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Upcoming Gigs:
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Den Doetsje, Kapelle op den Bos, Belgium
9pm 14 October, 2011
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Delicatessen, Amsterdam
9pm, 15 October 2011
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De Nul, Hengelo, Netherlands
4pm 16 October 2011
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Big Buttinsky, Osnabruck, Germany
9pm, 17 October 2011
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Hafen Casino, Bremen, Germany
8pm 18 October 2011
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Radio Leinehertz (106.5 Rundfunkgesellschaft)
4pm, 18 October 2011
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GIG-Linden, Hannover, Germany
9pm, 19 October 2011
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Radio Jade, Wilhemshawen
1.30pm, 20 October, 2011
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Platformtheater, Groningen, Netherlands
9pm, 20 October 2011
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Radio Weser TV, Germany
12pm, 21 October 2011
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Haven Hoovt, Bremen, Germany
4pm, 21 October 2011
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Tagungshaus Bredbeck, Osterholz-Schambeck
9pm, 21 October 2011
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Balcony TV, Hamburg, Germany
1.30pm, 22 October 2011
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Katja's Villa, Kunterbunt, Bremen
8pm, 22 October 2011
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Radio 112, Hamburg
8pm, 22 October, 2011
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Fair Cafe, Schortens, Germany
2.30pm, 23 October 2011
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Kerem Kulturkneipe, Delmenhorst
7pm, 23 October 2011
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LoX, Bremen, Germany
8pm, 25 October 2011
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MTS City Sounds, Oldenburg
4pm, 26 October 2011
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Polyester, Oldenburg, Germany
8pm, 26 October 2011
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Radio Weser TV, Bremen
9am, 27 October 2011
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Unna, Spatz & Wal, Germany
8pm, 27 October 2011
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Townside Hostel, Bremen, Germany
8pm, 28 October 2011
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Festalle Neuhaus, Neuhaus (Oste), Germany
8pm, 29 October 2011
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Katakomben, Achim, Germany
8pm, 30 October 2011
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Theatersall Universitat, Bremen
12.30pm, 1 November 2011
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25 HOURS HOTEL, Hamburg
8pm, 1 November 2011
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Astra-Stube, Hamburg
10pm, 1 November 2011
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Plattenkiste, Hamburg
2pm, 2 November 2011
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Freundlich + Kompetent, Hamburg
8pm, 2 November, 2011
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Mobile Blues Club, Hamburg
11pm, 2 November 2011
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Kito, Bremen
8pm, 3 November 2011
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Harlekin Pub, Bremen
8pm, 4 November 2011
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River Weser-Fleemarket, Bremen
12pm, 5 November 2011
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Club Moments, Bremen
8pm, 6 November 2011
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Gladstone Arms, London
8pm, 4th December, 2011
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More soon....
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REVIEWS/CLIPPINGS
About:
Following the glowing reviews London-based songwriter and film composer Chris Letcher received for his debut album Frieze (2007) and EP Harmonium (2008), Letcher now releases his full-length follow up, Spectroscope.
Recorded and mixed in London by Finn Eiles (My Bloody Valentine, Jack Penate, Razorlight), Letcher’s new album extends his use of lush orchestration. Bass clarinets, string and brass sections, mbiras and singing saws enfold drum machines and 1970s synthesizers to buttress an album of literate pop songs.
Letcher’s songs appeared in the feature film The Bang Bang Club (2010) starring Ryan Phillipe. He recently completed the score for a BBC adaptation of the DH Lawrence novel, Women in Love, and also scored a six-part serial drama for Sky1. Other recent film music credits include HOUR, a film made in collaboration with photographer, Tim Wainwright, and My Black Little Heart with director Claire Angelique and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours).
Frieze appeared in both The Sunday Times and the Mail & Guardian’s ‘Albums of the Decade’ lists, and has received extensive radio play, reaching the top 20 in the US on College Radio charts. The album was featured on the influential Morning Becomes Eclectic show on California’s KCRW, Australia’s JJJ, BBC 6 Music, and BBC Radio 3 in the UK. Frieze was also in the top position on both eMusic’s Commercial Alternative and Progressive Rock charts in the US for ten months.
Each song on Spectroscope is conceived as a separate 'band' on a spectrum that runs from hooky pop song structures ('The Sun! The Sun!', a snare-and-kick-driven kind of 'We Will Rock You', albeit in a 7/4 time-signature) to more abstract compositions with less conventional structures or instrumentation. 'One Died', for example, is a setting of Robert Berold's poem of the same name for voice and overdriven 'tack' piano, harmonically and structurally more adventurous than anything on Letcher's previous records.
Letcher's roots in South Africa are also more evident on this record. He uses a pair of 'interlocking' mbiras (or 'thumb pianos', one in the left speaker, one in the right) as the basis for a reworking of a fragment of Bill Callahan's masterpiece 'I'm New Here'. This 'hocket' technique found in many types of African music -- where melody lines emerge from a weave of two or more separate but interlocking parts rather than from a single lead solo instrument -- is also present in the coda of 'The Loneliest Air', and in the intertwining pair of clarinets on 'You Only Had to Point'.
The influence of Letcher's soundtrack work is also evident in the instrumentation on Spectroscope -- from the lush string section that brings 'Seeing Things' to a close, to the harp, trombone and French horns that form a musical bed for 'Starrrs'.
Artist - Chris Letcher
Album- Spectroscope
US Release Date - September 20, 2011
Label - 2 Feet Music
Tracklist:
01. The Sun! The Sun!
02. The Loneliest Air
03. Twin Fins
04. Starrrs
05. Phone Booth
06. You Only Had To Point
07. T-Fins (Intro)
08. Sleeping It Off
09. I'm New Here
10. Seeing Things
11. One Died
12. Joined Back To Nature
Press for Chris Letcher:
“Keenly intelligent, musically dense, utterly memorable.” - Billboard
“A sense of luminous menace... further proof of the pleasure-potential of the disquieting and disturbed.” - Guardian
“Letcher has created a world that feels somehow more real than the one we're living in, and when the albumis over, our own world doesn't feel quite the same.” - Etan Rosenbloom, Prefix Mag
“A lush orchestrated soundtrack.” - Editor’s Picks, Blender
“The most sophisticated rock album ever made by a South African Artist.” - FHM
“An intricately orchestrated, sincerely sung and often humorous offering... disquieting, electro-flecked, intricately composed revenge ballads.” - Critics’ Choice, London Time Out
Press Contacts: CLICK HERE!
Reviews:
“Letcher has created a world that feels somehow
more real than the one we're living in, and when the album is over, our
own world doesn't feel quite the same.” Etan Rosenbloom, Prefix Mag
“A sense of luminous menace... proof of the pleasure-potential of the disquieting and disturbed." Guardian UK, June 2007
"Diese Album ist ein hörenswerter Gegenbeweis; Da hat jemand viel gewollt und viel geschafft." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 2007
"Fascinatingly delicate textures that enhance the somber narratives." Ken Barnes, USA Today
“Dense, gorgeous pop.” Maura Johnston, Idolator
“Makes the earnest mopes of miserable bastards like David Gray and Damien Rice look like laundry lists.” - GQ (April 2007)
“A lush orchestrated soundtrack in search of a
film - you know, something big budget and with lots of expensive crane
shots and boyfriends in the rain calling up to their girlfriends
illuminated windows. John Cusack needs to hear this.” Mike
Errico, Senior Editor - Blender Magazine, USA June 2007
"The most sophisticated rock album ever made by a South African Artist." FHM (February 2007)
"A écouter d'urgence." - Indietronica
"The album Frieze
illustrates that Chris Letcher is one of the greatest songwriters to
grace the shores of this southern-most tip of Africa." Lloyd Gedye, Mail & Guardian
"This is simply a great album. Truly world class.
Intricate, complex, melodic, ambitious, funny, literate and so damn
listenable it will make you gasp" - Jeremy Daniel, The Star
"Keenly intelligent, musically dense, utterly memorable, always sliding through any attempts to nail it down to a genre." Diane Coetzer, Billboard/Entertainment Africa
"Une grande réussite, un grand moment de bonheur simple à découvrir d'urgence..." - Mur de son
...more reviews here
Cover design: Tamsyn Adams
FRIEZE RECORDED AND MIXED BY HOWARD 'FINGERS' BARGROFF and the band.
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