Bill Pritchard - A Trip to the Coast

by Benjamin Howarth

published: 12 / 2 / 2014

Label: Tapete Records
Format: CD

Unpretentious pop on fantastic first album in nine years from Staffordshire-based singer-songwriter, Bill Pritchard

Review

It has been something of a stop-start musical career for Bill Pritchard. He began performing while living in Bordeaux, and has collaborated with Françoise Hardy and Ian Broudie. Early solo albums found him success in France and Belgium - and then later Japan and Canada. By 1995, he had formed a band, Beatitude, and appeared to have broken through with the single, 'Baby In Brylcream'. But then, the label releasing his solo album 'Happiness and Other Crimes' went bankrupt shortly after its 1999 release, making it almost impossible to find. There has been little from him since – though in 2005, he recorded the largely electronic album, 'By Paris, By Taxi, By Accident'. Pritchard has largely concentrated on his work as a producer and arranger in the intervening years. He seems almost as surprised as anyone else to be releasing a new album nine years later. His trip to the coast begins in unassuming fashion – a quick strum on an acoustic guitar gives way to some gently distorted jangly guitars, strumming well loved chords. But, as opening song 'Trentham' unfurls, it gives note of slightly more ambition – with church bells and strings layered over the guitar hum. None of this gets in the way of a naggingly catchy pop song. Having spent much of his life in France, Pritchard had returned to his native Staffordshire when he began recording 'A Trip to the Coast', recording with his long term collaborator Tim Bradshaw (who is best known as the guitarist for former Boyzone man Ronan Keating, but let's not hold that against him). Neither had any notion that these songs would ever be released – and it was only after the album was finished that thoughts turned to finding a label. The relaxed circumstances come across in a refreshingly unpretentious sets of songs. The sound is pitched somewhere between classic pop and C-86-style indie. There are touches that remind me of Shack (especially the eerie shuffle of 'Posters') the Loft (the album is drenched in a familiar early Creation records guitar sound) and Teenage Fanclub (the wistful jangle of 'Almerand Road' could have dropped straight off the Fanclub's last album). Then, the album's highlight, piano ballad 'Truly Blue', would not have shamed Paddy McAloon. Comparing the songs on a 'A Trip to the Coast' is a little unfair. Bill Pritchard is not just an imitator. What he has done is write ten memorable songs, and dress them up in the clothes of classic indie pop. You'll be nodding along on your first listen, and still hearing new things on your twentieth. What more can you ask for?