Autumn 1904 - The City

  by John Clarkson

published: 5 / 12 / 2023

Label: Select Label
Format: Download

intro

Exuberant new single from 1980’s Edinburgh post-punks Autumn 1984, which comes from a forthcoming album of re-masters and re-recordings

Autumn 1904 was an Edinburgh post-punk band which formed in 1982 and broke up in 1985. It recorded a well-received John Peel session in 1984 and the young pre-Garbage Shiirley Manson used to sing in it occasionally. Internal tensions and health problems, however. led to line-up changes and its eventual demise before they were able to release anything else other than one track for a compilation album for ‘Deadbeat’, a local fanzine. Over 35 years on in 2021 its five original members – Billy Leslie (vocals), Allan Dumbreck (keyboards), Ross Thom (guitar), Billy Bowie (bass) and Keith Falconer (drums) - got back together to re-master and re-record the original material from their studio recordings. ‘Tales of Innocence’, an album, which will comprise of the John Peel session and these new-for-old recordings, will come out on the prolific Last Night From Glasgow label in February. ‘The City’, the first single from it, makes promising listening. It draws comparisons with the Teardrop Explodes in its huge, spiralling sound, but it carries a lot of its own weight as well with its jangling keyboards, swirling guitars and car horn field noises. Indira Sharma and Lisa Cameron provide a fine line in shrieking powerhouse backing vocals, and Bily Leslie’s nervy singing is a masterclass in alienation (“People staring through you”) and paranoia.(“Up in your cell bock/A violent city/People are going to get you”). On the evidence of this, all these years on, ‘Tales of Innocence’ is a highly anticipated release from this once lost band.

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