Monday 19 May 2014

Matt Henshaw Recommends ... Tapestry

These Market Harborough boys are currently quickly making a reputation for themselves as the best band, the best live act and thee band to see in Leicestershire, and with good reason.

I was lucky enough to catch them earlier in the year, at what I believe was only their second ever gig, and it instantly reminded of seeing Dog Is Dead for the first time in Nottingham at what was their first gig, and they're the only band I've seen in Leicester that I believe have the potential of emulating the successes of Leicester's leading troubadors - Kasabian.

And I've seen a lot of local bands over the last 8 or 9 months, and it's no detriment to any of them as there's a good lot of great little bands out there. It's just that Tapestry provide something different, something unique, and something more more tangible on a grander scale, the sound these three boys make is truly epic when the stars align and the notes fall into place.

I'm not particularly schooled or well-versed in electronic music, so forgive me if my references are a little far removed, but I was stood listening to the band play live, and subsequently listening to their demos, now circulating for free like the first batch of Arctic Monkeys recordings, and it evoked the pure freedom and pleasure of Paul McCartney's solo albums 'McCartney' and 'McCartney II', and when he really lets go on 'Chaos & Creation in the Backyard' and The Fireman records.

High praise indeed, anyone would agree who knows me, and it doesn't stop there, the elements of keys, synths and saxophone, there's some David Bowie in there, the Brian Eno / Berlin-era and 'Black Tie / White Noise' ... but it's almost by mistake that it sounds this good. Talking to the boys you'll quickly find out they're into mixing modern electronic music with something that everyone will surely know floats my boat ...

Soul Music, in particularly, Motown and the sound of young black America. You can tell that whilst they've grown up and are still learning in the digital age of music a school and college, in a world where everything you hear on the radio and TV and been synthesised, harmonised, autotuned and processed into oblivion. And although they like to jam, and as fans of house music, experimental electronica, containing as they do, Taylor Burton aka. New Walk, one of the best DJs around, and at 16, only going to get better, they know how to craft a heartfelt and soulful pop song too.

You don't listen to any Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye or Smokey Robinson not learn how to to put that kind of thing together, I know from experience, and I always wonder how people stumble across these greats, especially when they're 10 years my junior ! So if you like soul music and you're a bit adventurous, I suggest you get into Tapestry now, and equally if you like electronic music but you like to feel the people behind the beats and hear the rhythms are the hearts that produced it, then Tapestry is the band for you !

And for locality's sake, you can hear a little bit of that Chris Karloff-era early Kasabian, when they were playing in toilet venues around the country with Chikinki and getting more love from Mixmag and DJ magazine than the NME, it starts somewhere, and for these boys too, it seems like it's gonna be the Soundhouse, The Shed and The Musician in Leicester, no doubt I'll invite them to The Cookie when the time feels right.

After all that, I'm just annoyed that I leant their CD to my brother who's only gone and lost it !! It's a good job I stuck it on my iPod before I did that ... and we're living in the age of Soundcloud now and any great artists will be sharing most of their output online for free anyways !! Check out Tapestry, and you won't be disappointed ... Peace, Love & Tea, MHx

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