The maturity of the Leeds Music Renaissance is gathering pace as the Summer of Anxiety unravels. Apart from the sheer number of Leeds artists being signed to credible national and international labels, a much more interesting development is the way that many of the city's musicians are popping up in more than one project.
Just for example, Spencer Bayles has been working on the confessional and personal lo-fi of LAST NIGHT’S TV for a number of years now, while up-start post-rock NICOLI have being going from strength to strength since he got involved. The two things are ticking along very nicely together.
This particular CD of nine songs is a close-knit piece of rumination on the drift and unhappy demise of relationships and other sundry personal downers. It isn’t a frolic by any means. Bayles' rather light voice breathes its way through his subtle and closely written lyrics, with the gentle support of fellow TV regulars Sarah Jones (violin and vocals) and Natalie Long (vocals). There is acoustic guitar, Owen Marriiott's hand drum percussion, minimalist keyboards and bass and a variety of ambient and other noises. The ensemble is constructed around each song in a natural and unobtrusive way. "I Can’t Think of Everything" is particularly effective – with a larger drum sound, some rich acoustic guitar and well-balanced voices. All complemented with the tautest and most heartfelt lyrics. A light keyboard part and a crowd of conversational voices come in and out.
Natalie Long takes the lead vocal on "Guidance", but the generous tune exposes her voice a little. The strummed acoustic and the firm bass line are musically more dominant and the track generally helps the slight feeling that in the balance between your best friends singing about your shared lives and genuine artists tapping into worlds that a generation can share, this CD tips more often to the former. For that reason it is likely to stay fiercely loved by a few rather than quite liked by a lot.
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The production in general is exactly right for such a personal-sounding project. In listening I have sometimes wanted to whisper encouragement to a producer to (for example) get the phrasing redone as "Be HOLD er" rather than the deflated ""BEE hold er". And maybe the sung duets could be better balanced – they sometimes sound as though the two voices were recorded on separate days with different microphones in different rooms. It really isn’t relevant though. We have a delightful set of miniatures whose singular virtue is their direct and personal expression. They have an engaging honesty that brings me back to listen again and again. I'll even forgive the strange distortions in opener "Winterlong".
Full marks to Spencer Bayles the writer: the printed lyrics on the liner card are more than worth the ink and double worth a listen. The poetry of lines like "The boy by the cathedral sees daylight between the blades" is visual, metaphoric and ambiguous, and demands multiple plays as the psychological knives flicker, the rowers complete an English idyll and dappled light reflects on old walls. File along with your Belle and Sebastian, your Beta Band, your Snow Patrol, and maybe your Jim O'Rourke. Last Night's TV are not the same as any of those, but there is an intelligent connectedness.
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