Swansea Sound - Angry Girl/Corporate Indie Band

  by John Clarkson

published: 30 / 10 / 2020

Label: Lavender Sound
Format: Tape

intro

Fine debut single from new indie supergroup Swansea Sound, which includes Heavenly and Tender Trap'S Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey

Amelia Fletcher and her partner Rob Pursey are leading an obviously frantic existence at the moment. Not only do they have their own mainstay group the Catenary Wires, but the former Talulah Gosh, Heavenly and Tender Trap pair have become involved in several other groups as well. These include European Sun which they formed last year with the Short Stories' Stephen Miles and who have just released their self-titled debut album, and an ambient four-piece The Drift which includes American poet Nancy Gaffield and who are about to put out a thirty minute poetry/musical soundscape piece called 'WEALDEN' which is inspired by their local Kent coastline and landscape. As if they weren't busy enough, they have also formed Swansea Sound, which reunites the high-flying Fletcher, who was awarded an OBE this year for her services to her day job in Economics, with Huw Williams from the Pooh Sticks, upon whose records she used to regularly guest in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Swansea Sound has been established with firm principles. Their songs will not be found on Spotify, Apple Music or other corporate providers, and their debut single 'Angry Girl'/'Corporate Indie Band' has been made available on already sold-out cassette through Welsh indie Lavender Sweep and digitally on Pursey's own Skep Wax imprint. The magnificent, darkly funny 'Corporate Indie Band', with strident, harmonising vocals from Williams and Fletcher and a strong, strummed guitar line from Pursey, tells of one such Spotify-type band who fall victim to their own ambitions and record company pressures ("All the time we have got to write more songs/I am not sure we'll be able to keep it up for very long"). The waspish garage rock of 'Angry Girl' is equally splendid with its spiky, churning guitars, soaring vocals from Fletcher and Williams and some suitably caustic drum work from the group's fourth member Ian Button (Papernut Cambridge, Rotifer, European Sun), which match its tale of teenage rebellion and the romance between the angry girl of the title and a similarly angry boy ("When they get together they will drive their parents insane"). A fun and enjoyable debut single from these indie veterans which promises much for their future together.

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