The Hanging Stars at The Lexington - London - PRB presents

The Hanging Stars - Masters of a captivating meld of blissful psychedelic folk and harmony-laden cosmic country, live at The Lexington, London, joined by Bobby Lee.

Tickets  https://bit.ly/PRBhangingstars
19:30 //  £12.50 adv. //

 https://youtu.be/N8MV0czeQyU
 thehangingstars.com
 bobbyleeplaysitslow.bandcamp.com

Presented by prbpresents.com

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With Hollow Heart The Hanging Stars transcend their well-earned repute as masters of a captivating meld of blissful psychedelic folk and harmony-laden cosmic country. This fourth album from the accomplished London five-piece; recorded at Edwyn Collins' Clashnarrow Studios in North-Eastern Scotland; scales fresh artistic heights, as they conjure a record more sonically varied, more contemporary, and less in awe of its influences.

In parallel to their three acclaimed albums - Over The Silvery Lake (2016), Songs For Somewhere Else (2017), and A New Kind Of Sky (2020) - they've built a formidable live reputation both as performers, and through long-standing relationships with West Coast peers such as GospelbeacH and Miranda Lee Richards, participants and instigators of memorable happenings.

Hollow Heart though is an album of firsts. Their first album recorded over a specific timescale in a specific place, their first album to favour sound as much as song, their first album created under novel circumstances, and their first album for the storied Loose Music. Events dictated the actual path to Hollow Heart would not be quite as anticipated but it was not unprepared for. It simply became a matter of seizing the time: “We're constantly writing songs, we'd already worked on a few things, why don't we just take this up now and do it !“.

'Taking this up' meant 'going to Scotland'. There was an open invitation to record at Edwyn's studio, once live shows had been ruled out indefinitely they pivoted to the ambition of heading up there as soon as they could. Demoing online through the late spring and early summer of 2020 allowed them an idea of what the songs were going to be; their shape, and that of the adventure, quickly took form.

They – singer and guitarist Richard Olson, bassist Sam Ferman, drummer Paulie Cobra, Patrick Ralla guitars and keyboards, and pedal steeler Joe Harvey-Whyte – along with producer Sean Read (Soulsavers, Dexys)
- were soon embarking on the two-day drive to reach Helmsdale, and the unique studio sitting on a cliff overlooking the North Sea. Richard had been a member of the short-lived, now-legendary Eighteenth Day Of May, before forming The See See with Pete Greenwood; Paulie and Sam would later join, and from that band evolved The Hanging Stars. The line-up settled after the first album when Joe, and Patrick, who'd played for some years with The Rockingbirds and Alan Tyler, would become permanent members.

Clashnarrow provided a fresh kind of recording experience, and with Sean at the helm they attained a focus and discipline allowing them to fully realise the performances they aspired to. The bucolic ambience of the place was infectious, such that a loucheness inhabited the groove and they could relax into a freedom to follow where the music led, knowing Edwyn's bespoke equipment would faithfully preserve it. Having determined on a far more pronounced emphasis on sonics, they were in just the right place to realise that.

It's impossible to overemphasise just how good Hollow Heart sounds; and how the songs continually change and evolve but in a manner so measured and so patient that it seemingly happens organically. They'd recognised the gains to be achieved through rowing back on the intensity; “We'd often had that London band thing, of leaning forward; now we were leaning back”. Thus 'Ava' can open the album with an unhurried, smouldering intro of wire and string; blossoming by degrees but with such a self-possession that time slips by unheeded and only the arrival of vocals, guitar, and resolute drums, can puncture the reverie.

The harsh, cold turkey pop of 'Black Light Night' – a Ralla tune with Olson lyrics - spins dark with piercing shards of guitar softening into hooks, and turning it into what sounds mightily like a hit single. The same could be said of 'Radio On'; a would-be make-out song with magnetic trot and Olson's appropriately slurry singing.
Richard's vocals across Hollow Heart regularly surprise; he believes them the best he's ever got down, and the evidence repeatedly confirms that.

Like a soft-focus David Gates' dream-song Weep & Whisper' is gorgeously near-ambient, with pedal steel and piano: 'There's a girl I used to know she wore her hair long in an endless satin bow': replete with beautiful harmonies from Paulie Cobra it does however carry a sting. “It's a love song to youth, and how you're thinking about the future, then the future comes along, and 'fuck me its cold outside'”. An example too of how much The Hanging Stars create collaboratively. The song initially had a completely differen

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Artists : The Hanging Stars, Bobby Lee