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News:
February 2006
Diane Coetzer's Review:
Even when he was blasting through a particular form of rock informed by drenching humidity and banana-plant strewn coastlines, Chris Letcher always seemed intense. As Urban Creep's vocalist, guitarist and co-songwriter, he consistently evoked - on stage and in person - a feeling that he was destined for something a lot more serious than singing about what it felt like to live at sea level.
The first hints of this came through his work with Matthew van der Want - in particular their gorgeous songs as captured on the albums 'Low Riding' and 'Bignity'. But as good as these highly underrated recordings were, the release of Letcher's solo album, 'Frieze' (Sheer Music) overrides even that material.
A 16-track album, 'Frieze' is everything that Letcher promised in those early years – keenly intelligent, musically dense, utterly memorable, always sliding through any attempts to nail it down to a genre. In its expansive musical vision - that is unafraid to hook in experimental sounds - Letcher's solo offering could be called art rock or art pop even but even then these descriptions really don't do justice to 'Frieze'.
What the album does - like the work of groups like Belle and Sebastian - is offer the listener entry into a world where snowflakes melt in girl's hair, velvet hearts are stuck with pins and people flee on boats when they get news that a loved one has left the world. It's impossible not to be drawn into this highly visual and moody lyrical content. Listen to the sleepy sombreness of 'Swallow's Tail' to see just what I mean - working around a narrative of loss, the song's construction, built on a thrumming acoustic guitar and perfectly balanced female backing vocals, is a thing of real beauty.
If his lyrics are dreamy, musically Letcher isn't afraid to show his considerable skills - always impressive but now significantly enhanced by his studies: In 2003 he graduated from Trinity College of Music, London with a Masters in Music for composition and Letcher is the middle of his DMus in film music composition at the Royal College of Music, London. All of this means he doesn't pull back from including an array of sounds on 'Frieze' - beeps and squeaks and spare jazz piano playing make their way into the musical mix ('Architect') and found sounds, especially of Johannesburg, litter the album ('Robotic Soldiers' and others) in a way that locates the album in the urban landscape of the city where Letcher was born.
"I went over the London to do something completely different from what I was doing here, which was to learn how to write music for orchestral instruments," Letcher says. "I felt completely out of my depth at first but it was extremely good for me and after a while I really could find an original voice."
"It was incredibly mind-expanding and musical boundary expanding – and a lot of that informs the music on the album, especially elements like bringing in avant garde music into more pop songs. I wanted to work with more ambient sounds – in that weird, grey area between what you would normally consider musical sounds and just sound, and then use technology to bridge the gap between the two."
Letcher points to 'Robotic Soldiers' as an example of the execution of this musical approach. "It started out just from these sounds of Joburg that I recorded last year for a collaborative project with a painter. He was painting pictures of Johannesburg, and so I went around recording different real sounds and ended up using them as samples on the track."
Letcher says he likes "not writing about me all the time, and using other people's experiences for what they are, and not as metaphors for my own life". It's his ability to come at songwriting in this thoughtful, at times, unusual way that makes "Frieze' the really strong album that it is.
Aiding Letcher in creating the soundscapes on 'Frieze' are musicians Dave Eugene Webb (drums/accordion), Andrew Joseph (bass), Ross Richardson (guitar/voice) and vocalist, Victoria Hume. It's Hume, in particular, who adds to the album's loveliness – her soft-voiced duetting with Letcher recalling the best male-female partnerships of recent years, including Conor Oberst's work with Emmylou Harris.
Aside from working on 'Frieze', Letcher is slowing gaining traction as a composer able to match sounds to pictures. Over the past few years he has worked on the full length feature film ('A Case of Murder'), a Discovery Channel wildlife documentary series, an Amnesty International documentary, a documentary on the life of South African golfer Sewsunker 'Papwa' Sewgolum and an animated film screened at the London International Film Festival ('Baboon on the Moon'). Letcher is also currently composing a score for the Zentropa-produced film 'My Black Little Heart', and arranged the strings for the new Vusi Mahlasela album.
In spite of being based in London for the past five years, Letcher still sees himself as first and foremost a South African artist. "It's not in any way overt in my music but we are all the product of our influences and all mine come from here," he says.
'Frieze' is likely to be released in Europe, Australia and UK early in 2007. Letcher and his band play live in London a lot and this has earned him a small following in the city already. "It's been great playing live in a low-key way over this past year because we have been able to craft our live performance without any pressure on us. We are looking to 2007 to match our live shows with a release because we believe the album is strong enough to make an impact."
Listen to 'Frieze' for yourself and see if you agree that this is one of the most inventive, absorbing releases of 2007.
Diane Coetzer (Billboard / Entertainment Africa)
28 April 2006
SA Tour lined up for November. Details soon.
3 April 2006
Some great new Moth/Letcher pics by Tamsyn Adams HERE
21 March 2006
Very last minute gig this Thursday at West One Four, West Ken. Also playing: Victoria Hume and Moth! It's a family affair! Tickets £5 with this flyer!
This literal translation of our fragmentary selves by Huw Morris from last week in Brixtonia:
Paris Feb 2006
Two Christophes, Beatrice
London, 26 January 2006
A few Spitz pics curtesy of Ann Symonds here.
24 January 2006
Sunday's a Victoria Hume and Moth gig at the Blackheath Halls. Will include some exceptionally beautiful Hume songs for two pianos...
9 January 2006
High anticipation for a gig at the Spitz -- a great venue near Liverpool Street -- this Wednesday, 11th Jan (entrance = free!). Do come down if you can. It's right in the city so, in the immortal words of Rosco, perfect for "after work beer misbehaviour". I have no argument with that.
Mr Bargroff's just finished stunning mixes of the album. We can't wait for you to hear them. Release date expected soon. More info soon, too. Plans also afoot for a music video shot on vintage Super 8; and a tour later in the year. The rest's all details, will keep you posted...
Here's a link to some new VdW/L photos taken by Toast Coetzer
http://www.litnet.co.za/toast/letcher.asp
Photo: Toast Coetzer
New Years Day 2006
No business like snow business
12 November
Really good to see old and new faces at last night's gig. Soundcheck hell, crass banner ads from so-called sponsors, and exploding bass amps had us preparing for the worst, but we ended up walking off like smug cats. Weird. Next gig's on Fri 9 December at the Ritzy in Brixton. We're sharing the night with my favourite band, Moth, with whom we also share a drummer and a guitarist. Some blurry pics from last night courtesy of Alex here. If anyone would like a cd, drop a line...
13 October
Okay, so maybe there are some things that do improve with age; thought Matthew and I played together better than ever last month, and our little reunion tour culminating in a 2-night Rodriquez sandwich at the Armchair in Cape Town went way better than we could have hoped. We made proper multi-track live recordings of both Cape Town gigs so there should be a decent live record out soon. That's something we've wanted to do for a long time. Click HERE for a QuickTime slideshow of some strange road pics from last month's southward drift (may take a minute or so to download). Note the distinct shift in style after we started buying 12-year old bottles of whisky (we sold a lot of cds) and playing pool with Port St John's one-armed pool hustler. We make no apologies....
October 6
We do apologise if you've tried to make contact through these pages in the last couple of weeks. There was a problem with the server but that's all fixed now. If you did send a message recently please resend it to this address: chris@letchermusic.com; or fill in the 'contact' page which is up and running again.
Many thanks to everyone who came to the gigs in SA and bought CDs; Matthew and I had lots of fun. Got some funny pics -- will put those up soon, and more...
September 6
Things hot up.
* The new Van der Want/Letcher album's nearly ready (recorded over a distance of 9027 km - that's one v long mic cable) as is the new Letcher. Two new songs of Robin's fresh out the oven too.
* There's talk of taking over Bush Hall for our own Christmas party, bypassing the London band venue racket, and launching our album in Edwardian splendour.
* My Black Little Heart due to start shooting 7 November.
* And 6 days to go before I jet out of here for VdW/L reunion (and still no passport!).
Just joined up with the good people at All Killer. Good friends are now stable mates. Well, stable-ish. Rich Webb is a superb Melbourne songwriter and brother to Eugene (we're hoping to get a couple of gigs together in Ireland and Gdansk -- Gdansk! -- later in the year), and Moth are magnificent. Once you've heard 'It Takes So Little' you won't want to listen to much else. Check it out:
July 27
We're going to try something a bit different next Thursday (4 August) at the Troubadour. Mutterings about berets and pipes aside, it's a great venue. Here are two reasons: 1) Jimi Hendrix played there, and 2) they feed the band. We've never been too proud to sing for our supper. To show our appreciation, we're thinking of pulling out a few new stops. A great trumpet player called Hutch, who is recording with us on the weekend, will join us for the gig. Got a few other surprises; hope you'll come down if you're free. We're headlining, with a 45 min set. On stage around 10pm.
July 14
Just got confirmation we're headlining at the Troubadour on 4 August. On stage about 10pm. More info to follow.
June 29
Got some new pictures from last week courtesy of Sarah Taylor here. Boy, did we sweat. It was hot. So very hot. More gigs to be confirmed soon...
June 22
Band gets let loose in front of a live audience for the first time on Thursday night (23 June). We'll be a pack of wolves, you be a flock of sheep. We can swop at half time. It’s a shortish set and we’re on at 9pm. More details on the Water Rats site. It's going to be fun. Hecklers always welcome, of course. And any requests?
June 7
Howard, Chris and David spent Sunday in the studio in Camden laying some tracks for a batch of new Letcher songs hoping to make the final cut for the new cd... drumming styles varied from a kid having a tantrum to child-like simplicity... how would Moe Tucker have played them? Would Moe Tucker have blown a fuse in the face of the Camden Click? What would Moe Tucker think about Howard's tent technique (patent pending)? Cello parts recorded by Christophe Boissiere in Paris have brought the tracks a certain Parisian lustre, glamour even. Rehearsals this Saturday in prep for the Water Rats and Troubadour gigs, sadly without Christophe. But Paris is just a train ride away, you know. David's got a Moth gig this week Thursday; Chris has been working as a gun slinger for Robin: last week blasted out a couple of sweaty sets at the Half Moon in Putney, out again this Wednesday 8th June with Robin at the Windmill in Brixton. Howard's expecting a man to come and fix the boiler on Tuesday...
Click here to check out an excerpt from the Funeral Parlour mix we've just done of a lovely Rich Webb song called About a Girl. Up for a limited time only (ie until Rich notices and tells me to take it down).
18 May
Hey, welcome to the site! Great to finally stake ourselves a cyber claim. We're going to keep it up-to-date with news, pics, mp3s, videos and works-in-progress. Hope you'll come back often, and feel free to drop us a line if you like.
The band's in the process of finishing off an album recorded and mixed by Howard Bargroff that we hope will be out later in the year on Open Record . Got a few more songs to finish and we'll be ready for final mixes. You can listen to a few demos of songs we're working on here.
We're also rehearsing with a new line-up for some London gigs early in the summer. So far we're booked to play the Water Rats in Kings Cross on 23 June, and the Hope and Anchor in Islington on ? July. There'll be more in the next couple of months; another night at Cargo, I hope, one at The Troubadour and possibly another Dublin Castle gig. These to be confirmed soon. If you're in London I hope you'll turn up to one of these. The band's sounding awesome, by the way, but come and judge for yourself!
There's also a Van der Want / Letcher tour coming up in September, and an acoustic album. Hope we'll see you at one of these gigs if you're in the locale:
Friday 16th September 2005 - Back 2 Basix, Westdene, Jhb
Saturday 16th Sept 2005 - Songwriters' Club, Johannesburg
Wednesday 21 Sept 2005 - Bassline, Newtown Johannesburg
Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th September - Durban [venues to be confirmed]
Friday 30 September - The Independent Armchair Theatre, Cape Town
Retro Fresh has recently released a compilation of Urban Creep songs. How's this for a weird blast from the past? And this?? Hirsute, for sure, though not all the hair necessarily in the right places (see Letcher chin).
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