Month: May 2023

I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for acoustic guitar and piano, especially when they’re paired with delicate soundscapes that evoke specific times of the year, or push the emotions into places of calm, or even sadness.

The first time I heard Emphemetry, which is essentially the pseudonym of the artist, Richard J. Birkin, I was hooked. Elements of Gravenhurst, but with a classical backdrop. A clear, northern accent piercing like strands of sunlight through a cloudy day. It’s obvious, almost immediately, that this isn’t your standard laidback singer songwriter album.

Richard has scored music for film and TV, played with the London Contemporary Orchestra, recorded music for, and at, Abbey Road Studios, and released critically-acclaimed classical-inspired albums. Yet, it’s his earlier, guitar-led work that deserves wider attention.

Each song on ‘A Lullaby Hum for Tired Streets’ flows, like a meandering river; they evoke late-night drives through industrial towns; they’re reminiscent of watching dust motes float through derelict mills, or through half-built new builds of the edge of a once-bustling town. Yet, it is a shining light that brings beauty to all those ideas of decay and forgottenness. There’s a sense it could have some beats applied and you’d have an after-club-comedown soundtrack, too. A Lullaby Hum for Tired Streets is aptly named in that respect.

While it’s a dozen years old now, like all good Unspun Heroes it travels through time and somehow remains current even as it ages. You’re pulled like a riptide towards songs such as Five Fields, or Francis Thompson, which is over nine minutes in length but sails through those minutes like it’s a catchy pop song; as it nears its end, so it breaks down to the bedrock of the song’s structure, all the while never feeling like it’s repetitive or drawn out. Or Emileodie, which begins with a piano refrain that is simple, yet intricate, shifting to a minor key just as you think you’ve got a handle on it.

There are so many beautiful moments scattered throughout the ten tracks. But it’s Richard’s voice that really makes this album a triumph. He uses his voice like a painter uses a brush, to add texture or highlights. It’s not the focus of the album like you’d expect. However, if it were to be removed from these songs it would leave them feeling unfinished, or perhaps bereft would be the better word. No more so than on So Long Magic Helper, one of the many, many highlights.

The album is available on a limited edition vinyl release, mastered by Nils Frahm and pressed in Berlin. You should add it to your collection.

Music, as always, situates you in a time and place. To hear a drum intro, or guitar riff, or the opening words of a chorus you remember screaming along to at some tiny gig in a venue with dubious adherence to fire regulations. Or a shift in your own circumstances, perhaps?

2008. A year of missing out on sleep. A new baby. A new home. Loss and grief, too.

The Shaky Hands reminds me of painting my kitchen, of being stuck on the sofa snuggled with my child gently snoring against my shoulder as he finally crashed out after a feed. It was playing in the car on the way to scatter my Mum’s ashes into the woodland where she loved to walk. It’s soundtracked a lot of different moods and feelings, has Lunglight.

Listening recently, it transported me back to that time, but it also reminded me what a fucking great album it is.

Hailing from Portland, Oregon, at a time when the city was mostly known for another jangly indie band and their song which became the background to a certain mobile phone company. Dandy, you might say.

Lunglight, though, was different. It had way more energy, a lot more punk in its veins, songs that spoke of sweaty basement gigs and spilt beer. The vocals calling something urgent and primal from within. Staccato guitar and drum licks that carry you along, giving a sense of speed even when the tempo slows, most obvious on songs Loosen Up and We Are Young.

The engine of the band for this, their second album, were the brothers, Nick and Nathan Delffs. However, it was a band in which every member brought something unique that, when pulled together on songs like Settle On, You’re The Light, and final song, Oh No, demonstrates why they’re an Unspun Hero. On Lunglight, here was a band on the verge of something and their music spelled it out better than any words I can write down.

It wasn’t to be, though. Still, we are left with 13 brilliant tracks that captured their youthful energy and dynamism. Listen on their Bandcamp page.

I was lucky. A friend lived in Leeds and worked as a roadie, moonlighting as a web developer between gigs. He also shared a house with the entertainments manager of Leeds Uni. Getting out of London to the north was, therefore, a fairly normal thing every weekend. They were even nice to this soft southerner. Mostly.

It was after some sweaty gig that I was introduced to a someone who handed me a CDr of local bands they’d burned at home. On it were a whole host of tracks, mostly forgotten. One of these we played again and again on the long drive down the M1. It was Keepsakes by Sky Larkin from their self-released Souvenir EP.

It made me think of the film, Shallow Grave, which I loved (and still do). It made me ‘car seat dance’ when the inevitable traffic jams brought us to a standstill. It brought out a grin on my face. As soon as I got back home I got on the internet and searched them out. I found two more songs to (legally) download from a fantastic Blogger website called Burning World (now defunct) and a release date for an album.

I was hooked.

Here was a three-piece that sounded like there were twice as many members. A strong female singer who had a knack for great lyrics and even greater riffs. There was more than a slight resemblance to Sleater-Kinney, but with a distinctly northern English grit and humour and perhaps a large splash of that cheeky Los Campesinos personality. They stood out when much of the year I first heard them was wall-to-wall Arctic Monkeys.

The album hasn’t dated in the past 14 years or so. It remains a great album chock full of songs you can sing along to, dance to (car seat or other places), or whatever you want to do while it plays. It gets a regular airing at Unspun Heroes HQ. It was an original take on guitar-based indie when it came out and it is still an original sound.

Because of Sky Larkin, I have the fondest memories of Leeds and the messy weekends at the Uni bar that made up a fair chunk of my late 20s. It really deserves a reissue, though, because it’s bloody hard to find and we’d love a copy. We think you’d love a copy, too.

Plus Katie Harkin, the guitarist and founding member of Sky Larkin hasn’t stopped. She’s still making great music as Harkin (her latest album, Honeymoon Suite is definitely worth checking out once you’ve got your ears around her original band’s debut, which you do below).