Album Review
Everything Everything – Arc
Second album maintains balance that made debut a success.
On the one hand this is Math Rock. Clever Music. A reaction against ‘the slackers’. Complex, infectious, angular, art-pop electro-funk. Fidgety, itchy and antsy.
There are philosophical/poetic lyrics and it’s down to the listener to figure out what on earth they are about. The album's second single Kemosabe states: “Our war is the crucible of all your longing”... “Do you feel like your brain stopped delivering?” My guess is they are saying that nothing is clever enough these days but they are here to save the day? - maybe. :/
This high falutin is intertwined with euphoric, uplifting, transcendant, songs that are more for the heart than the head. Here you can calm down for a breather with Coldplay/Elbow -esque tracks like The Peaks and Radiant. The music is major key regular 4/4 - recognisable and friendly. "I don't want to think about it all I'm tired" run the lyrics of lovesong Duet.
Without that balance it can feel like a high concept musical fortress.
The singer makes notably frequent use of the split between his falsetto and normal voice, all the while maintaining his Northern lilt. Some singers do this occasionally but he makes it a regular feature. It’s a risky tactic - much easier to go out of tune but when done right it produces impressive results.
Feeds Interview
Feeds are a 5 piece band that met on the same course (Music Technology and Popular Music) at Huddersfield uni. They graduated in June 2012. They consist of Frazer Merrick (Acoustic Guitar and Lead Vocals), David O’Grady (Keys and Backing Vocals), Sam Prowse (Lead Guitar), Sam Creamer (Drums) and Adam Clarke (Bass).
Frazer and Dave tell the story of the group.
The Start
[Dave] We first got together to have a jam. I knew Sam Creamer was renowned as being one of the best drummers in the year and Prowse was a very good electric guitarist. I knew Frazer had good song writing skills and Adam was a shit hot bassist.
First it was just playing covers and then we had one module where we had to write a large composition. We were encouraged to play it live with other people on the course.
Songwriting
[Dave] Frazer is the one that will come up with the first little musical riff or and then he'll bring it to the team and we’ll pick it apart until it’s good.
Everything we do is hyper-collaborative. We've got to the point now where we're really comfortable with working with each other.
[Frazer] You're putting those ideas out there that might be really personal to and quite sensitive and we are -with the upmost subtlety- not afraid to say “no we can find something better than that.” We all want to do what's best for the song.
Lyrically I like to do things very descriptive. In my head I’m looking around this imaginary room going ‘what's in here? What's happening?’
There's a new song called ‘Boy I Believe’ which is about trying to remember a dream when you wake up in the morning. You're always trying to get to it and it just falls away from you.
There's another song new song called ‘Into Over’ – that’s about this thing where you walk past someone or you smell something and it just triggers a memory.
If you've ever been on a train journey and you're looking out the window, you're just staring out there. It’s everyone’s most philosophical moment when you're sat there contemplating the world. I like to listen to the sort of music that makes you think and allows you the space to do that.
Influences
At the start we were really influenced by the first Maroon Five album. They were really screwed on in terms of interesting chord progressions. I remember we also covered a Stereophonics track.
[Frazer] Radiohead are the first band I go to and I adore the production on the new Maccabees album. It's just phenomenal. Everything is silky smooth.
[Dave] I've been influenced by Stevie Wonder from a young age so I've always been interested in complex harmony bringing a little bit of the jazz aspect into it.
The main stuff guitarist Sam and drummer Sam listen to is metal like Avenge Sevenfold, Killswitch Engage and August Burns Red. That’s their daily bread.
Education
The course at Huddersfield allowed us to approach things from a slightly more technical point of view. We're all music trained. We pick apart chords and pick apart harmonies when we're layering things up. We can all read music we've all got a good ear so we know what's right and what's not.
We have a lot more of a grip on trying to find the sound that we want because we know what production techniques to use to make a certain kind of sound. We filmed and edited the ‘Sleepyhead’ video ourselves because we had done a video production module.
Exposure
I think we've got just over 12,000 hits at the moment on our YouTube page. 'Willow' has got about 4,500 views which we're well chuffed with.
We’ve sold at least 400 copies of our last EP 'Words of a Fool’, but the money just goes straight back out as petrol money. We pay for recording costs up front out of our own pocket and then once we've got enough in the kitty to pay ourselves back we will.
We’ve done just under 50 gigs. We played out first one in March 2010. We went on placement year in 2011 so we disbanded for a year. Dave and I were in studios in London. Guitarist Sam was in a studio in Sheffield. Bassist Adam was in a PA equipment company in Newcastle.
When we graduated we did a couple of festivals and did two gigs a week until December. We have some time off now to do writing but fingers crossed that May/June time we will be back to doing at least a gig a week.
The best gig we’ve done was at Hull City Hall supporting a covers band called the Beautiful Couch. It was a huge stage 3 or 4 hundred people watching us with so much space on stage the sound equipment and the tech there were phenomenal everything was sounding so great.
Work
I've just got a job at the new apple store and I’ve had work with a radio jingles company that also produces karaoke covers for spotify.
Pretty much a month after Sam Creamer finished his degree got a full-time job. He works for an Ariel surveying company editing maps. It’s not something I think he wants to do for the rest of his life it just fell onto his lap as soon as he came out.
Adam is a teaching assistant at a secondary school and he's enjoying that. Prowse is working for Burtons. I [Dave] was working for C'ex over Christmas but I’m looking for something new at the minute.
Practice
[Frazer] Dave and I are living in a house in Leeds with a couple of mates from uni. Guitarist Sam lives with his brother in Leeds, drummer Sam lives in Harrogate with his parents and bassist Adam lives with his parents the other side of Hull.
Once a week meet up to practice in guitarist Sam’s parent’s basement. His mum makes us dinner and brings down beers. It’s like going home for band practice it’s beautiful!
The next step is recording new songs. We've got the studio time booked in so we'll hopefully we'll be releasing something in June/July.
Fake Obituary
Peter Doherty
1979 – 2013
Famous musician Pete Doherty has died this morning. He tripped, fell and smashed his head on a glass coffee table whilst performing a ‘court jester’ routine in a fan’s flat in Bristol in the early hours of last night. Witnesses have revealed he was ‘up to his eyeballs’ in crack cocaine and ketamine at the time. He died in Hospital a few hours later.
Peter was born in Northumberland, England. His mother was a nurse and his father a Major in the British Army. In her book Pete Doherty: My prodigal son his mother writes about his early years: “Peter moved school right in the middle of his GCSE’s when my Husband’s regiment were posted to a new location. Despite this, he had glowing reports in almost every subject and got excellent grades at GCSE – 7 A’s, 3 B’s and a C.” “He devoured books at an alarming rate” and was “fascinated by Oscar Wilde.” The young peter regularly played cricket, football, swam, ran, abseiled and was a Beaver Scout.
In 1997, he went to study English Literature at the University of London, but left the course after his first year. He moved into a London flat with Carl Barât, with whom he formed a successful band called ‘The Libertines.’ Doherty and Barât were guitarists and lead vocalists and along with a bassist and a drummer they made loud, aggressive and energetic rock music. Doherty was an impulsive and imaginative songwriter and storyteller, but he had fallen into a crowd of evil ne’er do wells and fuelled his creativity with drugs. A passionate and talented musician became addicted to a fast and furious rock n roll lifestyle. The tabloids loved this wild, out of control, dishevelled man, but his growing illness was inevitably destructive. The Libertines split up in 2004. They had produced two albums: Up The Bracket in 2002 and a self-titled album in 2004.
Doherty formed another band called ‘Babyshambles.’ This fragile, tortured artist with romantically roguish qualities had built a dedicated cult following. His intelligent, poetic lyrics paid homage to his everyday surroundings and he imbued nostalgic ideologies of English tradition. Babyshambles released two albums: Down In Albion in November 2005 and Shotter’s Nation in October 2007.
In July 2008 Doherty played a solo gig at the Royal Albert Hall. He released a solo album in March 2009 titled Grace/Wastelands. In 2009 he was made an honorary patron of the University Philosophical Society. In 2010 Doherty took a lead role in Sylvie Verheyde’s film adaption of Alfred de Musset’s autobiographical novel La Confession d’un Enfant du Siecle. The film was screened at the 2012 Cannes Film festival.
His final years were spent in Paris, where he was trying to escape the chaos of his life and find some peace. His Mother Jacqueline, Father Peter John Doherty and two sisters Amy Jo and Emily outlive him. He has a ten-year-old son called Astile with singer Lisa Moorish and a two-year-old daughter called Aisling with South African model Lindi Hingston.
Brentwood Gazette Article
(Click to enlarge)
Dissertation Abstract
This is an extended essay that provides critical analysis of the 2007 documentary Bear Grylls: Mission Everest and references the writings of Robert Rosenblum in his book Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition. This book finds a historical continuity between the work of seminal fine art painters including Caspar David Friedrich, J.M.W Turner, Vincent Van Gogh, Wassilly Kandinsky, Phillip Otto Runge, Piet Mondrian, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. I suggest that similarities can be found between the work of these artists and contemporary creative works, such as the documentary I have analysed.
Artist Statement
My art buries it's historic roots in the landscape of the romantic sublime. Following the footsteps of Turner, Constable, John Chrome, Wordsworth, Thoreau, Van Gogh, Friedrich, Richard Long, Alexander Supertramp and Ray Mears I head off to 'wilderness' locations (the woods, the country park, the farmer's fields) in order to study natural form in all its glorious manifestations, documenting my experience through sketchbook drawings, writing, and photography. I realized that a better representation of this popular traditional practice could be made by understanding it as an act of performance. Therefore it could be captured and exhibited using the medium of video. Video provides a framed portal through which audience's can be psychologically present in an alternative, constructed reality and connect with the philosophical values imbued within the narrative and subject, forming an empathetic relationship with the character(s) on screen. Nature recalls for us a creation far greater than our own. The legacy of the romantic sublime has created a cultural framework where ideological notions associated with outdoor activities such as camping and hiking are understood to provide the possibility of an authentic transcendental experience occurring within the physical here and now. Philosophical values of a simple, primitive 'back to basics' lifestyle are welcomed islands in the polluted sea of urban-industrial modernity. It is my aim to create art that provides a platform for sublime contemplation of the profound universal truth's of our existence by using the culturally constructed ideological notions and philosophical values that are understood to be associated with the romantic sublime.