Forthcoming albums...

So I've been hammering on about this band for a good while now, about a year if we're going to be precise, and finally they have an album out, are also touring the UK and received airplay on the uber-cool station 6 Music. Mount Kimbie are the band I am of course talking about. Please, if you do anything tonight (or for the rest of the week) check this band out and grab a ticket to their forthcoming tour.

Also, keep your ears engaged for the stunning sounds of Nadine Shah. We will be hearing a lot more from her - with an album out now and tour dates pending for late September get your tickets now before someone else does.

Check both tour dates out here.

Interview Feature: From Clapton to Crashing RV's - The Capelle Story.

Australia is famous for a number of reasons; its annoyingly talented cricket team, Kangaroo’s, Koala Bears, and not forgetting the beloved wildlife warrior Steve Irwin. Above all of this though we should remember some of the exceptionally talented music acts to come out of the country. I spoke to Australian born producer and vocalist of multi cultural outfit Capelle, about what music influenced him growing up in a country that spawned acts such as; AC/DC, INXS, and Wolfmother. “Well, as with most people my parents were a huge influence in that respect. I used to play with my grandfathers old records, stuff like Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, BB King, Eric Clapton and growing up as a youngster I was really into N.W.A [A Californian rap group]. When I was eleven or twelve I had a friend give me a mixtape of N.W.A and I loved it so much that I went to buy the latest album. However, the lady behind the counter wouldn’t let me have it because I was to young! So I turned to the Terminator 2 soundtrack and on there was Guns n Roses – You Could Be Mine and I’ve been a Guns and Roses fan ever since”.

Like anyone Nick’s influences changed and developed as he got older, the pendulum sung as he listened to more rock inspired music so inevitably the gangster rap took a back seat. Nonetheless, I’m sure you know as well as I do that everyone’s musical influences change during their lifetime – and this doesn’t mean we are all going to be music artists. I was very curious to find out at what point Nick felt the influences steered him towards a career in one of the toughest industries out there. “Well, I can actually remember the moment that happened. I was in my twenties and I’d entered into a competition called Nescafe Big Break and it allows young people to focus on what it is they love doing. There are all sorts of people there, inventors, scientists, people who are starting businesses. The winners of the competition get a £20,000 grant and I was one of the first artists to get that grant. That was the moment I thought I could really do this. As much as I loved playing music I just couldn’t see it as a viable option, so when I got the grant it really changed everything for me. I haven’t looked back since”.


So with the beginnings of a career on the horizon and £20,000 better off, were Nick’s days as a producer well and truly over and fully focused on creating a band or was he partial to producing the odd record now and again? “Well, I produce and record all the Capelle records and I’ve done loads of stuff in the past as a producer mainly in Sydney, Australia. Yeah I mean I still get the time to work with other artists, I’m actually working with a Chicago artist called Amanda Baker and we’ve been doing lots of different stuff, we’ve just recorded a whole album together actually”.
With Capelle firmly in place and having ample time to produce other artists records does Nick feel the pressure to succeed as an artist and to one day not have to fall back on his producing skills. “I would be lying if I said no I don’t fell that sort of pressure, but I don’t feel it from an external sort of place, I tend to feel that from within myself because I’m very driven and determined. I don’t really feel the need to be famous or make shit loads of money, for me it’s more about the fact that the rest of the world will be able to hear and listen to my music. Without that I can’t just make music for my own satisfaction. I get a kick out of people listening to my music and saying, ‘wow, that inspires me’ or they listen to the production of the record and say ‘fuck, that is so cool the way the drums are done on that I’m going to reference that for my own music”.

It is clear from this that one of Nick’s and of course Capelle’s primary aims is not to make lots of money and get rich from the profession, but to inspire people to make music, enjoy life and get fulfilment listening to their records. This is an aim that featured heavily while making their forthcoming documentary; Capelle – All Roads Lead to America. A documentary that is a no holds bared, first hand account of the bands escapades whilst on tour across the United States. The highs, lows, and bar brawls are seen up close and personal, the aim being to give the outsider a raw and real view of what a band can and will get up to whilst on tour. “Well, it’s a wall to wall documentary where we travel from LA all the way to New York – so that’s over 8,000 miles, with five of us stuck in an RV truck. It is a documentary about a band and their journey, but I also think it’s more then that its about the people we met on the way. All the forgotten heroes, blues artists we jammed with and having to get your own gigs whilst other ones fell apart and were cancelled. The documentary sees the highs of having a great time and the genuine love for each other that we have as a band, then the lows of us having some hard times, not getting the gigs that we want and tempers flaring between the band members. There is actually a moment where I crash the RV into the side of a gas station! It was such an emotional rollercoaster and the feedback we are getting from people is that they absolutely love it. I think it’s rare that a band can do a documentary because there tends to be too much of the cliché rock n roll lifestyle, although there is some of that in this documentary…but I think there are really solid characters that you can genuinely fall in love with”.
Forthcoming in March 2012 the refreshing element to this documentary is that– what you see is what you get. As Nick puts it “When you go into a project like that you have to be real about it, I think you can’t really hide and edit out stuff you are afraid the public is going to see, if you’re going to do something like that, you’ve got to give it 100%”.


It looks as if, for now Nick’s dream of being an artist is taking off rapidly with a DVD, new album and tour in the pipeline – producing may just have to wait a little while.

Feature: Field Music

Brothers David and Peter Brewis aptly named ‘The Brewis Brothers’ have had diligent careers to date. Playing for a plethora of bands which included The Futureheads and Maximo Park whilst penning songs and lyrics for Field Music, and turning down the chance to tour with Snow Patrol. All this whilst constantly distancing themselves from the ever-present stereotyping and pigeonholing that goes on in the music industry. No wonder they needed a break. After their second album they decided enough was enough and moved on to pastures anew, for now at least. Back with vengeance they came, with two critically acclaimed albums under their belt, and better still, the genre stereotyping had dispersed. However, defining their new style was proving tricky and one which I was finding increasingly difficult to fathom out.

          

Having intruded on his morning activities of fixing the merchandise stand for the upcoming UK tour, I thought I would give David the pleasure of explaining just what Field Music’s style is…”What I would generally say is we make weird pop music. We’re influenced by a huge range of music, but it comes out sounding like pop music. I’ve really got no idea how to describe it so I tend to try and avoid these questions. So it’s a funny one, I don’t really mind the art rock tag, but that’s about it really”. Fully satisfied that I could now use the tag ‘weird pop music’ without offending, I continued.

The new single (I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing boasts David’s impressive falsetto vocals coupled with the very sound the Field Music boys used to pride themselves on. Rather ironically it’s the last track on the album and the first to be released to the nation. “It’s generally the song that works best out of the context of the album, its sort of like an appendix so that’s why we put it at the end. Also because the rest of the album has a very definite flow and the tracks run into each other, so its quite difficult to take a song out from that and give it to radio stations because they generally don’t make that much sense on their own”. David also delves into the bits we don’t see here on the other side of the fence, such as the science behind picking the perfect singles, and why bands don’t utilise all the songs on an album.

“If when you go in to record an album you treat every song as if it could be a single or if you treat every song like it should be on the radio then the ones that arte best you might put at the front of the album and they will also be the singles, it kind of makes sense really. We don’t do that. When a bands done a new record you need at least three or four tracks that can be singles, so that means the rest of the songs can be anything, they don’t have to be three minutes long, they don’t have to have a chorus – they can be anything you want them to be. Also when you play live the chances are you’re only going to play three or four songs anyway, so the rest of the songs on the album don’t even have to be songs you can play live. I’m always surprised that bands don’t do more within their albums and do more exploring. For all those songs that you’ve created which are never going to get played again or heard on the radio, so you should really ditch the rules and do whatever you want”.

As the majority of bands will tell you – and it is glaringly obvious – the reason why they split is more often then not that they can’t stand the sight of each other for another second. However, in Field Music’s case it differs somewhat, because they haven’t started slanging matches or beating each other up simply because they’ve spent one to many days cooped up in a Ford Transit. Just a simple amicable parting, and nothings changed – in studio or out. “I mean I think we set ourselves a way of working for Measure where we didn’t try and pretend we were a band which I think were really good for us. So the big changes this time round are that we moved studio, because we’d been in the same studio for about 10 years, we recorded all of our records there and some of the Futureheads stuff was recorded there as well, so that was quite a big change. Also within the new space, because we’re not sharing it it’s a little bit more set up for how we like to work, so there were keyboards lining the walls in every free space, that type of thing. So I think it was a little bit easier to follow any creative ideas we might have had at the time because everything was already set up. There was no rooting in the back of store cupboards to find those instruments you were imagining – that’s the kind of thing that can put me off”.

So no more rooting aimlessly through cupboards for that desired instrument with a new studio in place, but for those of you who haven’t yet graced your ears with the beautiful new album, I can hear you saying ‘well, what does it sound like?’ It has been described by many as rousing, loveable, and nostalgic – however the rhythm section does well to receive such grand praise being likened to that of a ‘kitchen draw being emptied on the stairs’. “No I don’t mind that kind of thing actually. I think when somebody’s put some effort into coming up with a creative description then I’m happy to embrace it. Again with that I can kind of see what they mean. If you treat the rhythm as being not a standard drum beat then the rhythm section starts to sound quite odd. To me it sounds more like rustling in the cupboard of a music room at school. So sometimes it does sound like that and I’m kind of fine with that. Of all the descriptions I’ve heard I think that’s one of the better ones and I’m ok with it”.

With the current economic climate in such a dramatic state I wondered if, like all of us, musicians were also feeling the pinch and would this have a dramatic affect on the upcoming event of Valentines Day – so much so that the album would have to suffice for their WAGS?  “The big thing which affected us from the current economic climate is the closing of the old studio space, which was reliant on voluntary organisations renting out its space, but obviously voluntary organisations don’t have any money at the moment so it was basically empty except for us there at the end. So it was one of the reasons we had to move in the end unfortunately. I really don’t think my wife would be incredibly happy if my present to her on Valentines was a copy of the Field Music album! I think she’d probably smash it in my face! And I think Pete’s wife probably would as well… I think we’re trying to make sure we’re not away for Valentines Day which is quite difficult, and unfortunately for me the album comes out the same week as Valentines Day and my wife’s birthday.  So trying to be at home for both of those things is proving quite a challenge”.

Always willing to get their teeth into a challenge Field Music’s tour for previous album Measures was relentless and gruelling in every way, totalling ninety shows throughout the year of 2010. About to embark on a less intensive ten day tour of the UK I wondered how the new material would be received by the UK audience and crucially how David himself was feeling about the experience. “I’m quite excited about it. The rehearsals have been going really well and they’re sounding really good. I mean its quite different the live thing to how we go about making music in a studio but I think all of the lads who play in the band have really taken on the challenges of the new stuff. So yeah I’m really looking forward to it and it’s always interesting to see how people respond to the newer material. We’ve got about ten dates across the UK and we’ve got a few festivals kid of confirmed, it’ll certainly expand but there is no way we’ll do as many dates as we did for Measure. We’ve just been confirmed for Pimara Sounds as well so that’ll be good and give us a chance to go to Barcelona”.

With two of their UK shows completely sold out, an ever expanding tour, and a simply stunning and nostalgic album on the way a Brit nomination could well be on the cards for next year. More importantly who are Field Music themselves backing for the ice cool British Breakthrough Act award…” Who am I going to tip to win? Erm, I think Jessie J is the only one I’m quite confident is famous in a wider sense so I’m going to go for Jessie J. Ed Sheeran is quite famous but, (whispers) I don’t think he’s very good!!” So pleasantries aside with Ed Sheeran, would there be a Field Music collaboration on the horizon with any of the nominees? “No! (laughs) Because most of them I haven’t heard of, and what can we add to what they already do. So I would say that’s a definite no”.

Alas, I wondered with the recent death of a truly inspirational jazz and blues artist, Etta James, what legacy the Field Music boys would like to leave behind. “I’d like to leave behind a bunch of good records that people are interested in and will listen too a couple of decades down the line and hopefully a few really funny interviews which people smile at when they rediscover. I still find myself laughing out loud to some of the past interviews I’ve done, and I think I’d like to have a good back catalogue that people went back to and thought ‘yeah these guys did some amazing stuff’.

Well, ‘doing some amazing stuff’ is something Field Music need not worry about currently, but is there an explosive split on the cards, a Brit Award, or maybe a tour with Snow Patrol…“Probably more records but in the immediate future probably not another Field Music album, I think it’s probably time we tried a few other things. They may be releases from Field Music there may not be, but I think it’s good for me and Peter every now and again to take little breaks and do things in slightly different ways. The two of us will defiantly be very busy because that’s just what we like, so, more records some of which will be Field Music and some might not be”.

I’d best let David get back to repairing his Merchandise board…