’t make the connection between the two periods due to lack of exposure to it and a subconscious lack of empathy with a more privileged generation. The truth is there are socio-economic issues today and there will forever be, therefore a constant well of injustice and revolt can be tapped into for generation after generation of punks.

The Clash themselves were castigated for the use of horns and  a general eclectic approach to multi-genres on the great London Calling in 1979 (Although released in 1980). What would they have thought of the recorder solo Parquet Courts included in You’ve Got Me Wonderin Now from the 2013 EP Tally All Of The Things That You Broke? Although that was under the pseudonym Parkay Quarts, a thoroughly punk concept in itself.

The reality is that what is happening will go largely unnoticed by music history. The quality of the output is not reflected in sales but buying habits have changed and media coverage a mere fraction of that their ancestors enjoyed in the late 70’s. Fortunately the likes of Big Ups from New York don’t allow themselves to be phased by that. Verging on new wave hardcore, Big Ups are a tongue in cheek savagery made for the sweaty underground. This particular carnation of punk is a simmering undercurrent of disassociation with capitalist mediocrity mirrored in tight bass and reflecting drums erupting like a geyser every so often. Big Ups are an image of the 80’s anarcho-punk scene reminiscent of Conflict or Fugazi but sparkling with a chrome finish. Then there is Preoccupations (formerly Viet Cong), they are a punk for all seasons encompassing Pretty Vacant chords with In Utero blasts of dirge. They travel the timeline of punk stopping at new wave synths and bleak goth in a jigsaw puzzle of noise.

It seems that the hotter the music the colder the city it derives from, Canada is a hotbed of boiling punk in many guises right now. In Montreal you have two bands brandishing very different punk projects. Ought are a Talking Heads meets Pulp progression of high brow, high velocity high jinks, lead singer Tim Darcy is a slender and charismatically apologetic conductor of progressive and infectious punk compositions like More Than Any Other Day and the incredible single from their second album Beautiful Blue Sky. Solids on the other hand, much like Metz from Toronto, are a reincarnation of the Seattle sound of the early 90’s. A distorted wall of energy and adrenalin with a galloping thrust.

Ought @ Clwb Ifor Bach – Cardiff 2016

There seems to be a punk for all nowadays. Yuck are the epic anthemic punksters, The Cloud Nothings are multi dimensional band of tuneful pain, and the remarkable Thee Oh Sees are as experimental as any prog rock band. What is for sure is punks don’t feel obliged to conform to type, in music and in fashion. Punks don’t have to wear black ripped leather as was their want and they don’t sport safety pins through their septums; on the contrary, arguably the most complete post punk band of all are the least alluring, but then that is punk by evolutionary design. Protomartyr from Detroit are the anti-heroes, the un-hipsters – but they ooze a bleak topical power that blows anything in the billboards to smithereens.

Talking about Protomartyr’s lead man Joe Casey at 2014 SXSW Festival, The Los Angeles Times wrote – “In an industry that thrives on image, heat and pretty singers who wouldn’t tuck a button-down shirt into belted pants unless with irony, Protomartyr was unafraid to tackle ugly topics that most fame-seeking acts avoid.”

Ugly topics is what Protomartyr do best, with a cavalier disregard and a full blooded body punch of shuddering sound. 2014’s Under Colour Of Official Right was an unsanitized masterpiece tackling government corruption and social inequality in lyrics and the rules of engagement in guitar music. Last year Agent Intellect confirmed them as a true force in rock, with its sometimes squalid and shadowy atmosphere a surprising beauty unveils itself at key intervals – I Forgive You boasts a simplistic key change transforming the feel of a fast tempo ‘Cribs’ like romp into something far more profound and lovely. Pontiac 87, Dope Cloud, Why Does It Shake? and Clandestine Time all have moments of delicious magic mixed with a tinge of grief and discouraging anguish – accessibly inaccessible Protomartyr are a vice of dark proportions that you can’t do without.

EAGULLS/PROTOMARTYR Tour poster

This age of anti-poster punks is not confined to North America, in Britain post-punk bands arguably cover a broader range of music diversity in their punk music. Drenge, Wytches and Eagulls are loud and aggressive but are versatile enough to visit areas of post rock , grunge and metal. British punks are undoubtedly influenced by American bands but are as equally open to the artists of their own land but from another time.

Cardiff band Chain Of Flowers are one of those groups taking the best parts of the music they have studied and loved and redesigning the blue print to suit themselves. Elements of The Jesus And Mary Chain, Iceage and Joy Division intermingle in their sound and as a result Chain Of Flowers music is being enjoyed on both sides of the Atlantic. They have recently returned from a successful U.S tour via Europe and Scandinavia. Lead singer Joshua Smith tells me that they were as gratefully received by the public as they were to be there – “We were out there for a month, touring both the West & East coast of the USA before finishing up in Canada, playing Montreal and Toronto respectively. It was an overwhelming pleasure”.

Big Ups @ Louisiana, Bristol

 

 

Chain Of Flowers appeared on the famous Seattle radio station KEXP, squeezing in a live session performance in between dates on their tour – “That was a really cool thing to be asked to do” Smith tells me, “Even at 9am in the morning on next to no sleep. They’re great people who have been very supportive of us”.

Noticeably, many of todays post-punk bands tour together, much like they did first time around. Metz and Protomartyr toured the UK last year and the latter supported Eagulls a few months ago. Discussing the sheer number of high quality bands coming out of North America at present, Smith suggests a more logical explanation than a mutually beneficial support network for this – “I think the reason for so many good post-punk bands coming from the same place is more a matter of size and geography. The U.K. at the moment is most definitely blooming on its own terms. We’ve just got back from Static Shock Weekend in London and the weekend was testament to it all”.

It is true that the U.K is blossoming in this field, bands like Sievehead, Sarcasm, Misc, Fex Urbix and another Cardiff band – Disjoy are all pushing the boundaries of post-punk in this country reinforcing Smith’s enthusiasm for his own bands direction –  “I enjoy more so the blurring of lines and crumbling boundries of genre on lineups that we’re lucky enough to be a part of”.

Joshua Smith is surely not alone in the industry with his awareness of the impact this music is making amongst students of good guitar music -“Post-punk will never go away but it seems to be sliding back into the light for a minute both over here and overseas. It’s a very broad, all-encompassing tag that is also used to describe a vast amount of bands that are very removed from what we do. A lot of the time, it means not a great deal, but that’s also fine”.

For the time being it is important to celebrate the variety we are being treated to within post-punk today.

Words and photographs by Jimmy Gallagher

 

 

 

 

 

// BACK TO THE BEDROOM // An Exclusive Interview With OLIVER WILDE //

The stereotype once associated with the singer/songwriter was that of a disillusioned young person with an acoustic guitar strapped around their shoulder penning laments of alienation and social injustice. To a degree, some of those traits will always exist but a new generation of pioneering D.I.Y artists have adapted song writing and more specifically song production with a savvy digital approach that has injected a new lease of life into the music and has begun to change the perspective of the art of song writing. One such trail blazer is Bristol based Oliver Wilde. Quiffed Owl met up with him for a long over due talk. “I have been promising you an interview for months so we can talk about anything you want to” Wilde kindly offers. And I duly accept.

After a bowl of soup each in Stokes Croft’s The Canteen, we escape the bustle to take sanctuary in a quiet real ale pub over looking the famous Gloucester Road area of Bristol where so many musicians have cut their teeth. Oliver Wilde’s rise took a different path to many in that his critically acclaimed first two albums were made and completed in his bedroom using a mic, a couple of tape machines and a drum machine before his label Howling Owl approached him for a release.

His latest record Long Hold Star An Infinite Abduction saw Wilde take to the studio with intentions of collaborating with a producer and other musicians “I wanted to try and widen the screen a little bit. I guess the idea was to try and break out of the cycle of making bedroom records as an attempt to exhibit some sort of trajectory of progression”.

Along with his band Wilde moved down to a place near Land’s End on the very tip of Cornwall where they built a cabin studio with a panoramic view of the ocean.

Wilde identifies the reasons for his different approach to the recording of Long Hold Star: “I think my music is quite simple and repetitive and it is more about the words, the emotion and the atmosphere as supposed to a musical expression so working with people who are primarily musicians and less artists was what I wanted to do”.

Despite his very best intentions Oliver Wilde encountered numerous difficulties at the time of recording Long Hold Star including unrest between the band and a mental breakdown. He reflects on that time less than fondly and sites a lack of motivation at the time to contributing to, what he perceives as being, a poor record which he is keen to move on from.

“It was just after Loose End Womb and as we started Long Hold Star I had a full blown melt-down which lasted about two years and I only really started coming out of that at the beginning of this year so my attachment to that record is negative and I feel as though my heart wasn’t really in it because I didn’t feel comfortable with what we were doing.”

As if to exacerbate the psychological and emotional stress Wilde was experiencing, it was his body that was deteriorating due to a serious heart defect that he has been admirably living with since childhood.

“I was really ill with my heart condition and it made it quite impossible to do anything. But we had just signed to the label and things were moving along and there were some external pressures forcing that record through.”

By the time the album was finished Wilde immediately returned to hospital for a few weeks and whilst there he had an epiphany. “I was lying there and decided ‘I don’t like this album and I don’t want to put it out at all’ – which got me in quite a lot of trouble”.

Wilde remembers having to be convinced by Howling Owl to release the material recorded in Cornwall even though his personal attachment to the recordings were so negative. It was Wilde who decided to shorten the tracks from the original 16 to just 7 and make it an EP rather than an album to follow on from Red Tide Opal In The Loose End Womb.

In hindsight Wilde identifies some realisations born as a result of those dark times he experienced that has culminated in a new album due out in the new year. “You have to trust your judgement” He tells me, “My Life was so dishevelled with my health and everything that for a moment I lost my confidence in my judgement”.

It is fair to say that “His judgement has returned”, and the yet unnamed album is ear marked for a release in February. It is a return to the low-fi approach that he is far more comfortable with. “After wasting all of that money on an album that wasn’t even released properly I am returning back to the bedroom so to speak and I have recorded the material on really basic equipment again”.

So, what can we expect from his new stuff? Wilde suggests it is a continuation of the first two albums containing familiar woozy experimentation, for that is how he arrived at his sound in the first instance. “I consider the new record to be my third album proper. It is more of a personal statement and although musically and atmospherically it is moving forward, contextually it is still in a realm of comfort to me”.

What sets Oliver Wilde aside from other artists today is his trademark atmospheric sound and in his upcoming album he returns to his DIY roots but has tweaked his approach resulting in a record he is very proud of.

“I have always wanted to experiment with synthesizers and I have somehow found a way to get that to fit in with my world of constant repetition and what I call ‘skips’ but what others call ‘glitches’, these bit-crush sounds and all the things that characterise my music. The new record, like the first two records is fraught with imperfections but it is perfect to me but it is those imperfections that I strive for”.

When you listen to Oliver Wilde’s music you cannot help but notice that beyond the sound decoration there is a human resonance in his words that he intends for people to relate to and be challenged by. Wilde discusses a slight variation to his first two records as they were not originally intended to be heard so are by his own words – “More self absorbed”. Wilde is challenging what subject matter is appropriate for the traditional pop song.

“I try to convey a sense of truth whether it be a true story or if it resonates truth with anyone but I think in the mainstream, pop music tends to shy away from the more important subjects, especially in Britain and as a result we don’t tackle things like mental health, suicide, rape or racism because they are big scary words”.

When listening to Oliver Wilde’s music you are transported to an atmosphere that the music itself creates. The dense layers of sound and effect build a world around the words so I ask Wilde to comment on this and whether this is influenced by places or something more than just other artists. “I get influences from places, more conceptual things, from stories and literature and my experiences of the world. I know when a track is finished when there is a world to invest in, to go to, when there is a pallet of sound and an atmosphere intense enough for you to go to and get lost in”.

The Cover of Red Tide Opal In The Loose End Womb

Accompanying Oliver Wilde’s dense, woozy soup of sound, the ethereal album sleeve artwork and magically innovative titles empower Wilde’s vision of a dreamscape world. This is all part of the process for a man who considers himself an artist before a musician.

“I am meticulous with the artwork and very particular with whom I like to do it for me. There is a small team I rely on – Robin Stewart from ‘The Naturals’, Harry Wright from ‘Giant Swan’, Adrian Dutt from ‘Spectres’ and James Hankins. Between the five of us, we have enough skills to do pretty much what we want. For instance Adrian is a great illustrator and Robin did the first album collage from some old National Geographic magazines. James had the idea for Red Tide Opal, we wanted a foetus, not a human foetus so as there would be questions about it. It is actually a wolf”.

Howling Owl Records are an influential institution for music lovers, especially if you are from, or familiar with Bristol. Galpal, The Naturals & Giant Swan are all signed to the label that Spectres member Adrian Dutt is 50% of. There is certainly a sense of community in certain factions of music makers in the city.

“When I was growing up I thought ‘a scene’ should have quite a clear label or mutual direction but in somewhere like Bristol, because the music is so diverse you have to think of it in a different way. For example, in strictly music terms I can’t be compared to Spectres and they can’t be compared to Giant Swan, so what keeps us so close and such good friends? It is because we make art out of necessity”.

I wonder whether that is exclusive to Bristol or can be said for any city, “It is not a London type scenario where there can be a moulded market for the music”, Wilde explains -“We tell people what our culture is rather than us being told what our culture should be. We are allowed to grow organically rather than being formed from an embryonic beginning”.

It is his label whom Wilde is keen to adorn praise on. “It is not that we are resigned to not making money but we all share the same aspirations and that is to create music and art we think is great. The artistic freedom we have is down to how facilitating the label is, they are not money driven like a major and it completely liberates you from what others are probably expected to be”.

Wilde talks passionately about his city and the people and venues that go to creating this constantly vibrant and artistically progressive place. He identifies The Malthouse and musicians such as Beak>, including Geoff Barrow (Portishead), as being central to the sharing of ideas and development of unique art in Bristol. Oliver Wilde is the epitome of an artist and with good health willing, his industry and unequivocal imagination will take us on many more adventures into his world of sound.

Words and photographs – Jimmy Gallagher

// WHITE DENIM // Bristol O2 Academy -8.10.2016 //

White Denim return to the city they love to play for the second time this year in their new guise. After the exit of drummer Josh Block and guitarist Austen Jenkins last year, White Denim show off a groove versatility and jam navigation control exclusive to them. Talking about the addition of new members Jordan Richardson (drums) and Mike St. Clair (keys and horns), Steve Terebecki tells Quiffed Owl “It’s been a blast!”

As they did at The Fleece in 2013 it was Canterbury psyche guitar band Syd Arthur who opened for White Denim tonight. Made up of three Magill brothers plus Raven Bush on keyboards – who is incidentally Kate Bush’s newphew – they wasted no time in immersing themselves in a swelling concoction of jazz and prog rock, surely making a lasting impression on those less familiar with them. Not unlike White Denim, Syd Arthur have a sixth sense of when to unleash into a seeming impromptu improvisation and when to keep it tight and functional. There is a clear mutual respect between bands here.

With all the vantage points taken on the staircases flanking the stage and on the shallow floor, Denim arrive and rip into Real Deal Momma and Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah), the same band but a slightly different image, the same seamlessly shifting sound but with a new conductor on board the White Denim soul steam train. It cannot be ignored that Josh Block’s magic tricks on the high hats have disappeared into thin air and a fuller figure thuds and whips the snares instead. By the time we pull into There’s A Brain In My Head we embrace the fact that a new engine behind the drums is transporting White Denim on the same route to a new landscape. Mike St.Clair, thoughtfully perched at his synths and keys, also adds a certain Booker T gallop to the new tunes.

“We are loving the new band”, Terebecki (bass guitar) tells me. “There obviously was a lot of rehearsals and getting comfortable with the new guys feels but now we feel like we are lookin’ as good as ever. Every musician has their own energy they bring. Once everyone knows the song, it’s been interesting to hear how Mike and Jordan have been stretching out in the music”.

One thing that is absolutely guaranteed with White Denim regardless of formation or line up is a master class in rhythm. With the brilliant Terebecki at the helm, armed with his trusty matt black Rickenbacker bass, he is the controller of all he surveys. His high top baseball cap, perched at an angle to shield the spot light from his fret-board, he is the computer to this machines full repertoire. And, after six studio albums, it is quite a repertoire. The main body of the nights material comes from their latest album Stiff and so presenting Denim’s broad spectrum of styles: psyche, garage, rock and roll, soul and rhythm and blues – each executed with genuine expertise and panache.

It is when two tracks from  the albums Corsicana Lemonade and D follow one another that we know we have been left in good hands. The time signature changes in River To Consider  and the blissful ballroom boogie of A Place To Start are a show room of the talents Denim’s new acquisitions possess. Next comes arguably their best live song. The instrumental track Back  At The Farm from 2011’s album D is an undulating horizon of rolling rock that rises and falls until its unpredictable crescendo. It is Denim at their best as each member anticipates the next guys move – the harmony in the band must be sound to make this sound.

If a crowd is a measure of a bands popularity then White Denims growth in popularity is remarkable. Their latest single Take It Easy (Ever After Lasting Love) has received a decent amount of radio airplay and its soulful touch is White Denim at their most accessible. Singer James Petralli’s voice goes from strength to strength and is as versatile as any around. Take It Easy is the song most fresh faces in the crowd recognise. Take it easy they do not, as a mob of youths break onto the stage and in getting there do not much else but clown around to Petralli’s amusement. It is a Saturday night in Bristol’s premier live venue and for some, the drink is talking.

Terebecki speaks of his fondness for Bristol when on tour in the U.K. “We most look forward to our shows in Bristol and London. Those two cities have always been really good to us and this tour was no exception”.

Both Steve and James have young children back home in Austin; James has recently become a father for the second time. I asked Steve how he coped with long tours away from his family.

“It’s not easy leaving the babies behind with our wives, although it’s definitely easier than being a single mom. We are thankful for our strong ladies and support from family members who visit while we are away on the longer tours.”

The more White Denim tour and the more music they make the more the sets expand and adapt, so when favourites like Let’s Talk About It, Anvil Everything and the irrepressible Start To Run make a show, both the band and the long time fans are at one in a whirling mesh of euphoria. Start To Run in particular is a pounding assault but evolved into a time signature not seen on previous tours of Britain.

I asked Terebecki how they kept their sets so fresh sounding. “I think it sounds fresh because we all enjoy playing music so much. We strive to improve every show and having a really great crowd doesn’t hurt either”.

The worse thing about a White Denim gig is that when they walk off for the first time, the realisation that there are only a couple of songs left from the multitude of genius compositions. Tonight it was Pretty Green and the amazing Mirrored And Reverse. White Denim now go to continental Europe but they will, as they always have, return to this famous musical city.

Words by Jimmy Gallagher

Photographs by Ben Gallagher

 

// CAROL FIELDHOUSE // LINEN //

Carol Fieldhouse has released her debut album Linen, a collection of songs dressed in folk and celtic textures. Underneath the soft exterior, Linen uncovers layers of a very personal nature in what Fieldhouse herself describes as being “a private poem to myself”.

Linen is the culmination of eight years of attending various song writing workshops, one of which Fieldhouse met the producer Boo Hewerdine who was keen to produce an album for her.

“He (Hewerdine) insisted on going down to The Hub Sound Studios in Cambridge to record something with me. He asked if I wanted to play on the album as well as sing, but I was just committed to singing so as I could concentrate more on that part – so he got some people in to play (Neil MaColl, James Watson and Chris Pepper). Then shortly before we started recording Boo told me he liked the way I played on the demos and he wanted me to do both.”

Fieldhouse confronts the issue of ageing with a refreshing acceptance of the process and in the title track she celebrates the positives getting older can bring. Mildly tongue in cheek, Fieldhouse uses the physical qualities of linen and its social connotations as a reference to the relationship between the material and getting older. When writing the song, she found herself surrounded by a number of what she describes as ‘bright young things straight out of music college’ at The Dartington International Summer School of Music. Rather than feeling intimidated or overawed by her prestigious peers and settings, Fieldhouse embraced her status amongst them.

“It is a fact that once you get to a certain age you become sort of invisible.  That means you can be whoever you want to be and it gives you a sense of freedom. There is also a sense that although your exterior may become more monotone with age as it were, there is undoubtedly rich life within and it develops with ideas and confidence. I am able to express my playfulness and theatre through song, yet still behind this silver screen”.

Not only do the songs selected for the album suggest a tangible relationship with ageing but one can detect a continual elemental theme with nature. Fieldhouse points out that The Wave is inspired by a curious photograph she was introduced to on her MA song writing course, depicting an elderly lady in The Faroe Islands.

“It was inspired by a film made about The Faroes and this lady known as ‘the swimming granny’. The film highlights her grandson’s awe for her as he had never witnessed such a beautiful relationship between a person and nature. She had swam in the ocean every day since she was 30 until her 90th birthday – which she began with a swim. She identifies swimming as the main contributor to helping her recover after being unwell after the birth of her child, and beyond that shows no fear of dying in the ocean as that is ‘her health'”.

Dark River is the local name for The River Dart in Devon where Fieldhouse was sat one day during a writing workshop, and Oxygen came from a quote she read in an interview with a journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban.

“This journalist paraphrased a quote from someone else about how life and love are like oxygen, you never know how precious they are until they are under threat. That made me think about what a friend of mine said to me. She asked why I never write about love but the truth is I always write about love, it is just that my love is of different things, like nature”.

Apart from a compassionately clipped version of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds by The Beatles, all of the songs are written by Fieldhouse and in some way pay homage to nature and her upbringing in North Derbyshire.”I am at my happiest when I write about nature and that is where my heart lies… I am much happier outside than I am enclosed in a building”.

Yet Fieldhouse does admit to enjoying her experience recording the album more than when she performs.”I love recording more than performing. It means I can put the guitar down and concentrate on singing – you aren’t distracted by one or the other and that is my way”.

Linen is a simply arranged and simply produced collection of songs that Fieldhouse wanted to do justice to – and few would argue that she hasn’t achieved that. The stripped back and light production is consistent throughout the record with no unwanted surprises lurking behind a corner. This is a minimalist folk form, involving minimal instruments thereby reducing any clutter and even with its warm imperfections it is delicately clean. This album is a charming ode to ageing and should inspire anyone with a longing to pick up a guitar and sing no matter what stage of life they find themselves.

“Although there is a certain wistfulness about doing this so late in my life there is also a great joy in starting something so exciting when so many people are not – I suppose you could say I was doing it backwards”.

Words by Jimmy Gallagher

Click to visit Carol Fieldhouse’s website

 

 

 

 

 

//POETRY IN MOTION // MARK GWYNNE JONES & PSYCHICBREAD // WIRKSWORTH FESTIVAL// 21-9-2016//

Situated deep in the Derbyshire Dales, Wirksworth is as deeply imbedded in the arts as it is in lead and grit stone. Only truly accessible since the opening of the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway in 1867, in this small, tranquil town there is access to as much art as you like, and some of it is quite outstanding.

The Wirksworth Festival is curated carefully within and around its scenic surroundings and numerous resident artists, musicians and painters. Yet a man from Matlock Bath (not ‘Barth’) may well be the gem of not only the festival, but of the Peak District and poetry as a whole on this side of the Pennines.

Mark Gwynne Jones is a spoken word poet of much critical acclaim. He is an advocate of spoken word poetry and this summer performed at Latitude Festival. “I was amazed that the poetry stage, which is big at Latitude, was so close to the main stage. They could have put us in a quiet corner but I was on when New Order were on. One part of me thought ‘I wish we didn’t have all this noise coming through the walls’, but the other part of me was proud. I thought ‘we are the poetry tent and we are here’ – we were in the centre of it all and taking them on a bit”.

He is a poet with as much humility as he has rhythmical grace and although recently returning from an enlightening tour of India, he has somehow found time to reform Psychicbread, offering a musical backdrop to his poignant and observational rhyme after a five year absence.

“If you have nothing or no one to bounce off, then it is harder to be creative. But it isn’t just getting together with friends to make sounds and music, it is the conversations that inspire the material and content as well”.  Mark Gwynne Jones is of the same ilk as John Cooper Clarke in that he uncovers social and moral meanings from seemingly absurd aspects of life, and magnifies relevance in common place events to drive his multi-layered, laughing laments of life.

Mark Gwynne Jones performed his solo poetry in the first half of the show, weaving humorous anecdotes and jokes into his set before seamlessly orating his predominantly more recent material to the full Wirksworth Town Hall. Apart from Who’s Common Now?, the poems included were written in the last year or so. His theatrical vocalisations and expressions are as exuberant as they were years ago, when Plastikman cast the limelight over his otherwise slightly awkward and nervous demeanour. Gwynne Jones openly admits that he suffered terrible shyness and anxiety as a boy, and he confronts this anxiety head on with the magnificent Toad. “A lot of the poetry comes from the immediacy of experience and not being tied down to a linear line of time or place”. Mark Gwynne Jones has, to a great extent, overcome his anxieties by approaching experiences in his life from a new direction of thought. “When you can tap in to what is right here rather than in the room next to you, either behind you or in front of you, you are able to focus on the immediate experience and appreciate it. Then your anxiety dissolves”.

There is always a certain pause between the poet’s last syllable and the moment you put your hands together to acknowledge the completion of a Mark Gwynne Jones poem. The reason being that beyond the evident hilarity in his commentary there is an ambiguous and thought provoking underbelly that arguably sets him apart from his contemporaries. A realisation that his ingenuity with words are designed with more than just entertainment in mind. He subliminally forces us to consider greater meaning in the simplistic. But entertain he certainly did. The Town Hall doubled over with laughter at tales of a tortoise’s lustful encounter with a plastic shoe, and his boyhood tricking of a one- eyed deaf colleague into sucking fudge made of clay.

It was the second part, however, when Gwynne Jones took to the stage with Psychicbread  that the show took on a more significant sense of occasion, as this was the first time the band had appeared in the five years since the death of drummer John ‘Beano’ Thorne in 2011. Gwynne Jones was visibly excited by the prospect of playing as a band again. From his position at the mic, he fidgeted and turned, wide grinned, to watch his friends play their psyche-ambient-prog-rock around his narrated words. Speaking after the show, Gwynne Jones spoke about Psychicbread and what the music added to his lyrics:

“When I am doing solo performances I have to rely on a lot of humour to sugar the pill the whole time, whereas when I perform with the band I have the music there as a vehicle and a soundscape so as I don’t have to be calling on the comedy. The words have a new vehicle to be transported”.

When speaking of presenting poetry with music, Gwynne Jones pinpoints rhythm as a common denominator. “One of the secrets that make Psychicbread work is that I sometimes speak across the rhythm, sometimes I deliberately try and hit the rhythm, but I will try and free the voice from the rhythm. When people sing in bands they are always within the rhythm but suddenly, when you do spoken word, you can be free of that and it can create a greater sense of theatre”.

Impressively, Psychicbread had written completely new compositions for this performance. In only two months the band have invented an eclectic variety of atmospheric and theatrical pieces, compromising of reggae, Spanish style guitars, afro-beats and experimental percussive psychadelia. “I think because Nick, Deb and I have been together so for so long that there is a chemistry and we can slip back into jamming and something will come out of it”. Gwynne Jones continues, “I think what makes it non-generic is that Deb and Nick will listen to the poem and then soundscape the poem rather than saying “Oh, lets do a reggae number or something”.

Psychicbread are Deb Rose, Nick ‘The Hat’ and new drummer and percussionist Alex Ivanov. Guitarist and long time friend of Gwynne Jones, Nick ‘The Hat’, adds “I wouldn’t say it comes easy but we are so comfortable with each other that it comes naturally and we don’t try and emulate anybody, we just do our own thing, and just try and empower the words and get the message of the poems through to people – and it can take poetry to a bigger audience. I think the strength of it is a result of being so at ease with each other. You see the words are everything, we just react to the words and get a feeling of what music will fit them.”

Mark Gwynne Jones acknowledged absent friends and in particular former Psychicbread drummer, the late John ‘Beano’ Thorne. “I think Beano is up there looking down on us and smiling” said Gwynne Jones after a rather rousing drum solo from the newest member of the band, Alex Ivanov. Psychicbread are back making music and delivering sublime poetry once more. Tonight they showed Wirksworth exactly what words are worth.

Words by James ‘Jimmy’ Gallagher

Photo by Susan Mulroy