Album Review: Edgarville - Fingerprints & Handwriting
Album Review: Edgarville - Fingerprints & Handwriting (@edgarvilleuk)
Fingerprints & Handwriting is an incredibly strong and engaging debut album from two-piece band Edgarville from Blackburn. It’s almost hard to believe the album is built up mostly by two musicians; we’re almost only hearing vocals, acoustic guitar and drums, yet the perfected production of the album gives a full band feel. The album can be loud when it wants to, with main vocalist Ed’s vocals…
Anyone going to the The Burnt Tapes, Edgarville & Terrafraid show at Vleugel F in Leuven tonight?
(Brusselsestraat 61a, 3000 Leuven)
€3 damage, doors at 7, first band at 8.
I’ll be helping out/ be somewhere around, so if you’re going, come say hi?
Also, my best friend’s boyfriend is the organiser, so if you’re in the neighbourhood and don’t know what to do, show up and make his night?
Above: Edgarville plays “Whatever That Feels Like” for a live session with BlankTV.
Edgarville, a punchy acoustic-guitar-and-drum two-piece from the United Kingdom, are ready to finish up their debut album.With four recorded songs (that, apparently, were meant to be deleted) on their bandcamp alone, Edgarville face the fees of recording a full-length and preparing for a 3 month-long DIY European tour. Ed, guitarist/vocalist of the two-piece, talks to Twin Size about the band’s beginnings, the UK scene, getting Taco Bell with Christina of Gouge Away, and more.
Edgarville’s Kickstarter for their album and tour: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1662299540/edgarville-debut-album-and-european-tour
1. Can you introduce yourselves and your roles in the band?
Of course! There's Rob, he plays the drums and is a song flesher outerer/songwriter and there's myself, Ed, I do guitar and sings/writering. We were dogs in past lives. That's it. Just us two, the whole thing is DIY too. We're just trying to be sound and not be dicks.
2. When and how did Edgarville get started?
The name 'Edgarville' came from when I tried to introduce myself to a Scottish man named Steve who plays trombone in The Hostiles, it was around 5 years ago. At the time my pals (for lack of better words) had dubbed me the nickname Edgar. So I was like 'Hello, my name is Ed, my friends called me Edgar though' and cause I'm English and live in a castle he heard that as 'Edgarville'. So I adopted that name for a while too.
As a musical thing I've just dubbed random songs I'd written over the years with the name Edgarville cause it sounded cooler than my real name. It was never a full time venture or anything 'serious' - if that's even a word for describing a band - just some silly name thing.
Then, my previous band 'Egos At The Door' disintegrated for one reason or another and I was still in love with music life so just decided to go in alone til things worked themselves out. From there I just started building again, making the pages, signing up to the accounts and I was almost studio ready with a bunch of songs anyways, so it was a very natural transition.
I did a short UK tour with Lost Ground, was in the studio with the album and there was a non-ignorable yearning for some fleshing out. After my last few experiences with keeping bands together I really wasn't interested in trying to recruit a bunch of guys (I mean the gender neutral term guys, not 'a bunch of blokes' guys, btw), so I just asked my dear friend Rob to play drums at a show (supporting Today, They Are Older at their EP launch) - he learned it all in like a week, it was loads of fun.
We'd also played a lot in the past too and we have a really cool chemistry, like, we're reading from the same page so there's literally no resistance in the process, a good idea is a good idea I guess is how we see things. From there we had a chat if we were going to do this and it was like, yeah we're gonna do this. It works, it's fun, there's potential, it's interesting, it's definitely way better with 2 minds and now it's a full time lovechild!
Then we kissed and watched 50 first dates.
3. Why just acoustic guitar and drums? Do you consider yourselves a "full band"?
I don't know actually, it was never pre-decided or engineered, it just happened that way. The challenge and the fun is how to make that sound work and the process of evolving.
Hahaha, interesting question, I suppose we are a band but I never know whether to say we're a band or a 2-piece. We're a thing, that's all that is certain. We are definitely something that is a something.
4. How does the writing process work for you?
I think it's incredibly important not to identify with a process.
So far, I've written all the lyrics and guitar for this first album, Rob has come up with the drum parts and in the studio we've tweaked it as we've gone along according to input as it happens, with additional input from the engineer Tom.
We're about to get a bunch of guest vocalists in too, if they have good ideas, they have good ideas and so we will use those ideas. How we will do things on the next record is a mystery. Rob's already written like 2-3 really good songs, so maybe Rob will write a lot of guitar for the next record?
5. Your Kickstarter page says you've been in the studio since November 2014. How has it been so far?
It's really lovely and fun, just so expensive. We're like 89% done with tracking now, so the rest is in that final 11% and just hoping we can get the funding to finish the mixing and mastering. We're really happy and proud though.
6. With your debut album, what are you going to do differently or keep the same in terms of songwriting and sound?
Interesting question! In the studio there's so much potential and calling for extra features in songs, not to say you should ALWAYS put another layer in there cause you can... but, like, a lot of the time a song in the studio is a lot of snap shots of you doing things well all put together in an illusive way. It's like song surgery! You can get so deep into the make up of a song because it's not live and you have so much time to think or try.
I'd say it's the string arrangements that stand out as a derivative from the live sound. We brought in a session cellist, Bob Buller, for a couple of tracks and that instrument quite simply drags emotion out of songs, whether it wants to be there or not.
We've played with quite a lot of guitars, seeing who's timbre lends themselves better to the whole. Quite a few guitar amps too of course sifting through the tone pallet and different techniques of getting sound from each of the guitars, we've had a lot of guitar pedals to play with, cause, it's Tom Peter's... innit.
We've kept the layering subtle, but at the same time we don't want it to sound as naked as one drum kit, one acoustic guitar and one vocalist could sound on record, at least not all the way through. Everything we've done has been in support of the sound, we've certainly been very conscious as to not write a 6 piece bands record and then tour it as a 2-piece haha.
In terms of the songwriting, y'all will have to wait and see.
7. At the moment, you only have four songs on your bandcamp. How does it feel to tackle a full-length album?
Oh... I thought I'd deleted those... admin error... they're bedroom demos from a few years ago. I hope you didn't listen to them... Haha!
It's an amazing process, the expense is incredibly tough to keep up, but the experience itself is coooool. I work in recording studios for a pseudo-living, so I'm almost constantly immersed in the thick of it at one stage of a record or another, all year round.
But tackling an album as an artist with a thorough understanding of the engineering side, without having to consult 24/7, cause you trust the engineer... it's wonderful; plus Rob, Tom and myself in the room, it's funny cause we don't actually talk about the record much, as if we're operating in a different dimension or realm... telepathy or something X-filesy. Too many unspoken understandings, It'd be a challenge to try and explain it.
Rob tracks super quick too, so, between us we track at an average pace. Average is good.
What was the question? Oh yeah, it feels cool and good. Thumbs up!
8. Have you toured before the full European one you're planning for September? What are your plans and hopes for this tour?
As individuals this is Rob's first ever tour. So, what better way to do it than with a collection of almost complete strangers for 3 months. Hahaha. Oh man. Edgarville, before it was a 2-piece (or 'real band') did a 9 date UK tour with 'Lost Ground' from Bradford and a mega short 2-date tour with 'Fish Tank' - two very amazing up and coming UK bands, give em a check over cause they're nuggets of pleasure.
For those who don't know, we're doing a self booked, DIY, 3 month long tour of Europe with Terrafraid, our Scottish spirit animals, come this August (we added a few UK shows to the beginning). Please check them out also, get your list or note making app and write all these bands down. Certified legends doing cheeky nandos I promise.
The reason this tour is so long is that we just want to do it. ALL style. The road is one of the best places to be as an artist because the world is this blank canvas and every new minute is almost unpredictable. It makes for creating genuine emotional connections and experiences with people and it's emotional connections that count. Someone liking us on facebook or following us on twitter/tumblr/instagram is right lovely and cool and hugely important to our existence (I think) but it lacks that real, imperfect edge that you need to connect with people, audiences, new friends, old friends. It's those connections that we aim to make through touring for so long.
9. Where are you from in the UK? What's the "music scene" like there? How do bands fare where you're from?
We're from the surrounding areas of Blackburn, some obscure, unheard-of-small-village-type places. Google maps a place called Oswaldtwistle or Wilpshire... There's a lot of green, which is nice.
The Blackburn music scene is really special, we have 'Blackburn is Open' which is essentially a space for small art exhibitions and arts council meetings. It's really not a venue at all. So, they let us take a PA and our equipment in there and we bring touring bands through, bring your own booze, affordable door prices and it works! We even put a punch bowl on once.
We have a small pool of bands here, but they're large good and worth people's time, I promise.
Get your app out:
. Today, They Are Older
. Sunbird Records Roster
. Fat Camp
. New Villains
. LSP
. Bad Cardigan
. Good Foxy
. New York Tourists
Home town homies. I'm so nervous that I've left people out of it now. Argh...
10. Your Kickstarter page has some interesting rewards for backers, i.e., "A private reading of any chapter out of Roald Dahl's 'James and the Giant Peach' by Rob. Via Skype or telephone." Are you guys serious about all of these?
Of course we are, we have nothing to really give you, if we did, we probably wouldn't be running a kickstarter! So, we can only offer private readings of Roald Dahl, guitar lessons, confessions of bad things we've done in the past, locks of hair... But you can pre-order the album digi files and a limited edition handmade single too!
11. Would you ever consider touring in the United States, if you haven't already?
Yeah!! We got plans, plans and plans. We definitely will next year! So, we're making tour plans with Staghorn if you know them? And we're trying to talk Gouge Away into jumping over the pond. We'll do it, we're class A seed planters.
My old band did an east coast tour and Christina booked the show in Florida, I noticed you had some Gouge Away photos on your page! Christina took me around in search of the food ryder for the show and we went in this pizza shop and they said they wanted $60 to feed us and Christina almost cried so we left and got taco bell. Thanks for the taco bell Christina!! Then Victor was all like 'we're gonna tour Europe' and I was like 'ok, let's make it happen' and then he couldn't talk his guys into it so I'm still sitting here thinking Victor and Christina need to tour Europe.
12. Anything else you'd like to add?
Erm, if you have made it this far into reading this interview then you are more patient than Buddha. Nice work.
Everything we've been doing this previous 4 weeks and for the following week is in support of our kickstarter page, please go check it out and if you can help at all it would give us a really significant leg up, which would be an act of kindness met with intense gratitude.
Thanks for checking all this out! We're on all them networks:
Facey B - www.facebook.com/edgarvilleuk
Twitter - @edgarvilleuk
Tumblr - http://edgarville.tumblr.com/
Come look look and see see.
