Fuzzy Lights

Fuzzy Lights are a five piece band based in Cambridge led by husband and wife Xavier and Rachel Watkins. Combining both folk purity and psychedelic guitar noise, their reverb-soaked music found a dedicated following with the late-2008 release of debut album 'A Distant Voice'. After touring in the first half of 2009 and playing shows with the likes of Evangelista, Vetiver, Willard Grant Conspiracy and James Blackshaw, the band took the rest of the year out to work on new material. This new EP 'Helm' is the first fruit of those sessions and precedes their eagerly anticipated second album 'Twin Feathers', due in late summer. However, 'Helm' is something of an oddity, a companion piece to the new album created impulsively and frozen in time. Whilst studio work on the new album paused, Xavier and Rachel took off in winter 2009 to a remote converted barn in the Lake District with the aim of writing and recording new songs from scratch. The results, released as 'Helm', take Fuzzy Lights in unexpected directions - from the droning electro and delayed violin of 'Things We Left Behind' to 'Black Diamond's deft fingerpicking and echoed harmonies via the spooked-out vocal piece 'Burn With Light', Xavier and Rachel have found a new and somewhat bleaker place, but one that retains their trademark beauty.