Slowing Time video & single

Video for ‘Slowing Time’ by Fiona Allison & Xavier Watkins featuring Stephanie Marley. ‘Slowing Time’and ‘Another Safe Place’ will be released as a digital download single on the 23rd May by Little Red Rabbit records. You can also stream the track bellow.

Slowing Time from Fuzzy Lights on Vimeo.

Fuzzy Lights : Slowing Time (single out on 23rd May) by Little Red Rabbit Records EDIT: You can get the single from bandcamp here as a “pay what you want” download.

September mini tour

An aural and culinary description of these couple of dates.

24/09/10 Buffalo Bar, London

The Buffalo Bar entrance is right next to the Islington tube station which is slightly daunting when trying to park. During soundcheck we establish a Cambridge connection with Hong Kong in the 60s, and afterwards we all head out to find some food. We end up in a pub just down the road (not the one with the table football game I saw when arriving though), called The Alwyne which is rammed full of people as you’d expect for a Friday, but manage to find a table and …. hang on…. does that say “serano ham & camembert burger” on the menu? I think so. The wine is good too. Mark has his usual liver [edit: I am told it was pork belly, which would explain why he missed a fill on Shipwrecks]. We get back just in time to catch the end of Lillies on Mars’ set, 2 Italian girls playing guitar and  a drummer playing 90s tinted rock (with phasers!). Hong Kong in the 60s play Casio-rchestrated little retro-pop gems. Unfortunately some of the more noisy audience covers up their delicate music which doesn’t allow for the right mood to set in - which reminds me I need to get some of their music to hear it properly. Rachel borrowed an amp from Lillies on Mars to run her violin through (good old Roland Jazz Chorus) which turned out to be a version with 4 speakers… I don’t think a violin physically moved me like this before. The Museum [Song] was on fire. You can read a review of the gig here although there is a case of mistaken identity (swap Chris and me). As the club empties from gig goers and fills up with wined up highly paid executives, we make an exit and drive back home.

Banter meter: 6/10

25/09/10 Dulcimer, Manchester

We’re welcomed in Chorlton by the lovely David from LRR who kindly drove the gear we’re borrowing from Last Harbour to the venue. That’s the thing with cutting down costs when touring, you have to rely on other people being kind enough to lend you gear (there’s an article by Nels Cline called “Amp du jour” a bit down the page here. Good read), which is always very stressful (except in this case - thanks again Last Harbour!). Once in Leeds last year we noticed during soundcheck we missed some parts for the drumkit and had to drive at full speed through the city from house to house to find the missing bits. The Dulcimer’s walls are covered in screen printed posters and photos, nice poster for a performance of Jean Claude Vannier’s “L’Enfant Assassin des Mouches” and “Melody Nelson” if I remember well, and coincidentally a poster of the cover of an old LP I found in a charity shop in Paris called “American Folk Blues festival 1965”. Don’t know if Joe Boyd was involved. David cooks beautiful goats cheese and roasted veg Mexican wraps for us and we manage to catch a couple of songs by Maladies of Bellafontaine, who play lovely psych-pop. During our set my mic gets all upset and refuses to work, so I have to use Dan’s. There is a twinkle in Mark’s eye as he reallises Dan and I are going to have to share a mic for the harmonies in Shipwrecks (BTW there was a really nice ale at Dulcimer called Shipwrecked).We do our best to strike 80s stadium rock poses but fail.

Banter meter: 4/10 

29/09/10 The Social, London

Reunited with all our gear, we now face the dilemma of fitting it on the Social’s tiny stage. Helped by the really nice soundguy (didn’t catch his name) we somehow all end up with enough space to strike our signature rock poses. After running around under the tropical rain we end up in a Thai restaurant where I ruined my soup by deciding to put the whole chilli in. I spent the next 25min sweating it out and lost the ability to speak. Back at the venue our set gets interrupted by fireworks noises through the PA which meant…Dan and I have to share a mic again, much to Mark’s delight (he’s a sucker for stadium rock). Nat from Sonic Cathedral has arranged for a secret acoustic set after us, 2/5’s of Sad Day for Puppets. I’d never heard any of their stuff before but it works beautifully with just an acoustic guitar and two voices, providing a delicate, gentle closer to send us through the night.

Banter meter: 5/10

30/09/10 The Portland Arms, Cambridge

C Joynes masterfully opens proceedings with fingerpicked resonator and banjo. Having not seen him in a long time, his singular technique is always something to witness. Next is Kerry Andrew aka You are Wolf. Having came across her looped vocals adaptation of a traditional English song on a Tom Robinson show after he played one of our tracks, I really wanted to hear what it was like live: impressive and enthralling.  No shared mics tonight, but David as a very skilled guitar tech.  Review here.

Banter meter: 8/10 (Dan 2/10)

Conclusion: we need to work on improving the banter ratings. Birmingham, York, Dundee, Newcastle, Edingburgh, Hull… see you in November!

Tour Diary

Managed to pack everything in the car except the bass amp and drumkit  then set off to Leeds…

Day I Leeds

The venue is on the first floor of the Packhorse. We go pick up the bass amp and drum kit from Quack Quack only to realise that we’re also missing a kick pedal, so we need to cross town again. We finally set up all the gear and Nick makes us sound great. Good surprise to see David from LRR and we all go for a greasy pizza in the self-proclaimed “best pizza place in Leeds”. Mark is gutted because they don’t have the advertised caviar pizza, we think it’s probably better that way. There’s a thunderstorm and we all shelter under a bus (shelter).   We taste a bit of local ale and we’re on stage, intense set and lovely people! We try out one new song, Through Water / Water for the ashes and really get into it. We watch worriedaboutsatan’s set, it’s their album launch. Great set with 13 Tzameti projected in the background, need to see that film.

Day II Newcastle

Once everything is loaded we set off to Newcastle, stopping along the way in a countryside pub in the middle of nowhere, amazing food! We even get mistaken for people on their way to the Young Farmers’ convention. Having played in the Byker area of Newcastle before (Star and Shadow cinema on the Mi and L’au tour in 2006), we had already had a taste for this part of the city and its art galleries/ venues, and the recently developed Cluny 2 only adds to it. Great venue and great sound, only weird thing being the seats on the right of the stage and the mini-catwalk. We get more drinks and stay up talking before getting some sleep. The next morning we get a feast from the lovely Belle & Herbs café and head off.

Day III/IV Off!

Day V Cambridge beer festival.

Day VI York

The great novelty for this part of the tour is that we have a van and a driver. And it’s yellow. Ross will be driving us around for the next couple of days. After picking up a second cab for Dan “just because we can take two” Carney we set off to York. The venue is called the Basement and the stage is on the “length” side rather than at one of the room ends, making it quite weird and awkward sounding during soundcheck. However as it fills up it starts sounding better. Out the window you can see the river. We get some lovely food prepared by the promoter and go for a walk around York. Rachel has to dissuade me from buying a massive sword in a sword shop. The set goes very well despite the bass being unbearably loud from where I’m standing, hopefully it sounds better at the front. After the show we head off to a nearby cocktail bar where they dangerously have one of these 2 for 1 offers. Their cocktails have sometimes ill-chosen music related names, and Mark and I down a couple of “Jose Speedy Gonzales”. See what I mean.   We get woken up by a cat and have a nice fry up before heading to Coventry.

Day VII Coventry - in store

I can’t remember the Tin Angel being a record store last time I was there, and it’s such a great place. It’s also nice to hang out with Last Harbour, Mark and Rach play on a couple of their songs and it sounds fantastic. Our set goes very well, best so far on the tour, probably helped by the intimacy and cosiness of the venue. We decide to start by a song we haven’t really played before, just Rach and I, and during soundcheck Chris and Mark join in and it sounds superb so we play it with them too. After the show and a couple more drinks with Last Harbour we set off to London where we’ll be staying for the next two nights.   The very patient Ross has to cope with our drunken banter and Mark’s incessant requests to put Public Enemy on the stereo.    

Day VIII London

Apparently they’ve been some confusion as to whether this gig had been canceled or not, which doesn’t do us much good in terms of attendance. The guy doing the sound really cares about our recreating our sound which is a rare thing. As he is French we speak in my mother tongue and for some reason I just can’t seem to make sentences that make sense in French anymore. I guess I’ve been living away for too long… The set goes pretty well and it’s good to see familiar faces, I somehow manage to detune my guitar completely in the noise section of Capturing Shadows, which leaves us enough time for some top quality banter during the re-tuning.   Stop by to get some cheese and wine and saussicon (homesickness) and the night ends with beards and wrestling matches.

Day IX Bristol    

There’s just something absolutely fantastic about playing in big reverb-ery venues. Cafe Oto, All Saints church… and the Folkhouse in Bristol. The sound just seems to engulf you and carry you around. It is probably the best we play on the tour, we’re all hearing and feeling everything, it just flows.   Back at the promoter’s house we taste some delicious liquors and I spot a pond in the garden. It had gone by the morning.    

Day X Brighton

Newspaper headlines say “hottest day of the year” and they’re not wrong. We bid farewell to Dan at Heathrow airport (no he was not flying somewhere, just going back to Cambridge to do the sound for Prurient) and stock up on ice cream. Tonight’s show is somehow drumless as we’re only allowed a tom, snare and cymbals and the lack of Dan’s bass can be heard too (going from two cabs to none is a bit like going cold turkey). Initially having wanted to do an intimate set, as the evening goes on we more and more think we should play more noisy/energetic tunes, and it somehow doesn’t feel right once we’re in it. But hey, we have a good time and it’s the last day! Add to that the fact that Ross’ football team got relegated (I’ve learnt quite a bit about football while on tour) and we’re in need for some morale boosters, which cost £1.50 from the bar. Altogether an awesome tour, great people to meet, great to play our songs all around the country, and we gained a new friend.