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Visit product page →Prog-influenced Nottingham quintet The Chemistry Experiment are set to release their second album, the intriguingly titled 'Gongs Played By Voice', through Fortuna POP! in January, some ten years after the release of their debut album 'The Melancholy Death Of - ¦'. Housed in beautiful artwork by the Bulgarian artist Gyukov, a set designer in communist Bulgaria, the new album sees the band conclude the transition from their indie roots with nine beautifully arranged and recorded songs that encompass such influences as Will Oldham/Bonnie Prince Billy, Tindersticks, King Crimson and Soft Machine.
Formed by songwriter Steven J. Kirk (vocals, guitar) and Paul Stone (bass) and completed by Emily Kawasaki (keyboards), Lee Tombs (flute, vocals) and Martin Craig (drums), two of the band have long since departed from their Nottingham origins with Kirk now resident in Bologna, Italy and Kawasaki living in Brighton where she plays in krautrock grrrlgruppe Slum Of Legs. The release of 'The Melancholy Death Of - ¦' in 2005 saw critical if not financial success with the NME awarding the record 8/10 and describing it as 'Strange, gargantuan rhythms, weird instrumentation and a singer who sounds like Kurt Wagner under ten feet of snow'.
If the geographic dispersion of the band wasn't challenging enough, in 2009 drummer Craig was diagnosed with MS. 'It has made drumming somewhat tricky', he says.'I still gnash my teeth to the rhythm of the music though, and I feel honoured to join the company of Ronnie Lane, Clive Burr, and Don van Vliet.' All of which may go some way to explaining the My Bloody Valentine-like gestation of their second album, although Tombs posits a more positive explanation, saying, ' Difficult second albums'are difficult because people spend 5-10 years gathering up what they need for the first, and then have to knock out the next one in a matter of months. We overcame that problem by taking ten years.'
Loosely based around the theme of seasons, elements and the sea, the album opens with the wondrous 'Hung Lam', followed by the track 'Rainy Day', on which Stone employed the little known technique of water percussion. 'Martin and I started swirling water in saucepans and tapping the edge of the pan to make the woooo noise. I'd heard something similar on an Edith Piaf record'.
The fantastically catchy 'Leo & Magician' has an even more fantastical plot. 'It's about a scarecrow who runs away from his farm, leaving the farmer (Leo) without a way to protect his crops from the birds,' says Kirk. 'Luckily Leo's friend Magician comes along, and although he can't help him with the scarecrow due to union rules, he turns Leo into a cat to scare away the birds, and that is why birds to this day are scared of cats. The scarecrow also abducts Leo's wife but I didn't want to go into that in the song.'
Other songs include the beautiful 'We Have Seasons', 'Jandek Bakery', 'The Event and the Experiment' ('It's kinda the same story as Valis by Phillip K Dick') and a cover of Leonard Cohen's 'Story of Isaac', but perhaps the standout track on the album is 'Channel Light Vessel' which Kirk describes as the best song he ever wrote and says, 'This is about the sea, and sailors, and a boy I read about on BBC news who impaled himself on a fence trying to pick conkers.'
The album concludes with the nine minute long 'A Good Wind', describing a windy day on the coast of Australia and the classic battle between good and evil, nature and synthetic, human and vocoder. Like many things about The Chemistry Experiment it's unique, slightly odd, and shouldn't really work but somehow does. In the ten years since their last record a thousand faceless indie bands have made a thousand dreary records, while The Chemistry Experiment have ploughed their idiosyncratic furrow to produce 'Gongs Played By Voices', the perfect distillation of their strange and distinct vision.Tracklisting:
1. Hung Lam
2. Rainy Day
3. Leo & Magician
4. We Have Seasons
5. Jandek Bakery
6. The Event And The Xperiment
7. Story of Isaac
8.Channel Light Vessel
9. A Good Wind -
Sold outVisit product page →For Fans Of: Pulp, Disco, Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds.
The CE have been together since 2000 and earlier this year released their debut album proper “The Melancholy Death Of…”, an ambitious work that encompassed genres as diverse as prog-rock, folktronica and disco against a backdrop of lush, orchestral pop. It was universally well received, notably by the NME (8/10) “Interstellar Autumn” EP, is a 5 track CD single showcasing, in contrast to the album’s moody magnificence, the band’s more playful pop side.
The eponymous title track is a rare cover version medley. Here They combine Justin Hayward’s 70’s classic “Forever Autumn” (War Of The Worlds’ ost) with Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive”. The result is equal parts madness and inspiration, but played with such conviction that there is no hint of novelty.
Equal billing on the EP is shared with “You’re The Prettiest Thing”, the stand-out track from debut album, its Chic production and Studio 54 glamour enough to send you spinning optimistically across the disco floor.
Completing the EP are three more songs exclusive to this release: “Karin”, an uptempo pop number reminiscent of Pulp in their pomp; a cover of label mates The Butterflies of Love’s “Belt and Shoelaces” that adds a dance beat and a vocoder to the original’s musings on terrorism and the police state; and a radio edit of “Forever Autumn”.
Tracklisting:
1. Interstellar Autumn
2. You're The Prettiest Thing
3. Karin
4. Belt And Shoelaces
5. Forever Autumn (Radio Edit) -
Sold outVisit product page →FFOf: Tindersticks, Pulp, Prog-Rock, Disco 'The Melancholy Death of¦ follows the release in 2002 of the Giraffe album, a comp of early singles and outtakes, and encompasses genres as diverse as prog-rock, folktronica and disco against a backdrop of lush, orchestral pop.
They have been played by John Peel, and had a page feature in Careless Talk Costs Lives. The core group members have been together since 2000, when they first met in the snooker halls and lending libraries of Nottingham.
TCE have taken their influences and sifted them through their own music filter to produce what is simply the most musically inventive record of 2005. Dismiss them at your peril.
"A glorious cross-pollination of B&S folksiness and Tindersticks melancholy with a twisted experimental heart" Uncut
Tracklisting:
1. Starlite Ballroom
2. 2:30am : Killing Puffins
3. Glue + Paper
4. You're The Prettiest Thing
5. Thoughts On Gravity
6. Good Morning
7. Stopped Clocks
8. What Are We Good For
9. I Remember
10. We Were Never Wrong
11. I Wish I Could Cry
