Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou on tour with Thousands
“Fairport Conventions’s folk with Fleetwood Mac’s pop sensibilities”
NME
“The real thing… like harvest itself coming into bloom”
Artrocker
Hot off the heels of their stunning show at The Social last week, described as having “so much harmony here that you forget about how discordant everything else is outside the beautiful world they have built” by the NME, the inimitable Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou will join Thousands on tour around the country next week, starting at the Slaughtered Lamb on Thursday 31 March.
The new album “Quality First, Last and Forever!’ is due for release on 20 June, more details to follow soon.
Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou UK Dates with Thousands:
Thu 31 March — London Slaughtered Lamb
www.musicglue.com/whatson
Sun 3 April — Oxford Jericho Tavern
www.all-tickets.co.uk
Mon 4 April — Nottingham Lee Rosys Tea Room
www.all-tickets.co.uk
Tue 5 April — Manchester Castle Hotel
www.all-tickets.co.uk
Fri 8 April — Glasgow School Of Arts
www.synergyconcerts.com
Sun 10 — April Leeds Nation Of Shopkeepers — FREE
A very Heavenly Spring …
It’s finally Spring, and we thought what better way to celebrate than with our first Heavenly newsletter.
We’ve made our way through a winter (fuelled by The Social’s spicey warm cider) and we are now through to the other side with a whole lot to show/share with you. We’re entering Spring following some incredible tours, new signings and album releases. Here’s an insight into the world of the Heavenly HQ for those of you who may also have been hidden away, with your hands by the fire for the past 5 months.
SO HERE’S INTRODUCING …
LCMDF — Love & Nature
LCMDF’s incredibly vibrant, leftfield pop has already gained them countless fans, earning them the top spot on Hype Machine.
Finnish sisters — Emma and Mia Kemppainen have embossed on their debut LP the kind of skewed pop vision that recalls the likes of TomTom Club, Neneh Cherry and Shaun Ryder. It’s immediate and accessible as it is dazzlingly unique and unblinking, hyper coloured record that balances pop gratification with deftly intricate production.
Album of the month ”The best pop record of the year”
5***** – Artrocker
“Full of vivid, vital, flicking-the-V vigour, this all-Finnish, female Nineties beats and 10/10 fashion scores.”
– Clash
“Love & Nature delivers the sort of thrilling electro-pop that Scandinavia has excelled in for years, but the Kemppainen siblings offer something truly different. Think Happy Mondays, MIA and, in its more frenzied moments, The Go! Team.“
4 **** — Irish Independent
“Spirit-lifting electro pop at its best”
4**** — Attitude
“These girls are suit¬ably wild enough to go the distance”
8/10 –Vice
James Walbourne — The Hill
Despite still only being in his late 20s James Walbourne’s musical pedigree is already an enviable one. Stints playing with the likes of The Pernice Brothers, Son Volt, Jay Farrar and The Pogues and session work with Jerry Lee Lewis, Edwyn Collins and Linda Thompson amongst others have gained him respect beyond his years.
The Hill, named as a nod to Muswell Hill, Walbourne’s locale, is beautifully soulful, full of deftly written songs and features Jim Keltner on drums (primarily know for his session work with Bob Dylan and on solo recordings by three of The Beatles — George, John & Ringo) and Ivan Neville on keyboards.
“Delicious flavours of country-rock, folk and bluegrass”
Telegraph 4/5
“Brilliant”
Mojo 4/5
“10 prefectly formed songs with soaring hooks – a stellar bunch”
Q 4/5
Sea of Bees — Songs For The Ravens
Sea of Bees came to our attention via a very astute American publicist who is an avid reader of Heavenly’s Caught by the River website and instinctively thought that we would appreciate the music. He didn’t actually know that he was sending it to a record label at the time but we will forever be in his debt.
Songs For The Ravens is the debut album from 26 year-old singer songwriter Julie Baenziger. She has spent the last couple of months on a tour that started in the UK and then took her around Europe; her live shows mesmerising critics and fans alike. She is now back in the UK playing support for John Grant. Catch her while she’s here and before she flies back to the US for a string of more live shows.
“Heavenly Recording’s Charmingly whimsical, lo-fi countrified acoustician,”
Time Out
“California songsmith swaps sheltered upbringing for musical self-discovery.”
4****review Mojo
“Julie Ann Baenziger combines dreamy lyrics with a seductive voice, warm, succulent and ripe with emotion.”
Uncut
“A stripped-to-the-soul labor of love and testament to tenaciousness.…reflective and rather magical”
Clash
“There’s a mesmeric appeal to Baenziger’s vulnerable voice.”
4****review The Independent
“Her songs have enveloping layers of sunshine punk, poised grace, rockin’ rumbles and yearning harmony. Make sure you get stung.”
4****review The Mirror
“…a lovely sound, and a heartfelt one.”
The Guardian
“…a journey in the best possible way; slowly seeping under your skin, revealing new textures and new sonic touches as the running time gets deeper.”
Music OMH
“Ladies and Gentlemen we’ve fallen in love…”
5 *****review star review GT
COMING SOON …
Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou
The south London based husband and wife, Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou, have recently been signed to Heavenly. They are just back from tour, where they played live in tin-tabernacles across the UK. The corrugated iron pop up churches, dubbed ‘tin-tabernacles’, were put up 100 years ago, intended as temporary sites for groups of people moving around the country, starting congregations within new communities. They were setup with the presumption they’d be destroyed as soon as the congregation could build something more permanent. As a result there are few left standing. Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou played in these fragile places, bringing people under the same tin roofs once again.
We are very excited to have just finished mastering their new album, which is set for release in June. Literally watch this space…
The Head and The Heart
The Head and The Heart, signed to Sub Pop in the USA, came to Heavenly for their UK release.
The Seattle based 6 piece have just got back from SXSW festival and are ready to release their self titled album. Spinner.com say of a The Head and The Heart performance at the Ausitn Festival this weekend — “If you like guitars, thundering drums, beautiful women and the type of vocal harmonies that take you away to where problems don’t exist anymore, then see The Head and The Heart at your earliest convenience. And we mean, like, now.“
The Head and The Heart will be over in the U.K. in April, supporting The Low Anthem and headlining The Hoxton Bar & Kitchen on the 12th. Click poster for ticket link.
UP & RUNNING …
Cherry Ghost — Beneath This Burning Shoreline
Cherry Ghost are singer songwriter and Ivor Novello award winning Simon Aldred, Jim Rhodes, Ben Parsons, Grenville Harop and Phil Anderson.
The Band released their second album ‘Beneath This Burning Shoreline’ in July last year to a flurry of critical acclaim. The band took a year to dutifully stitch all these songs together. They did so in a barn on a tiny farm south of Manchester, where they sat on mattresses as they played their instruments, and put their amps on toilet lids. They finished sessions in the early morning as the farmer headed out to milk the cows. Beneath This Burning Shoreline is the ocean, the water, the terror, the tenderness; of life in all its messy, magical splendour.
“It’s a marvellous piece of work which confirms how tight a grip pop can take on art, with a little focus and dtermination”
**** The Independent
“In a year crowded with outstanding album releases, Cherry Ghost could well have released one of the best of the year”
**** Music OMH
“…beautiful songs about real life…”
**** Q
“careworn glamour that Aldred has in spades”
**** The Times
“The quintessential brooding romantic, Aldred isn’t one for treading lightly”
**** The Guardian
Edwyn Collins — Losing Sleep
We are delighted to have Edwyn Collins with us at Heavenly Recordings. ‘Losing Sleep’ is Edwyn’s 7th solo album & has been critically lauded as his best. With collaborations from the likes of The Drums, Franz Ferdinand, The Cribs, Johnny Marr & The Magic Numbers and his celebratory live shows which stoke the soul and end in standing ovations. This is the sound of a true legend showing how it’s done.
“He’s made one of the best British albums of the year”
NME
“Collins’ seventh solo album is exceptional – a ray of sunshine”
***** Telegraph
“battering northern beats and upful riffs and melodies set the pulse
a-racing.”
Mojo
****
“rock and soul of driving and soothing varieties”
Q
****
BRAND NEW ‘SHADOW OF AN EMPIRE VINYL LP RELEASE! …
Fionn Regan — The Shadow of an Empire
The Shadow of an Empire was initially released on CD in February 2010 and has now, a year later been released on vinyl. The album was picked up by Diverse Records, an independent ‘vinyl only’ record label, who have re-mastered it after being handed over the hard disk containing the original high resolution studio files.
Fionn produced the album himself (as was the case with the 2007 Mecury Prize nominated ‘The End of History’). Fionn bought himself a trident desk and a tape machine, set up in a small disused factory space in Co. Wicklow, Ireland and set about making the album without interference. “There were no airs or graces about it, we cut live in the room, live vocals. As far as production goes I’m very much into keeping mistakes — a crack in the voice, the natural ebb and flow of live drums, so that there’s sort of evidence of the process. I think it’s that atmosphere which makes me want to revisit my favourite albums again and again.”
**** Mojo
**** Uncut
**** Q
**** The Guardian
**** Irish Times
**** Observer
**** Metro
Fionn is currently in the studio putting the finishing touches to his 3rd album.
THE HEAVENLY EMPORIUM …
it’s always worth checking out what we’ve got for sale in the Heavenly Emporium. Latest releases & unearthed classics from the back of our cupboard going for a song.
We also have some cracking 7″ vinyl for sale from Doug Paisley, The Edwyn Collins 7″ singles, Fionn Regan, The Head & The Heart & Carl & Danny’s Fitzrovian Phonographic label.
THE HEAVENLY SOUNDCLOUD …
Check out our new Soundcloud page for loads of free (as a bird) downloads & remixes!http://soundcloud.com/heavenlyrecordings
HEAVENLY FACEBOOK …
For daily updates of all things Heavenly head to our facebook page
HEAVENLY TWITTER …
& your bird can tweet! & it does, click here for Heavenly’s tweets.
Onwards & upwards
Heavenly bird
Spring 2011 x
Garson Byer — In a Lonely Place: London
*Exhibition launches Monday 28th March and runs until mid June*
RSVP carl@thesocial.com if you can make the launch party.
The Social
5 Little Portland Street
W1
Garson Byer is a London based street photographer, fascinated by people and places that appear to be from another time, as if the tide went out and left a kind of ‘rockpool’ behind. It can be difficult to
determine where and when they were taken, sometimes even the decade. Nearly twenty years on, time has compounded this distortion and added more mystery.
“I’m drawn to the people around us that most of us don’t notice are there. These photographs prove they were there, but hidden in plain sight. The world may have changed in twenty years but they can still found all around us.“
Shown in public for the first time, the net effect of these images is
dark and apocalyptic. Byer has produced a photo book of over 70 images
from the last 20 years — In A Lonely Place :: London — to be launched
at The Social on the 28th March.
Photobook published by In A Lonely Press. 80pp,
Softcover £25,
Hardcover £35.00
available from the website from March 28th.
www.inalonelyplace.org
Exhbition Prints Sponsored by www.metroimaging.co.uk
Edwyn Collins
Just like he’s been doing for 40 years, Edywn Collins had an idea for a song. And just like he’s had to do for the past three years, given that he can no longer write on one of his treasured guitars, he got out his Sony Dictaphone.
“The chorus I got in an instant,” the 50-year-old Scottish musical legend remembers of Losing Sleep, the invigorating title track of his new, seventh solo album. “And the verse is dodgy. What to do? I know: try oo-oohs. Singing oo-oohs. And so on. I tried mucking about with the verse. And I thought, Seb will help me with the verse. And, no bother.”
Seb would help him. And so, it transpired, would Franz Ferdinand, The Drums, The Cribs, Johnny Marr, The Magic Numbers and Roddy Frame. Just some of the artists who’ve been inspired by the godlike Edwyn Collins, whether as leader of Orange Juice or as solo artist. Losing Sleep had lift off.
Seb is engineer and producer Sebastian Lewsley. He and Edwyn have been working together since 1992. They met in Sonet studio in Chiswick. Seb was the studio assistant and Edwyn was producing former Subway Sect frontman Vic Godard’s album The End Of The Surrey People. Edwyn and Seb bonded over a shared disregard for recording convention. That is, neither liked to muck about, both liked old gear, and neither had time for fussy musicians who endlessly faffed about trying to get their guitar sounds just-so.
When, in October 2008, Edwyn decided he wanted to make his first album since his catastrophic illness in 2005, Seb was the obvious right-hand man.
“We did each song in a day,” says Seb, “and a day consists of about four hours. So there’s a real expediency about how it’s recorded. The whole attitude of the album is just doing that. Not indulging anyone. Not having any band sitting round for days and days. ‘Have you got a guitar part yet? No? Just do it. You’ve got a coupla hours.’ They all looked quite petrified but they did it.”
At home in Kilburn, northwest London, on the evening of Sunday 20th February 2005 – sometime around Antiques Roadshow and midway through boiling the potatoes for dinner – Edwyn Collins suffered a stroke. Five days later he suffered a second stroke.
This singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer, musical legend, accomplished wildlife artist and father-of-one was only 45.
Edwyn spent six months in hospital. As his partner Grace Maxwell put it succinctly in 2007: “The part of Edwyn’s brain that controls speech and language was very badly hurt.“
That is: he couldn’t speak, read, write. Nor, initially, could he sit up. Nor walk. He lost movement in his right side. He couldn’t feed himself. When he returned home to Kilburn in September 2005, the only words Edwyn Collins could say were “Grace”, “Maxwell”, “yes and ‘no’.
By early summer 2007, he – they – had been undergoing daily, arduous rehabilitation therapy for two intense but ultimately rewarding years. Rewarding because Edywn came back from, if not death, then something that had seemed at times hellishly close to that.
By 2009, Edwyn Collins was firmly back in the studio saddle. He and Seb rattled on with newfound – re-found – purpose.
“That conversation between Edwyn and the process of recording is coming back,” says Seb. “Which wasn’t so much there right back when we started recording. When we started mixing Home Again he didn’t want to do it. ‘Cause he didn’t understand it. Now he’s like, ‘hmmm, too much compression on that. You’re too close to the mic…’ He picks up on that now. The studio is more of an instrument again for Edwyn.”
Like the “outside” production assignments he and Seb have re-started, ‘Losing Sleep’ has also been part of his ongoing mental and physical rehabilitation.
“Yeah,” he declares, empathically, smilingly, brilliantly, “I’m back. And I like it.”
David Harsent’s — Night
David Harsent’s Night
Having been given this book a few weeks ago by a friend I did not stop reading it over and over until I gave my copy away drunk in the Golden Heart last week. This was good. Not only did I need to stop obsessing about this thing, but also the man I gave it to will have his life irrevocably altered for the better by the dreamy, hallucinatory beauty within the already battered dark blue paperback.
David Harsent reads ‘Spatchcock’ from FaberBooks on Vimeo.
Like me, he will find himself walking for a month alone, in the twilight of Harsent’s precise, almost tangibly fragile Garden Sequence. He will drink beer and fuck to the recipe in Spatchcock. He will rip him off in his own writing. He will tell everybody about the poems and give the book away. He will think about blood and night and nature as a seductive nightmare detective narrative.
The night I gave the book away I fell asleep listening to a radio play version of Raymond Chandler’s Lady In The Lake. I woke up throughout the night, restless, and dreaming of disappearing.
W.Burns
William Burn’s poems are currently featured in the Sideshow exhibition at The Social until the end of the month, that being March 2011.
John Andrews reviewed the show for Caught By The River.
The Shadow of an Empire released on vinyl
The Shadow of an Empire was initially released on CD in February 2010 and has now, a year later, been released on vinyl. The album was picked up by Diverse Records, an independent ‘vinyl only’ record label, who have re-mastered it after being handed over the hard disk containing the original high resolution studio files.
As with his debut album ‘The End of History’, Fionn produced ‘The Shadow of an Empire’ himself.
“There were no airs or graces about it, we cut live in the room, live vocals. The piano had come off a cruise ship and we wheeled it down the road. The guy who sold it to us threw a couple of cheap Silvertone guitars and a circus drum into the bargain. As far a production goes I’m very much into keeping mistakes, a crack in the voice, the natural ebb and flow of live drums, so that there’s a sort of evidence of the process. I think it’s that atmosphere which makes me want to revisit my favourite albums again and again”
Click here to buy the record.
**** Mojo **** Uncut **** Q **** Irish Times **** Guardian **** Observer **** Metro ‘The Shadow of an Empire’ has been awarded 4 **** across the board for it’s timeless song craft, attitude & poetry.
Fionn Regan ‘Shadow Of An Empire’ 12″
DIV026LP
Fionn Regan
Shadow Of An Empire
1. Coat Hook
2. Protection Racket
3. Genocide Matinee
4. Violent Demeanor
5. Catacombs
6. Little Nancy
7. Lord Help My Poor Soul
8. Lines Written In Winter
9. House Detective
10. The Shadow Of An Empire
The Shadow of an Empire was initially released on CD in February 2010 and has now, a year later, been released on vinyl. The album was picked up by Diverse Records, an independent ‘vinyl only’ record label, who have re-mastered it after being handed over the hard disk containing the original high resolution studio files.
As with his debut album ‘The End of History’, Fionn produced ‘The Shadow of an Empire’ himself.
“There were no airs or graces about it, we cut live in the room, live vocals. The piano had come off a cruise ship and we wheeled it down the road. The guy who sold it to us threw a couple of cheap Silvertone guitars and a circus drum into the bargain. As far a production goes I’m very much into keeping mistakes, a crack in the voice, the natural ebb and flow of live drums, so that there’s a sort of evidence of the process. I think it’s that atmosphere which makes me want to revisit my favourite albums again and again”
Listen to ‘Violent Demeanour’ taken from the album on our soundcloud…
HVNLP75CD Fionn Regan — Violent Demeanour by heavenlyrecordings
LCMDF ‘Love and Nature’ out now
LCMDF’s incredibly vibrant, leftfield pop has gained them countless fans, earning them the top spot on Hype Machine, out-ranking even Kanye West.
Finnish sisters — Emma & Mia Kemppainen have embossed on their debut LP the kind of skewed pop vision that recalls the likes of Tom Tom Club, Neneh Cherry and Shaun Ryder. It’s immediate and accessible as it is dazzlingly unique – an unblinking, hyper-coloured record that balances pop gratification with deftly intricate production.
HVNLP83
LCMDF
Love & Nature
1. Take Me To The Mountains
2. Gandhi
3. Cool and Bored
4. Future Me
5. Hard Smile
6. Something Golden
7. We Are Cannibals
8. Time (Have I Lost My Mind)
9. Beach Life
10. Pumping Heart Shaped Thing
“Album of the month”
“The best pop record of the year”
5*****
– Artrocker
“Channels Neneh Cherry early Madonna and all other things fun”
–NME
“Weird and wonderful in equal measure”
–The Guard ian Guide
“Full of vivid, vital, flicking-the-V vigour, this all-Finnish, female Nineties beats and 10/10 fashion scores.”
–Clash
“Weird and wonderful pop”
–The Fly
“Amazing pop”
–Gay Times
“These girls are suitably wild enough to go the distance”
8/10
–Vice
*****
12 inch vinyl — £20
available from the Heavenly Emporium
CD — £10
available from the Heavenly Emporium
Digital download — £4.99 for a limited time only
available from the iTunes Store
Also, check out the downloadable LCMDF tracks and remixes on the Heavenly SoundCloud.
Edwyn Collins ‘Nature Punk’ 26th February — 6th March 2011
Edwyn Collins is regarded as one of Britain’s great music talents. He has been honoured with an Ivor Novello Award and is cited as an influence by many of today’s most successful bands with whom he collaborates. However, Collins considers himself first and foremost to be an illustrator.
Collins’ studies of native Scottish bird life and other creatures are also a great testament to the patience and perseverance of a person living through a recovery process. His well documented double brain haemorrhage in 2005 robbed Collins of the most basic of motor skills but through six years of rehabilitation, largely through art and drawing itself, Collins has regained some, if not all, of these skills. Following on from an exhibition in 2008 of similar works this new collection displays Collins’ returning artistic talent as the eclipse of his illness diminishes.
The exhibition will show an exclusive look at the full body of work from the early simple line drawings to his most recent pieces, brimming with colour and the majesty of the birds themselves. Collins’ drawings are almost all dated and show a humbling progression. Still without the use of his right arm following his illness Collins has used the quiet contemplation of drawing to slowly retrain his body and retrieve the abilities he previously possessed. This exhibition will include many of Collins’ most intricate and technically proficient works of the last six years, many of which have not yet been seen by the public. Furthermore Collins will be creating several large scale versions of his studies especially for our show.
“Drawing is natural, relaxing, instinctive. In music, I’m always striving for something. It’s my passion, but its hard work. Drawing is also my passion, but is simpler for me. It’s a pleasure” Edwyn Collins.
The beauty of the works and the quiet energy channelled into them create a humbling and affirming impression. The brilliance of nature, in the form of the birds Collins’ has drawn and journey he has been through in order to do this are expertly captured in this exhibition.
Born in Edinburgh 1959 to parents who met at Edinburgh Art School Edwyn’s farther, Peter Collins was one of the youngest people to be created a RSC during his twenties. Peter Collins works, in particular those from his Magical Realism period hang today in The National Gallery of Scotland. Edwyn spent much of his young life surrounded by his parents many artist friends, already sketching birds as a child his works caught the attention of James MacIntosh Patrick and a trade was arrange. Young Collins gave MacIntosh Patrick a Barn Owl drawing and received a watercolour of a copse.
“When he was 19, Edwyn’s duties as an illustrator for Glasgow Parks would occasionally involve guiding school parties around nature trails. He told me that the kids, taking in his un-teacherly appearance, asked him: “Sir, are you a punk?”, “Yes, children. I’m Nature Punk!” Grace Maxwell, Edwyn Collins’ Wife, Manager and author of “Falling & Laughing: The Restoration of Edwyn Collins”
The call of rock ‘n’ roll would pull Collins away from illustration in the eighties, he and friend Alan Horne formed their own record label, Postcard Records of Scotland. Collins still utilised his artistic skills designing record sleeves, posters and other promotional materials for his releases. Collins’ band, Orange Juice, enjoyed a number eight hit single with “Rip It Up” in 1985, although the band soon disbanded Collins continued with a solo career. His track “A Girl Like You” was a success on both sides of the Atlantic in 1994 and in the same year Collins built his own
recording studio.
Collins’ seventh album “Losing Sleep”, the first to be recorded since his illness was released by Heavenly Records in September 2010 receiving rave reviews. An impressive cast of successful and critically acclaimed contemporary musicians collaborated with Collins for this album including The Cribs’ Ryan Jarman and Johnny Marr, Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos and Nicky McCarthy, The Magic Numbers’ Romeo Stodart and The Drums. Collins embarks on a European tour in February 2011 before heading to both the USA and Japan in March.
For more on Edwyn, his music and artwork visit www.edwyncollins.com
To be added to the guestlist for the private view on March 3rd email galleryassistant@ideageneration.co.uk
Edwyn Collins ‘Nature Punk’
26th February — 6th March 2011
Private View Thursday 3rd March
Idea Generation Gallery
11 Chance Street, Bethnal Green, E2 7JB
Tel: 020 7749 6850
www.ideageneration.co.uk
Opening Hours
Monday to Friday: 10 — 6pm
Saturday & Sunday: 12 — 5pm
Admission Free
