Last Harbour

Last Harbour

Your Heart, It Carries The Sound

Little Red Rabbit

Based in Manchester, Last Harbour are an expansive collective playing “swooning dustbowl baroque” (Plan B) that is “rich and foreboding” (Drowned in Sound). From dusty laments to doomfilled rock, from starkly beautiful duets to drifting clouds of looped noise, the only claims they make for their music are that it is honest and heartfelt. ‘Your Heart, It Carries The Sound’ was written in isolation in a small Northumbrian cottage in October 2010 and recorded in April 2011 in St Margaret’s Church, Manchester. The songs are recorded almost entirely live, with producer Sam Lench employing the church as a soundstage. His approach carefully uses the architecture of the building to sculpt and shape the music, creating a sense of the band within the space. This new album sees a different approach from their previous album ‘Volo’ (2010), a dense, textured album co-produced by Richard Formby (best known for his recent work with Wild Beasts). For ‘Your Heart, It Carries The Sound’, the band stripped back the arrangements and placed a mature, more direct concentration at the core of each song. The confident, intimate vocal of K Craig is at the centre, the instrumentation is sparser, and the band’s line-up has changed with piano, tenor guitar, heavily-processed guitar effects and organ to the fore. The addition of vintage analogue synths and waves of natural reverb give 'Your Heart, It Carries The Sound' a timeless, ephemeral aspect. Fans of Angels of Light / Tindersticks / Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds take note...

Last Harbour

Lights

Little Red Rabbit

The lead track on the new mini-album 'Lights' is one of the stand-out tracks on last years album release 'Volo'. There's also an alternate, earlier mix of that album's closing song 'If They're Right'. Beyond this are four new songs that throw a different slant on the band. Simpler and sparser, their drama is created through small detail. Where 'Volo' worked on a grand scale, a song like 'Boy In The Photograph' relates hazy, half-remembered childhood experiences, using a gentle build of instrumentation for accent. And there's 'Alone For The Winter', a bittersweet song of change and leaving, with delicate peels of violin and mandolin to thaw the frost. Written at the same time as 'Volo' yet never intended for that album, these undemonstrative new songs work together like Autumn fades into Winter - imperceptibly, quietly and with a little nostalgia. 'Lights', the film The release also includes a film made for the song 'Lights' by acclaimed photographer/film-maker Andrew Brooks. Renowned for his innovative approach to digital photography, Brooks frequently uses thousands of individual images to build up a single piece. A similar approach is used in this film, multiple shots segueing instantaneously into a seamless whole. Find out more about his work (with artists like The Ting-Tings and Magic Arm) and his past exhibitions (URBIS, MOSI) here: www.andrewbrooksphotography.com Sleeve information; 'Lights' comes in a recycled chipboard sleeve, each copy numbered and letterpressed by hand using vegetable-based inks at Hot Bed Press Studios in Salford.

Last Harbour

Volo

Little Red Rabbit

Based in Manchester, Last Harbour are an expansive collective featuring an array of classical instrumentation as well as guitar, bass and drums. Their new album ‘Volo’ was co-produced by the band and Richard Formby (Wild Beasts, Herman Dune, Spacemen 3, Dakota Suite). From dusty laments to doom-filled rock, from starkly beautiful duets to drifting clouds of looped noise, there’s always an intensity that strikes hard. It's a highly original record featuring the band’s strongest songs and most creative arrangements of their career to date. The band's previous album 'Dead Fires and the Lonely Spark' (2008) was recorded to tape in a week with the band in full control. In deliberate contrast, 'Volo' was recorded piece by piece over a year in various locations and an early decision was taken that Formby alone would mix the results. That freed up the band's songwriting process. Very few of the songs were fully formed before recording began and many took shape and direction through the process of multi-layering instruments, loop creation and shifting arrangements. The album’s title refers to a type of early 20th Century child's toy Ouija board and to the Latin word for 'a desire' or 'a will'. Both are a good fit. By relinquishing control of the record, Last Harbour have created a space for the unseen and unheard to become realised. Singer Kevin Craig may give form to those who populate his lyrics but it's unclear who is guiding the glass towards the letters that spell out the message....

Last Harbour

Dead Fires & The Lonely Spark

Little Red Rabbit

‘Dead Fires & the Lonely Spark’ is the third album from Manchester-based collective Last Harbour, following previous highly-acclaimed releases and recent tours with Willard Grant Conspiracy and Mark Mulcahy. The seven-piece have returned with their most ambitious record yet, which veers from elegantly orchestrated soundscapes to full-blown electric dramas, encompassing birth, marriage and death along the way. Working with producer Richard Formby (Spacemen 3, Herman Dune, Dakota Suite), Last Harbour have turned their backs on the digital revolution, instead using antique equipment to record in glorious analogue onto 2” tape, creating a warm and atmospheric record.  At first, ‘Dead Fires & the Lonely Spark’ might appear to be concerned primarily with the quiet disintegration of relationships, and it certainly focuses on the violence and tenderness of simple human fallibility. There are riotous and drunken weddings (‘Saint Luminous Bride’, ‘No-one Ever Said’) and lives torn apart by things done and those unsaid (‘The Further Field’). And, whilst there is no central narrative or character and each song inhabits its own environment, this collection of songs could thematically be considered a modern ‘play for today’, concerned as it is with social and moral conscience. But, it is also about how people are dwarfed by things beyond their control, and how they can be held prisoner or set free by circumstance. Primarily using instrumentation that might traditionally be associated with folk music, Last Harbour hammer and sculpt their sound into unusual and beguiling forms. Understated string arrangements (‘Broken Nail’) and wheeling pedal...