St. Albans [Honest Man]

[Above] Photos by Zygmunt Day

Lots of updates

After exams

Review for 'This City Has An Echo' EP

Combining an upbeat, acoustic guitar-led tune with spoken-word that echoes The Jam's That's Entertainment reimagined by Baxter Dury, there's an appealing grub and urbanity to the start of this self-produced EP from St. Albans' Zygmunt Day. There's a nice sense of monotonous reality to Day's lyrics, and a similar pseudo-Victorian pop-vibe as Supreme Vagabond Craftsman to his musical sense; especially on Yellow Light. Culminating in a rousing and erratic bellow of 'Hey!', it's folk music for a dimly lit bar backroom; 'How I wish I'd never been wrong before.' they call out with bitter sobriety and a flickering glow of hopefulness.

Recorded in a bedroom and shed after work, Day's ambition was to create an EP that develops and flows from track to track, and it is impeccably produced and there's a real weight of experience behind the songs, which is even more impressive considering Day's relative youth. There is a distinct journey carved out across these six songs, though it's not always smooth sailing, despite some beautiful cello by Conrad Steel, the title track lacks the punch of other tracks.

Elsewhere there's a peculiar mix of Math-like time signature guitars, rich string arrangments and buoyant lyrics about a young man's suicide on the stirring and heartfelt Edward Brown, which seems to marry Day's ambition and execution perfectly. Streetlights Like Halos barrages forward, a straight rocker, merging A Thousand Trees-era Stereophonics (y'know, when they were good) with Silent Alarm-era Bloc Party (y'know, when they were good), and whilst it is the most obvious track here it still manages to keep a few inventive tricks up its sleeve, not least of all the delightful choir-like vocals on the chorus, helping to off-set the potentially predictable indie vibe of this track.

Closing track Kiss Me By The Car Park employs a lot of the flourishes already explored across the record, it's a North London twee finale that feels disappointingly damp in comparison to what went before. What is undeniable across this six track though is that Zygmunt Day is an incredibly gifted songwriter with some wonderful ideas when it comes to interesting arrangment, and this EP, though far from perfect, has a handful of stand-out tracks and more than a shed-load of imagination.

4/5

Reviewed by Owain Paciuszko at God Is In The TV.

Why don't you Download It?

Take me back again

Take me back one more ti-ii-ii-ii-iime, Spanish Rose

LOUDER! Show, Cambridge, 10th March 2009

[Above] Photo by Chrystal Ding.

Acoustic show in Cambridge. Really cool.

I also did some live videos for the LOUDER! guys:

Albert Street:

This City Has An Echo:

They've also filmed some other musicians, check it out here.

I've been in a library for the entire day. I'm so tired.

Larmlicht

Lärmlicht from joe snape on Vimeo.

This is Joe Snape's bold light / sound show. The music is pre-recorded; he's playing the lights. Pretty cool huh!? Best watched fullscreen!

Read all about it.

In Cardiff, December 2009

I went to Cardiff to work on some songs with Sam. We didn't end up recording much whilst we were there, but on the plus side we managed to drink 2 crates of lager. When we got back to St. Albans, we made a proper go of it - the result was this demo:

Of a new song called 'Albert Street', which features the unstoppable Drew MacFarlane on Backing Vocals and Violin. It may or may not make its return this summer.

Also took some pictures, which I think are really cool [above and below].

I read 'The Dead' from Dubliners on the Megabus, and then fell asleep, and when I woke up we were crossing flinty water.