Richard Hawley

On Friday October 26th, Last Harbour return to Sheffield when they come to WagonWheel Presents… as part of their latest tour promoting critically acclaimed new album ‘Your Heart, It Carries The Sound’. Joining them at Shakespeares will be Tomorrow We Sail and more. Advance tickets priced at £4 are available from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/181133. Entry on the night will be £5. Doors open 8pm.


***LAST HARBOUR***



Based in Manchester, Last Harbour are an expansive collective playing “swooning dustbowl baroque” (Plan B) that is “rich and foreboding” (Drowned in Sound) . From dusty laments to doom- filled rock, from starkly beautiful duets to drifting clouds of looped noise, the only claims they make for their music are that it is honest and heartfelt.

Their new album ‘ Your Heart, It Carries The Sound ‘ was written in isolation in a small Northumbrian cottage in October 2010 and recorded in April 2011 in St Margaret’s Church, Manchester. The songs are recorded almost entirely live, with producer Sam Lench employing the church as a soundstage. His approach carefully uses the architecture of the building to sculpt and shape the music, creating a sense of the band within the space.

This new album sees a different approach from their previous album ‘ Volo ‘ (2010) , a dense, textured album co-produced by Richard Formby (best known for his recent work with Wild Beasts). For ‘ Your Heart, It Carries The Sound ‘, the band stripped back the arrangements and placed a mature, more direct concentration at the core of each song. The confident, intimate vocal of K Craig is at the centre, the instrumentation is sparser, and the band’s line-up has changed with piano, tenor guitar, heavily-processed guitar effects and organ to the fore. The addition of vintage analogue synths and waves of natural reverb give ‘ Your Heart, It Carries The Sound ‘ a timeless, ephemeral aspect.

“This album sounds magnificent.” The Sunday Times

“With their gothic archness and deathly strings, Last Harbour offer chilly, semi- orchestral comforts from the same tangled patch of briar as The Bad Seeds and Tindersticks.” Uncut

“The sheer beauty of Last Harbour’s songs is hugely uplifting. Equals the best of Lee & Nancy.” What’s On In London

http://www.lastharbour.co.uk


***TOMORROW WE SAIL***



Tomorrow We Sail is a group of seven musicians based in Leeds and Sheffield. Formed in 2009 they have spent time developing and honing their sound into what is now a vast landscape of reverb-soaked guitars, orchestral strings, piano, accordion and multi-layered vocals.

Their influences are as far-ranging as folk, slowcore, neoclassicism and post-rock and their sound has been described as ‘glacial’, ‘ethereal’ and ‘epic’, drawing comparisons with bands such as Sigur Ros, Elbow, Her Name Is Calla and Gregor Samsa.

http://www.tomorrowwesail.co.uk


Facebook Event page:

http://www.facebook.com/events/349394638477977

Last.fm Event page:

http://www.last.fm/event/3367103

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http://www.last.fm/user/TheWagonMaster

"you ain't afraid of no alleyway when you are the thing in the dark"

Ok, the other bits of important information. The 'more' will be The Listeners (details follow). This gig is only a fortnight on Friday away. It will be our penultimate show of 2012 at the Shakey. Just £4 if you buy in advance/ask nicely, a fiver will get you in on the door. This is what Last Harbour sound like and i'm currently in love with this song:




***THE LISTENERS***



“Tell them I came, and no one answered. That I kept my word”

From ‘The Listeners’, by Walter de la Mare.

The Listeners is Emma Thorpe – on her own or with her collaborators. She sings in cinematic detail from a small town on the North Nottinghamshire borders.

Thorpe was born into music – her mother taught her to finger-pick, introducing her to the music of PJ Harvey, Sandy Denny, Susan Vega, Roy Harper and Bob Dylan along the way; Her father Kevin was well respected on the blues scene for his albums with Out Of The Blue; And her aunt managed Welsh psychedelic legends Man.

Despite this heritage Thorpe has shaped her own evocative sound. Sometimes wilfully naive, sometimes considered and precise – her choice of chords is particular and unusual and her finger-picking weaves a strange atmosphere – the likes of which you’d more likely find in a Lynch film or a novel by Bolano than in the sculpted folk of her inspirations. And like those who inspire her – Nick Cave, Patti Smith, William Blake, she loves to muse on nature & religion: God, the devil, good and evil, and like the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood she tries to tell it like it is – to reveal both the beauty and the devastation of life: Red Dust portrays human insignificance under darkening skies; Dinner For One traces the fading past of a destroyed relationship; You wouldn’t think that it took years for Thorpe to accept her own arresting voice and lyrical vision. Time well spent in distillation perhaps: This is music that is close to the source. These are songs, born of tradition, alive in the present day, revealing & fragile, excecuted spare and sharp.

“The Listeners were f*cking brilliant last night” Richard Hawley

“Alternately gentle and dramatic… like PJ Harvey pissed off, unplugged and wearing a kaftan.” Music Mart

“Stirring stuff…like Nico back from the grave for an autumn night’s campfire singalong, while their hushed mid-set tracks recall “Ocean of Noise” Arcade Fire.” This City

http://listeners.tumblr.com/

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"you ain't afraid of no alleyway when you are the thing in the dark"

This is tonight. Last Harbour have released a new EP 'Replacements' to coincide with their tour, featuring, funnily enough, the song Replacements, plus 3 acoustic versions recorded for a radio session of tracks from current album Your Heart, It Carries The Sound. You can download the EP for FREE here: http://lastharbourmusic.bandcamp.com/album/replacements

One of the acoustic tracks is the song Never that's in that video up there ^^^

Kicks off from very shortly after 8pm tonight with The Listeners.

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http://www.wagonwheelmedia.co.uk
http://www.last.fm/user/TheWagonMaster

"you ain't afraid of no alleyway when you are the thing in the dark"

Review from Sloucher of this gig...

http://sloucher.org/2012/11/05/gig-revi ... more-12755

_________________
http://www.wagonwheelmedia.co.uk
http://www.last.fm/user/TheWagonMaster

"you ain't afraid of no alleyway when you are the thing in the dark"