City (of?) Forgiveness

As the WP's are currently on a tour of residency's in the UK they played two nights in a row on Marc Riley's BBC Radio 6 programme this week. You can listen again here for a limited time:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c72y1/broadcasts/2013/04

They played three new songs over the two nights - The Ropes, Chestnut and Lisbon and they revealed these songs would be on their new double(!) LP, due in October and called City Forgiveness. Or possibly City Of Forgiveness, I couldn't quite work out Riley's pronunciation. Also noteworthy for us WP geeks was the news it was recorded with Simon Trought at Soup Studios and that all the lyrics were written in one chunk during the 2012 US tour with Allo Darlin.

This followed up in the following interview:

http://www.theargus.co.uk/leisure/music/10349813.The_Wave_Pictures/

Over the past two years, The Wave Pictures have played three-night residencies at The George Tavern and The Old Blue Last in East London – playing different set lists each night.
For this latest tour, the trio have expanded the idea, taking it out to Glasgow, Manchester, York and Newcastle, with the first dates taking place in Brighton – albeit in three different locations.
“It does undo one of the nice things about doing residency shows – when you only have to turn up and soundcheck once,” admits David Tattersall, who seems unfazed, and happy to be back in Brighton.
“I do like Harry Ramsden’s and going around the record shops. I came down with my girlfriend last week and had a nice day out.
“I used to live in Glasgow as a student, and we know the promoters in York and Manchester – they’re all places we’re happy to be spending a few days in.”
The idea of playing three shows with different material every night is a challenge – although Tattersall admits the band never plays with a setlist anyway.
“In London we had a list of all the Wave Pictures songs we could play and crossed them off as we went,” he says, referring to a back catalogue which stretches across ten albums – five self-released, four on the Moshi Moshi label, plus one on Smoking Gun Records – as well as numerous EPs and limited edition singles over the past decade.
“There was a point 18 months or two years ago where I could sing any Wave Pictures song and remember all the words – now there are just too many. When something goes wrong it’s usually quite fun.”
It was at the London residencies that several popular features of The Wave Pictures’s recent live show came together, from sections sung off-mic, to drummer Jonny Helm coming out from behind his kit to take lead on a couple of numbers.
“Jonny started singing along with me on one song when we did the residency at The George, so I pushed him to do a lead vocal,” says Tattersall.
“The next time we played he got out in front and sang. Franic [Rozycki, bassist] and I had no idea he was acting so cute and nervous when he sang which people seem to like.
“We don’t really rehearse or play together much when we’re not on stage, it tends to just be gigs, soundchecks and recording sessions, so most of these things are quite spontaneous.
“I really like to have moments in the set that are as quiet as possible, to see if you can get the audience to concentrate, and also have the moments where we rock out with long guitar solos making a lot of noise.
“Having that huge dynamic range is something which excites me, especially when we can get the crowd to go with us.”
The residency shows are set to feature new material from a forthcoming double album, due out in October.
Similarly to the band’s last few records it was committed to tape at breakneck speed.
“For the last album Long Black Cars we went to New York and had four days in the studio,” recalls Tattersall. “With Beer In The Breakers we had two days in Darren [Hayman, former Hefner frontman]’s house, and both records came out great.
No pressure
“We decided let’s record this one in a more luxurious way, with no pressure for time. We went to Soup Studios near to where I live in East London and did 20 songs in three days.
“It comes from playing the songs live for a while before going into the studio.
“We like things to be as lively sounding as possible – so on a good day you can get a lot of songs done in one day.
“There are more guests on this album – we’ve got Stanley Brinks from Herman Dune playing sax and guitar, and Paul Rains from Allo Darlin’, plus two drummers.
“We don’t like to compromise – so the reason our records sound as terrible as they sound is because that is how we like them to sound. Even if we took an infinite amount of time, they would still end up being something that was made very quickly.
“This album sounds very different to me. It might sound the same to somebody else – it’s not as if we’ve gone electronic or anything – but I’m very excited about it.”
Prior to that release, The Wave Pictures have a tribute album available through their website to raise money for the family of an inspirational singer-songwriter.
Jason Molina, frontman of Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co, died aged 39 last month following a battle with alcoholism.
The band had already been working on an album of his songs with friends, including Will Oldham, Jeffrey Lewis, Herman Dune and Darren Hayman, to raise money for Molina’s hospital bills when news of his death came through.
While The Wave Pictures’s songs have been released separately, the others have been donated to another tribute album, Weary Engine Blues, put together by American label Graveface Records which will also give all proceeds to his family.
“We found out that their pre-orders had already raised $10,000,” says Tattersall.
“I had always thought Jason might get better or might get to make music again.
“We all take the NHS for granted in this country, but in the US it’s not uncommon to run up huge hospital bills, or for people to die because they can’t get the treatment they need. I’ve no idea whether that happened to him or not but I know the family will have a massive debt.
“He’s certainly one of the people I have listened to the most – especially the Songs: Ohia album The Lioness. Maybe a few people will listen to his music who haven’t before.”