Chamber Pop – AmeliasMagazine

Amelia’s Magazine | Tide: an interview with Wooden Arms

Wooden Arm Music Illustration by Alice Jamieson
Wooden Arms by Alice Jamieson.

Mixing lush orchestration with percussive vibes, the Norwich based band Wooden Arms present a haunting debut album with Tide: be prepared to fall in love. Vocalist Alex Carson answered my questions.

Wooden Arms by Sarah Parris. ‘I felt the music was quite dream like so the image is a combination of photographic and illustrative. I like the sound in the sky with the look of woodgrain. Wood and trees just seemed right as I listened to them…‘

How did you get together as a band?
We formed rather accidently about 2 years ago, I had been writing some songs on a piano I had recently inherited from a kind neighbour and I was put in touch with a work colleagues sister, Jess Diggins (Violin). She was clearly brilliant and I began writing violin lines as well as vocals and piano. I met Fynn Titford-Mock (Cello) busking on the street – that’s not entirely correct actually I saw him pack up a cello AFTER busking and then approached him. I never heard him play 1 note but I still knew cellists were in short supply around Norwich so I asked him over to see how things would work and lo and behold he was great too! So that was the core of it at the time. Jeff Smith (trumpet / guitar / vocals) joined later on an ad hoc basis when he had bigger shows to do and he soon became invaluable and a great writing partner as well. I knew Jeff from years ago when we were both in Indie bands on the same record label so it was an easy fit. Milly Hirst then joined as our original female vocalist couldn’t commit to the the gigs we were getting. Milly is a great singer/songwriter in her own right and a has a great following here in the UK – I had also helped with the release of her debut EP the year before so again, it was an easy fit. Alex Mackenzie (Drums) was the clearest choice for a drummer – despite being all the way in Lonndon! I had worked on a few of his solo recordings as he was dating my house mate at the time, and I was always struck at how sensitive he was to musical moods. He always knew when to ramp things up and make a racket and also when to take a step back and let other instruments take the lead. With so many of us performing (we were at times a 7 piece as we had 2 female vocalists for some shows) this was a crucial part to the rythmic elements of Wooden Arms.

So in some ways it was accidental meetings at the beginning that sparked creativity within me to write for more instruments – and once we had the ball rolling I had a clear idea of where the band was heading and knew the right men and women for the job.

What is the process of making songs?
It has varied over our time together, at the beginning I would literally write everything. So: lyrics, vocal melodies and harmonies, piano, violin, cello, guitar etc… I would then take all my scribbled sheet music to the band and teach them their parts, over the course of live shows and rehearsals the songs would change and be mouled by their individual playing style and character and it would become a Wooden Arms song. However, now-a-day’s a few others get a bit more involved in the actual writing process – I often bounce a lot of ideas off Jeff and Mackenzie first before sending them to the rest of the band and they also come up with their own songs that we then work on together. So the process has become steadily more collaborative. I would say I still write a majority of the music but I feel the next record will be more of a joint effort from all 6 of us writing wise.

Wooden Arms
How does being based in Norwich affect your music making?
I adore Norwich with all my heart. I grew up 20 miles East of here and there was a part of me when I was younger that thought I needed to be in London, New York or Paris… Some MASSIVE city that went on forever. But being based somewhere reasonably small with a very tight knit and vibrant community has been the best inspiration for me ever. I’m heavily involved in the music scene here and although being a small city we have a buzzing community, almost every night there are at least 2/3 gigs on that are worth your attention. In some ways that made it tricky to stand out as there was so much going on – but also meant you always had opportunities to play and meet other musicians if you put yourself out there.

I have always said a good music scene is what you make it. It’s made by enthusiastic people that follow their own initiative and make stuff happen. I actually promote gigs here in Norwich and try to put on loads of local up-and-coming talent as well as some of the bands we meet on tour.

The album is quite melancholic in feel, what inspired the lyrical content?
I can definitely hear how people can interpret Tide as melancholic however I have always felt personally that it has a neutral tone to it. Neither sad nor happy – just that life is what it is and that is that. A good majority of the record is about consequence and how inevitability rules our lives – I’m brought to mind of the movie The Dead Poets Society where Robin Williams explains to the class that one day they’ll all die and be nothing but worm chowder. This absolute consquence of death has always been something that fascinates me and drives me to do anything in fact. I can definitely see why people would think that would be quite melancholic! However, I grew up in a strict orthodox religion that taught that if you obey God’s laws you will live forever. I left that faith many years ago and began forging my own ideas about life and there is a lot of that in this record.

The idea that we’re all going to die one day – and that’s okay. We shouldn’t be afraid of that or bargain with some deity for a second chance once this one is over. I’m not a militant atheist or belive that my ideas are necessarily the correct ones – but they’re mine and it’s just my viewpoint. The line in Vicenarian sums up most of my feelings actually: “Life is simple, life is sweet, but not yet quite complete…”

What next for Wooden Arms?
I have reams of sheet music ready for album number 2. Some have thought that this record is quite short at 6 tracks (although it still runs at nearly 30 mins like a lot of records!) so I would like to do a slightly longer record next time – i’m definitely keen on keeping brevity with albums and I HATE when a brilliant album is marred by 1 or 2 mediocre songs that just didn’t need to be there. We’ve talked about the expansion of our sound into more electonric avenues – using samples and synths etc… and really playing around with the production of our songs – especially in the studio. This record was a very ‘naturally’ recorded album, we played a lot of the time all together to get the energy we have at a live show recorded with only minimal layering of other instruments. I would definitely like to get even more layers going on in the studio and really experiment with not only the composition of our music but the textures and the timbres within the instrumentation that we’re using.

With regards to live shows we hope to be everywhere all the time. We LOVE touring and we’re blessed with a great number of things happening in the new year – we’re back on the continent with shows in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland and we’re really hoping we can get up to Scandinavia and play some shows. We’re also hoping to play a lot of festivals over the summer and get this music out there. We’re also starting to explore bits of the UK we’ve not had too much contact with, we’ve never played too far North that much and we’ve got TBC shows in Leeds and Manchester in the new year for sure, and also talk about Ireland and Scotland.

Tide by Wooden Arms was released this week on Butterfly Collectors Records. Catch them live TONIGHT 17th October 2014 at St Pancras Old Church in London, details here.

Written by Amelia Gregory on Friday October 17th, 2014 1:23 pm

Categories ,Alex Carson, ,Alex Mackenzie, ,Alice Jamieson, ,Butterfly Collectors Records, ,Chamber Pop, ,Fynn Titford-Mock, ,interview, ,Jeff Smith, ,Jess Diggins, ,Milly Hirst, ,Norwich, ,Orchestral, ,review, ,Sarah Parris, ,St Pancras Old Church, ,The Dead Poets Society, ,Tide, ,Wooden Arms

Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Fireworks Night and review of new album One Winter, One Spring

Fireworks Night by James Shedden.

Straight from the opening clatter of Settle Down its clear that the new album from Fireworks Night (championed in Amelia’s Magazine many a moon ago) is something quite special. A violin curls hypnotically around the driving beat as the lyrics relish the ‘untold pleasures of human interaction‘ in grand orchestral style. (Why not teach yourself to play like this? Find excellent beginner violin lessons with private teachers here.) Across the Sea is a partly delicate, partly bitter tale that yearns for something more far away across time and space, whilst the grind of strings dominates in Broken Bottles. Even as the vocals come to the fore, as in That Easy Way (where the falsetto has more than a touch of Antony Hegarty) there is always a defiant beat to drive the melody along. One Winter, One Spring is a rollicking slice of what I have decided to term chamber folk: a beguiling mix of folk inspired narrative and chamber pop largesse (I say that in a good way) On the day of the album release I caught up with founding member James Lesslie.

Fireworks Night by Alex Green aka MSTR GRINGO.

What have you been up to since we last spoke in 2007? Has it been an eventful few years? What has changed and what has remained the same?
It has been a very eventful four years, even if the time between the two albums might suggest otherwise. When last we spoke the band was more a collective – which is perhaps a fancy way of saying I hadn’t worked out how to organise things properly. In the second half of 2007 Rhiannon and Neil, then Ed, joined playing violin, viola and drums respectively. In the autumn of that year we toured with another band that Ed and I were in called The Mules (also featured in Amelia’s Magazine, fact fans) and that cemented the line-up. It’s been the six of us ever since with the other half being made up of myself, Tim on piano and Nick on guitar and too many other instruments to mention. Through 2007 and 2008 we were lucky enough to play with some bands who I very much admire such as Frog Eyes, Sunset Rubdown and David Thomas Broughton. We also recorded and released an E.P in 2008 and began work on the album in 2009. We recorded it ourselves and that and other boring practical issues led to the rather long time it’s taken for us to release it.

Fireworks Night One Winter One Spring Cover
New album One Winter, One Spring is released on Monday 7th November, did you deliberately time it for this time of year?
We had initially hoped it would come out in the summer so it was not entirely deliberate. When things got delayed it was suggested and seemed an apt, if a little hokey, combination.

Fireworks Night in the street
What prompted your name, was it a particularly love of Bonfire Night?
It was the result of a rather poor joke that I can no longer remember. It has since turned out that my mum loves fireworks – she bounds to the window any time they appear near the house – and has decided we’re named on account of this, a story I don’t want to spoil.

Fireworks-Night-by-Victoria-Haynes
Fireworks Night by Victoria Haynes.

Your music is described as a cross between folk and chamber pop, has it always been thus, and what influences have helped to shape your unique sound?
I think so, though the chamber pop factor has seemingly increased over the last few years. I think our sound is the product of the multitude of musical interests that the six of us have. I hope I am right when I say that Nick is keen on people such as William Basinski and Arvo Part, Rhiannon enjoys Bellowhead, Ed likes ABC, Neil Wild Beasts and Tim has all of the Tom Waits albums – they all end up in there in some shape or form. You might have to listen closely but they’re there.

Fireworks Night
What inspires your lyrics and who writes them? I hear that family, home and the sea are strong themes, why is this?
I write the lyrics to the songs. It is difficult to say what specifically inspires them but generally it might be the pleasure of attempting to express an emotion, a story, or a visual image that the music might have suggested with language. I was a few songs into writing the album when I noticed that the themes you mention seemed to be recurring in the lyrics so I thought I would try and develop them. The reason for their initial appearance may be where I grew up which was near the ocean. The attention to family and home probably connects to that as well as the fact that we are all around the end of our twenties and perhaps thinking about such things. Our parties these days have more food and less own-brand spirits with white labels that bark their contents, GIN, VODKA, WHISKY. Ouch.

fireworks night by zyzanna
Across the Sea by Zyzanna.

Have you made any videos to accompany this album and if so where can I see them and what are they about?
There are some videos on their way we hope. There’s one for Settle Down that’s being made by a man named Nate Camponi who I have never met but is very good with a camera. It is very near completion and should be visible in the next week or two. There are subsequent plans for doing ones for Across the Sea and One Winter, One Spring, the former hopefully will be done in mid-December and the latter mid-January. Ideas so far have included the use of old super-8 footage and film-noir using Lego. We shall see what emerges and let you know when it does.

Settle Down

What are your plans for the future and can we see you playing live anywhere soon?
We will be celebrating the album’s release with a show at The Wheelbarrow with the Bleeding Heart Narrative in London on 17th November and I think we’re also playing at the New Cross Inn on 14th December. We all have jobs and other things that make playing shows a less regular event then they used to be. We currently aim for one per month which seems to be working out. We will see how things go with this album before plotting our next project. I already have songs ready to go so we shall see what happens. I’d really like to get everyone together and have dinner at some point in the near future as well.

Here’s to a heartwarming Fireworks Night dinner sometime soon. One Winter, One Spring is out today on Organ Grinder Records. Make sure you grab a copy and spread the word because Fireworks Night is too good to be a part time project!

Fireworks Night by SarahJayneDraws aka Sarah Jayne Morris.

Written by Amelia Gregory on Monday November 7th, 2011 8:18 pm

Categories ,ABC, ,Across the Sea, ,album, ,Alex Green, ,Antony Hegarty, ,Arvo Part, ,Bellowhead, ,Bleeding Heart Narrative, ,Broken Bottles, ,Chamber Folk, ,Chamber Pop, ,David Thomas Broughton, ,Fireworks Night, ,Frog Eyes, ,James Lesslie, ,James Shedden, ,MSTR GRINGO, ,Nate Camponi, ,New Cross Inn, ,One Winter One Spring, ,Organ Grinder Records, ,review, ,Sarah Jayne Morris, ,Settle Down, ,Stravinsky, ,Sunset Rubdown, ,That Easy Way, ,The Firebird, ,The Mules, ,The Wheelbarrow, ,Tom Waits, ,Victoria Haynes, ,Wild Beasts, ,William Basinski, ,Zyzanna

Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with The Miserable Rich about their spooky new album Miss You In The Days

The Miserable Rich by Kathryn Corlett.

Miss You in the Days is the new album from The Miserable Rich, a fabulous collection of songs inspired by ghosts, ghouls… and possession. In other words, the perfect musical accompaniment for Halloween and beyond. I got in touch with lead singer James De Malplaquet to find out what inspired this theatrical tour de force.

The Miserable Rich bed
Why do you think your music is referred to as Chamber Pop and is there anything else you would prefer to be called or that you use to describe yourselves better?
It would seem a little churlish to deny that there are both pop and chamber music elements to our music – but the term ‘chamber pop’ is just one consonant away from ‘chamber pot’ – a little too close for comfort in my humble…. We certainly use some traditional chamber music instruments – violin, cello, double bass, that kind of thing. I’m told the idea of chamber music was that it went against the tyranny of the orchestral hall – it was music that could be played anywhere, in any room, or chamber. We certainly fit in with that, having played in all kinds of places from churches to parks, palaces to (I ‘kid’ you not) creches.

Taking the songs Pisshead, Hungover and Chestnut Sunday (about cocaine addiction), and our propensity for liquor, we started off calling it ‘bar-room chamber music’ – but that didn’t really fit with the song for my mother (I hope). We do think there’s a bit of intensity in the music and the lyrical subject matter though – a bit of fire in the belly – and so we’re toying with ‘fiery chamber music for (song) lovers’ at the mo. There’ll probably be a new one in a month or two, mind.

Miss You In The Days cover
Who inspires you musically – I think there’s a definite jaunt to your music that calls to mind the theatrical big band festival scene. Has this been a factor in your development?
I think you’re right; there is indeed a certain theatrical flourish to what we do. Not that we planned it – and apart from my soft spot for Kate Bush, Grace Jones and Peter Gabriel, it’s not really there in the bands that we like – Will loves Loney Dear, for example – hardly known for his overblown music or stage shows….. I don’t know – I guess it just sort of came out that way. I do remember talking to the band before some of our first shows and agreeing that it didn’t matter if we hit a few bum notes, as long as we put emotion into the playing. It’s probably ramping the emotion up that gives it this element of theatre. We might play one or two less bum notes nowadays (we might not), but we still try to maintain that level of intensity.On the other hand, it might just be because we’re an incorrigible bunch of drama queens, completely divorced from reality. Sounds much more fun that way.

The Miserable Rich by Beth Crowley.

How big is the current incarnation of your band – and who plays all the different instruments?
We’ve always been a five piece, with Will Calderbank on cello and occasional piano, Mike Siddell on violin and Rhys Lovell on double bass. This is the first time Ricky Pritchard has joined us on guitar and piano, and we added a drummer (!) this time round. Last album, we made a rule that we all had to play at least two instruments and sing on the album, so we shared the drumming, but on this album we got a real live drummer – David ‘Badlace’ Schechtriemen – to pitch in and help out. Myself, I used to play bits of piano, guitar, percussion and mandolin on the records, but they’ve gradually wrestled all the toys off me and made it clear I should just stick to singing….. Spoil sports.

Your album Miss You in the Days is described as “a collection of witty mischievous ghost stories” and is being released on Halloween. Have you always been fans of the otherworldly and the paranormal, and how or why did this love come about?
It was just one of those •spooky• coincidences, really. If we were going to record another album, I wanted us to go away and have an adventure – and so I came up with this idea of going to a haunted house and writing an album based on ghost stories. I’d noticed that we English – myself in particular – found it difficult to write about sex and death, and I thought this might be a good way of exorcising those particular lyrical demons. After I’d sold the idea to the band, I started reading only ghost stores and went around on tours in the UK and Europe, telling anyone who’d listen our plan, hoping someone would say ‘Come record at my house – it’s haunted as hell‘. In the end, a friend who had offered her haunted attic suddenly ‘remembered’ she was living next to Britain’s most haunted stately home, the Jacobean Palace of Blickling Hall – birthplace of Anne Boleyn. Introductions were sought, deals were cut with the National Trust, and off we went, hope in our hearts and ghouls in our heads.

Two rough diamonds from The Miserable Rich by Rhiannon Ladd.

You recorded parts of the album in the haunted Blickling Hall – any good stories from this period? Mysterious creaks, ghost sightings – or were the stories of the place enough to work on your imaginations?
Blickling is an amazing place, incredibly beautiful and evocative. Visiting its lonely windswept and tree-lined roads on our first visit, seeing the palace loom out of the darkness, it was easy to imagine people losing their wits in the deep dark Winters. Perhaps we did ourselves. David said he saw faces at the window on more than one occasion, the mics kept picking up German voices, and though the caretaker once told us in thick Glaswegian tones ‘The only spirits you’ll find here are whiskey, vodka and gin‘, Ricky and our manager Howard will tell you something very different about the unexplained voice they recorded late one Friday night in the West Turret Bedroom…….

Anything’s Possible

TheMiserableRich_AnythingsPossible_1000
Anything’s Possible cover art by illustrator Stanley Chow.

 How does the erotic element of the album present itself, and which songs is this felt in the most?
I had been thinking about how the word ‘possession’ is both a supernatural and a sexual term. We hope to possess or be possessed by our lovers, or by the act of lovemaking. I’d also been mulling a little playfully on the meaning of words like ‘moaning’ and ‘groaning’. If you hear someone moaning in an old, empty house, say, you might draw very different conclusions to those you might on hearing the same sound through a hotel room wall. These ideas, and the idea of ‘love across beyond the grave‘ are suggested in the songs Laid Up In Lavender, On A Certain Night, Honesty and True Love – but I hope it’s not too heavy-handed.

What is going on in On a Certain Night? The lyrics sound quite stalkerish… who or what inspired this tune, and whose house was the lucky venue for the video?
My first love was possessed. Many may believe this of their own experience, but in my case, these were her own words. She told me that a bright shiny light would enter the room, enter her body (as I hoped to do myself, but in quite a different way), and tell her what to do. I wasn’t sure if I believed her, or if I thought it a brilliant and elaborate method of getting out of responsibility for one’s actions…. When we started writing the album, many years later, I remembered the story and thought I’d write a slightly disturbing pop song from the perspective of this possessing spirit. There may be a little revenge in this – he is quite a lascivious devil, isn’t he? As for the video, it was all shot in one night, after hours in our new favourite Brighton pub, The Chequer Inn, run by a lovely and accommodating couple who had come up to me in various other pubs and told me they loved the band, and once memorably giving me a packet of twiglets.

On a certain night cover
Some pretty nightmarish make up featured in the video too. Do you have any special plans for this Halloween and what will you be dressing up as?
Hideous, isn’t it? That’s what happens if I don’t have time to properly put my face on before going out……. At least it ensures the video doesn’t look like Losing My Religion…. Yes, there will indeed be a bit of dressing up – and for this tour we’ll be playing in some churches, crypts, castles and even palaces, so anyone who gets into the ‘spirit’ of the nights will get a special ‘ghost hour’ radio mix I’ve made. I think we’re going to be imprinting a lot of memories on this tour….

Hungover

The new single On A Certain Night is out on 24th October and the album Miss You in the Days is out, fittingly, on 31st October. Both on Humble Soul. Not to be missed. Check out The Miserable Rich soon! There are a few free tracks to download on Facebook here.

Written by Amelia Gregory on Friday October 21st, 2011 12:03 pm

Categories ,album, ,Anything’s Possible, ,Beth Crowley, ,brighton, ,Chamber Pop, ,David ‘Badlace’ Schechtriemen, ,Dramatic, ,gothic, ,Hallowe’en, ,Humble Soul, ,Hungover, ,interview, ,James De Malplaquet, ,Kathryn Corlett, ,Mike Siddell, ,Possession, ,pub, ,review, ,Rhiannon Ladd, ,Rhys Lovell, ,Spooky, ,Stanley Chow, ,The Chequer Inn, ,The Chequers, ,The Miserable Rich, ,Theatrical, ,Will Calderbank

Amelia’s Magazine | Arthur Rigby and the Baskervylles introduce the new single and video for Moonlit Strangers

Arthur Rigby & The Baskervylles by Rachel Morris

Arthur Rigby & The Baskervylles by Rachel Morris*

Leeds based Chamber Pop band Arthur Rigby & the Baskervylles release new track Moonlit Strangers with an accompanying video. Lush orchestration and multi-layered vocals tell a tale of loneliness and heartbreak like no other. Ben from the band tells us more…

The lyrics for the song:
I have had the idea kicking around for a while. A house in the middle of a landscape in which a lady lives alone, wishing but not expecting anyone to visit her – then, on a wild night!, her ‘true love’ arrives out of nowhere. There is a certain Bronte-ness about it. I thought about who would have a lonely life in the middle of nowhere and why they were there and decided that a gatehouse on a lock would work nicely especially as it would bring water imagery to the lyrics … which I am fond of! I tend to build up huge stories about each of my songs … I like the idea that each person who listens to it could make up their own scenarios or storylines … but this wouldn’t be aided by watching the video!

The making of the new video:
We had a shoe string budget and lots of ideas! We decided we really didn’t want a performance video and we didn’t want it to the exact story of the lyrics. So I sat down with Josh, the fantastic director/ all in one team for the video, and he suggested that a child’s view of love between adults is disneyfied and ‘at first sight’ so could create the strangers in love idea. We worked with a local Kids’ theatre school and casting agency who put us in touch with our wonderful stars, George and Harriet, and we filmed it at two locations, on one cold October’s day! The basic idea was that George would see Harriet in a walled garden (the amazing Poulton Hall on the Wirral), whilst playing around, and that night, the statue in the garden came to life and brought the 2 of them together in his dreams. But he can never quite reach her.

Arthur Rigby

Arthur Rigby & the Baskervylles celebrate the release of Moonlit Strangers at The Slaughtered Lamb in London on 19th February.

* Rachel Morris writes a short bit about the inspiration behind the illustration: There’s a strong narrative quality to the song. The two figures, based on 19th Century flatback pottery, hint at legends and folk tales. The watery background reflects the undulating form of the music & the content of the lyrics.

Written by Amelia Gregory on Friday January 24th, 2014 10:09 am

Categories ,Arthur Rigby & the Baskervylles, ,Chamber Pop, ,leeds, ,Moonlit Strangers, ,Rachel Morris, ,review, ,single, ,The Slaughtered Lamb, ,video

Amelia’s Magazine | Tide: an interview with Wooden Arms

Similar Posts:

Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Fireworks Night and review of new album One Winter, One Spring

Similar Posts:

Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with The Miserable Rich about their spooky new album Miss You In The Days

Similar Posts:

Amelia’s Magazine | Arthur Rigby and the Baskervylles introduce the new single and video for Moonlit Strangers

Similar Posts: