Yorkshire right now is covered in snow. Its rocky walls, white capped, its sheep bleeting in the wind. “Bahhh”. Very picturesque, perfect for the nostalgic Victorian Christmas we’ve never seen. Hark! What’s that I can hear? Californian sounding guitar strumming, muffled notes, twinkly idealism? It’s like suddenly I’m on a balmy beach in the 60s with my good friends, Bruce and Summer. Splendid…splendid indeed. Who is this?
It’s the Spectrals, a chap from Yorkshire called Louis Jones. Brought up on a collection of 60s and 70s soul, Motown and doo-wop, alongside elements of garage rock, he’s created an amalgamation of genres in his bedroom. Essentially I would say Jones’ music is dreamy and rock and roll. A perfect antidote to sitting on your squidgy sofa with your pastry pies and chocolate cocktails washed down with warm wine. His voice sounds faintly tinny, old school and a whole world away from seasonal affective disorder. Let’s just for a second, remember what summer is… And now, what it is/could be like to live by the sea… yep, invigorating thoughts.
Originally from Heckmondwicke, West Yorkshire, Jones was in his first band aged 15. He used to record in his bedroom with his brother on drums, but now he has a professionally recorded album; Extended Play on Moshi Moshi Records. Recorded completely on analogue in a local studio, it sounds fresh and yet blurry. Reminding me of watching bands when I was 17, around pubs in Brighton and the countryside’s nether regions. It’s The Sea and Cake, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Arctic Mokeys, Wild Beasts and Beach House. All a tiny bit off note and rolled up in a colourful knitted ensemble. It sounds very American immersed on the first listen, but then as you continue to surf about the room, it is much drier than Californian shiny pop, it’s harder, more pithy and actually, very English.
I caught up with Louis Jones fresh from his tour with Best Coast and asked him a few questions about his music.
Your music has a definite Californian glow to it. Where did you get your surfy sound inspiration from?
I realised that “surf” music was going to be really “cool”, so I made some songs with that kind of sound so I could be rich.
What would you say the music saying to its listeners?
I don’t want to say anything to the listener, the lyrics in the songs are
just about how I feel about a girl.
Do you think the 60s/70s music is preferable to now?
There’ll always be good music and there’ll always be rubbish music.
What does Yorkshire mean to you?
Yorkshire doesn’t mean anything to me, I was born here and it’s convenient
to stay here for now. I’m into both of those.
Who are you touring with at the moment
I just got back off tour with Best Coast, I love them.
Have you done any song writing whilst you have been on tour?
No I never seem to have time.
…This flippant, liberated attitude comes across in Jones’ music. He mixes the surf guitar, psychedelia and rock, before mottling the picture with glimpses of the English, trapped underneath in the exposure, adding a multi faceted quality to the Spectrals. Extended Play has got youth, attitude and style, without coming across as if it ever intended to produce such attributes.
Written by Helen Martin on Thursday December 9th, 2010 10:25 am
If I lived alone in a dark stone castle, buy information pills I would make it a priority to listen to Lia Ices. Her notes would float around the turrets and echo through the gaps in the brickwork. You would be able to hear her singing, bringing ‘him’ closer from the meadows and the seas. The strings gently touching the heart, and increasing the speed of the hoofs galloping at an increasingly quickening pace. So beautifully feverish is this music.
As it is, I live in a basement flat in Bristol. Although I did work in a Tudor castle whilst at university and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t stand at the top, look to sea, hair flaying behind me, and feel a certain magic. I’m sure I looked ridiculous/a mess, but there is an at oneness that comes with looking out to the infinity of the sea from up high, it’s filled with an ambition and truth. Also a stark contrast to the steps and blades of tall grass (weeds), I look at from my desk. I’m not implying you need to own a grand sort of graded building to listen to Lia Ices, but her voice is so much more than something to whack on the karaoke on a saturday night, or for a little house shindig. I often get accused of putting on depressing music when people come round to the basement flat, but alas, they are mistaken! But so too am I. This music is not depressing, it is special, not for groups to revel in, red wine tipping on my (cream) carpets. Oh no, this is for wafting.
The light notes mix with the heavy use of strings to delicious effect. Classically trained, a graduate of New York’s Tisch School of the Arts, Ices uses her voice together with the instruments with utter ease. A combination of Tori Amos, Enya, Regina Spektor and Sia. The instruments, her voice inclusive, flit between jumpy, feisty to explosions of streaming notes. She has elements of Joni Mitchell to her, filled to the brim with emotion and captivating. New Myth has an almost military sound to it, with trumpets blowing. Ice Wine stops and starts with strings, before unleashing with a ratter of a drum. She has one duet, Daphne, with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, whom I could not think of a better artist for her to be paired with. Their voices together are intensely hypnotic.
The whole album sounds as if it was born in an enchanted forest. A place removed from the evils of the world. The sacred place, where the queen fairy lives in fantasy books. With 70s hinting, billowing sleeves, Kate Bush and Fleetwood Mac, joined, it’s an album of true quality. Lia Ices album, Grown Unknown, is out now on Jagjauwar.
If I lived alone in a dark stone castle, page I would make it a priority to listen to Lia Ices. Her notes would float around the turrets and echo through the gaps in the brickwork. You would be able to hear her singing, tadalafil bringing ‘him’ closer from the meadows and the seas. The strings gently touching the heart, more about and increasing the speed of the hoofs galloping at an increasingly quickening pace. So beautifully feverish is this music.
As it is, I live in a basement flat in Bristol. Although I did work in a Tudor castle whilst at university and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t stand at the top, look to sea, hair flaying behind me, and feel a certain magic. I’m sure I looked ridiculous/a mess, but there is an at oneness that comes with looking out to the infinity of the sea from up high, it’s filled with an ambition and truth. Also a stark contrast to the steps and blades of tall grass (weeds), I look at from my desk. I’m not implying you need to own a grand sort of graded building to listen to Lia Ices, but her voice is so much more than something to whack on the karaoke on a saturday night, or for a little house shindig. I often get accused of putting on depressing music when people come round to the basement flat, but alas, they are mistaken! But so too am I. This music is not depressing, it is special, not for groups to revel in, red wine tipping on my (cream) carpets. Oh no, this is for wafting.
The light notes mix with the heavy use of strings to delicious effect. Classically trained, a graduate of New York’s Tisch School of the Arts, Ices uses her voice together with the instruments with utter ease. A combination of Tori Amos, Enya, Regina Spektor and Sia. The instruments, her voice inclusive, flit between jumpy, feisty to explosions of streaming notes. She has elements of Joni Mitchell to her, filled to the brim with emotion and captivating. New Myth has an almost military sound to it, with trumpets blowing. Ice Wine stops and starts with strings, before unleashing with a ratter of a drum. She has one duet, Daphne, with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, whom I could not think of a better artist for her to be paired with. Their voices together are intensely hypnotic.
The whole album sounds as if it was born in an enchanted forest. A place removed from the evils of the world. The sacred place, where the queen fairy lives in fantasy books. With 70s hinting, billowing sleeves, Kate Bush and Fleetwood Mac, joined, it’s an album of true quality. Lia Ices album, Grown Unknown, is out now on Jagjauwar.
If I lived alone in a dark stone castle, shop I would make it a priority to listen to Lia Ices. Her notes would float around the turrets and echo through the gaps in the brickwork. You would be able to hear her singing, page bringing ‘him’ closer from the meadows and the seas. The strings gently touching the heart, and increasing the speed of the hoofs galloping at an increasingly quickening pace. So beautifully feverish is this music.
As it is, I live in a basement flat in Bristol. Although I did work in a Tudor castle whilst at university and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t stand at the top, look to sea, hair flaying behind me, and feel a certain magic. I’m sure I looked ridiculous/a mess, but there is an at oneness that comes with looking out to the infinity of the sea from up high, it’s filled with an ambition and truth. Also a stark contrast to the steps and blades of tall grass (weeds), I look at from my desk. I’m not implying you need to own a grand sort of graded building to listen to Lia Ices, but her voice is so much more than something to whack on the karaoke on a saturday night, or for a little house shindig. I often get accused of putting on depressing music when people come round to the basement flat, but alas, they are mistaken! But so too am I. This music is not depressing, it is special, not for groups to revel in, red wine tipping on my (cream) carpets. Oh no, this is for wafting.
The light notes mix with the heavy use of strings to delicious effect. Classically trained, a graduate of New York’s Tisch School of the Arts, Ices uses her voice together with the instruments with utter ease. A combination of Tori Amos, Enya, Regina Spektor and Sia. The instruments, her voice inclusive, flit between jumpy, feisty to explosions of streaming notes. She has elements of Joni Mitchell to her, filled to the brim with emotion and captivating. New Myth has an almost military sound to it, with trumpets blowing. Ice Wine stops and starts with strings, before unleashing with a ratter of a drum. She has one duet, Daphne, with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, whom I could not think of a better artist for her to be paired with. Their voices together are intensely hypnotic.
The whole album sounds as if it was born in an enchanted forest. A location removed from the evils of the world. The sacred place, where the queen fairy lives in fantasy books. With 70s hinting, billowing sleeves, Kate Bush and Fleetwood Mac, joined, it’s an album of true quality. Lia Ices album, Grown Unknown, is out now on Jagjauwar.
They met when he was hired by her mother to teach her to play the guitar. They, about it as in Big Deal: Alice Costelloe and kc Underwood, site a boy and a girl, a blonde and a brunette. They sound like Best Coast, Tennis and Cults wrapped up and swirled up in a hot tub, with the sun shining, bunnies and frogs hopping around the edges. Electric guitar dominates, but doesn’t overpower the combined voices of our protagonists. It’s almost as if the guitar is having a ball, dancing around without them, and they’re looking at it from the skies, singing our story. As Moshi Moshi say: ‘aching harmony’. Costelloe’s voice is nonchalant and sweet, 60s with modern gusto and pout. His is gentle and supportive, a deep backbone, crucial and pleasant. They are steamy, hot and full of either middle distance moodiness or penetrating eye contact into your confused youthful self. I’m thinking they will be perfect for a summer of love and all the elation and despairs it brings. Looking out of the window and simultaneously wishing to take back the last thing and for the next thing to happen. The embracing of the heat’s blurring of judgement, highly ambitious ideas, the sun setting on drama. You can almost feel it in the air can’t you? Brewing.
Big Deal‘s single; Talk, is out today on Moshi Moshi records. They have recently signed to Mute Records. Their tour dates can be found here.
Written by Helen Martin on Monday April 4th, 2011 12:25 pm
Yorkshire right now is covered in snow. Its rocky walls, pill white capped, its sheep bleeting in the wind. “Bahhh”. Very picturesque, perfect for the nostalgic Victorian Christmas we’ve never seen. Hark! What’s that I can hear? Californian sounding guitar strumming, muffled notes, twinkly idealism? It’s like suddenly I’m on a balmy beach in the 60s with my good friends, Bruce and Summer. Splendid…splendid indeed. Who is this?
It’s the Spectrals, a chap from Yorkshire called Louis Jones. Brought up on a collection of 60s and 70s soul, Motown and doo-wop, alongside elements of garage rock, he’s created an amalgamation of genres in his bedroom. Essentially I would say Jones’ music is dreamy and rock and roll. A perfect antidote to sitting on your squidgy sofa with your pastry pies and chocolate cocktails washed down with warm wine. His voice sounds faintly tinny, old school and a whole world away from seasonal affective disorder. Let’s just for a second, remember what summer is… And now, what it is/could be like to live by the sea… yep, invigorating thoughts.
Originally from Heckmondwicke, West Yorkshire, Jones was in his first band aged 15. He used to record in his bedroom with his brother on drums, but now he has a professionally recorded album; Extended Play on Moshi Moshi Records. Recorded completely on analogue in a local studio, it sounds fresh and yet blurry. Reminding me of watching bands when I was 17, around pubs in Brighton and the countryside’s nether regions. It’s The Sea and Cake, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Arctic Mokeys, Wild Beasts and Beach House. All a tiny bit off note and rolled up in a colourful knitted ensemble. It sounds very American immersed on the first listen, but then as you continue to surf about the room, it is much drier than Californian shiny pop, it’s harder, more pithy and actually, very English.
I caught up with Louis Jones fresh from his tour with Best Coast and asked him a few questions about his music.
Your music has a definite Californian glow to it. Where did you get your surfy sound inspiration from?
I realised that “surf” music was going to be really “cool”, so I made some songs with that kind of sound so I could be rich.
What would you say the music saying to its listeners?
I don’t want to say anything to the listener, the lyrics in the songs are
just about how I feel about a girl.
Do you think the 60s/70s music is preferable to now?
There’ll always be good music and there’ll always be rubbish music.
What does Yorkshire mean to you?
Yorkshire doesn’t mean anything to me, I was born here and it’s convenient
to stay here for now. I’m into both of those.
Who are you touring with at the moment
I just got back off tour with Best Coast, I love them.
Have you done any song writing whilst you have been on tour?
No I never seem to have time.
…This flippant, liberated attitude comes across in Jones’ music. He mixes the surf guitar, psychedelia and rock, before mottling the picture with glimpses of the English, trapped underneath in the exposure, adding a multi faceted quality to the Spectrals. Extended Play has got youth, attitude and style, without coming across as if it ever intended to produce such attributes.
Written by Helen Martin on Thursday December 9th, 2010 10:25 am
I was super excited to discover that Tom Vek has completed his third album Luck, which came out a few weeks ago on Moshi Moshi Records. I knew Tom Vek many years ago, when his career had just launched at the indie label where my flatmate worked, and Amelia’s Magazine had just begun – his music was part of the soundtrack to my life back then. Ten years later we are both still doing our thing, which is kind of nice to know. From the determined catchiness of Sherman (Animals in the Jungle) – which is accompanied by a deeply unsettling but brilliant video (below) – to the humour and bounce of The Tongue Avoids the Teeth, this new record is Tom Vek at his best: an album chock full of catchy songs featuring his trademark singsongy chat, all set against a backdrop of extravagant glitches. The lyrics may be inspired by the hardships and tribulations of modern life but the results are undeniably upbeat. I caught up with Tom to find out how life has been treating him…
Sherman (Animals in the Jungle)
It’s been ten years since you first burst onto the music scene with We Have Sound, and you’ve been quiet for quite some time since your second album, what have you been up to?
I released an EP with a friend from New York under the name Nothankyou, I also made an app that sorts out how shitty music looks on phones.
What were the biggest inspirations behind Luck?
Reading Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire Of The Vanities was a big reference point for Sherman, and added to my general musings about controlling your fate and stuff which runs through the record lyrically.
How do you marry the song writing process with production?
It’s kinda combined really, I produce as I go along, it’s part of the writing now, because I’m looking for some kind of sonic interest before an actual song is put together.
Broke
Did you learn any new processes or instruments to make it? if so which ones…
Um, not sure, I learnt a load of stuff between the first 2, I think that’s why this album was quicker because I knew what I was doing in the technical sense. I bought a pitch pedal and put it on a lot of things.
How long did it take to create this record?
2 years I guess..
Tom Vek by Sonia Melot.
How much has luck (or otherwise) affected your life?
Well I don’t know really, I think that’s what the whole album muses over. I think I’ve had some extraordinary luck, and I’ve also worked extremely hard at some things which yield less of an impact, so there’s an odd relationship, I always have that “the more I practise, the luckier I get” line in my heard ever since I heard it as a child, but it’s odd because I haven’t really mastered anything particular musically, but maybe that regime has been practise in itself. My latest theory is it’s a karmic thing where you can work really hard on something and the luck you earn doesn’t necessarily come straight back but in a mysterious way, which is nice because then you lead a life of injustice and blessings, which rouses the existential I guess, keeps it interesting.
Who do you hope will listen to this record, and what will they be doing at the time?
That’s a funny question, that’s a little weird to think about, I don’t know really, I tend to have a little headphone time in the evenings, maybe that kinda thing, or in a car, music’s so great for driving to.
You will be going on tour later this year – what can the audience expect from your latest live show?
3 guys trying their hardest to play all the bits, while I try to remember all the lyrics and ignore a load of people looking at me haha, they are funny things live, it just seems like a bit of a bizarre thing that I put myself through, good fun though and I’ll keep doing them so long as people want to hear sub-standard versions of the songs. I’m just kidding, the live shows are life-changing.
Lastly, what do you remember most fondly when you look back to the time of your first release ten years ago?
Being around Brick Lane, where the indie label that we made We Have Sound with were based, I had a job around the area, and I’d pop out on my lunch breaks to go have a chat about printing flyers or something, and get CDs from the other labels in the office. Releasing music was a kinda mysterious thing, not so statistically scrutinised it is now, I’m so grateful I was able to release an album in the old music industry.
Luck by Tom Vek is out now on Moshi Moshi Music – go check it out!
Written by Amelia Gregory on Tuesday June 24th, 2014 5:10 pm
