The Quiet Lamb - Her Name Is Calla

A thousand years ago an advert proclaimed, ‘You can’t hurry a Murray’s’ referring to an old school boiled mint sweet. Well there is something of the Murray Mint to Her Name is Calla. It’s been a couple of years since I first brushed up against them around the time of the Heritage mini-album and my quest to get a copy of the majestic Condor and River. The full album has been long promised and much anticipated but The Quiet Lamb is now here, well almost. In an arcane and magical sort of way I seem to be the proud owner of the album before my wooden boxed and card-stuffed version comes tumbling through my door next month or so. Consequently I have been treating myself to many-a listen to this 70 minute plus opus.

HNIC don’t do short cuts, neither do they do hurried and in a time where everything seems to be faster, impatient and needing immediacy, this is welcome counterpoint. HNIC isn’t for everyone, this isn’t going to be up your street if you’re looking for a jolly sing-along or a smack between the eyes hook and chorus. Thankfully for an old prog type like me this is no problem. The slow build, reveal and development in The Quiet Lamb of course has its echoes these days in the perhaps unhelpful nomenclature that is post-rock, shoe-gaze and all the rest, but it also brings back more resonant memories of the album structures of Tangerine Dream and going back further still symphonic structures perhaps of Stravinsky or maybe Bruckner . Oh dear that sounds all rather worthy and pretentious, safe to say HNIC do carefully considered and structured music, written with a lot of heart and invested with a deep sense of authenticity and honesty

The Quiet Lamb is no easy piece of work. It does demand to be listened to in its entirety and at over 70 minutes that’s not always easy to achieve. The album mostly does manage to work as a whole, the shorter pieces such as Intervals I and II together with the perhaps too fragile, Homecoming inevitably suffer in comparison with the substantial set pieces across the work, which is a shame because they merit closer attention that simply link pieces.

The major tracks are either monumental pieces in their own rights, like Condor and River, or combine together as ‘movements’ of extended pieces as with Blood Promise and its associated track (and personal favourite)Pour More Oil and the three part suite The Union. IMHO I might have preferred Long Grass and Thief to be put together in a similar fashion but that’s not how it ended up.

Whilst there is of course a pervading melancholia to the set, inevitable given the provenance of some of the songs, it doesn’t feel maudlin or depressive to me. As you would hope there is a real sense of progression from earlier recordings, greater sensitivity in recording, Tom Morris’ vocals sounding much stronger and more assured, the greater use of horns and strings add splendid layers to the sound, altogether a much more grow-up and mature affair. An interesting little history of HNCI can be found here

I know from reading the excellent and helpful track by track article by Tom in The Line of Best Fit that the trilogy that is The Union is clearly an important collection for HNIC. It is in truth, well for me anyway, the most difficult part of the album and in particular the Recidivist middle section. Whilst I am growing to love the trilogy, the Recidivist still feel s like it needed a bit more work and maybe a little more discipline and structure imposed upon the second half of this very personal and raw piece. The final part Into the West is indeed a dense full on gallop off into the proverbial sunset replete with Mexicana horns, pounding drums and everything including the kitchen sink thrown into the mix.

The Quiet Lamb has been more than worth the wait and is certainly worth ordering up from their Label Denovali . A significant piece of work, at times soaring at others almost pastoral, but throughout imbued with an intensity and personality so sadly lacking in much output these days. This is band that deserves a greater audience and a band that promises even better things to come – one of my albums of the year, bless their cotton socks.

Pix courtesy of Valerio

Arcade Fire and Life Sound Tracks

A minor coincidence set me thinking today. Along with countless others I am now the owner of the new Arcade Fire album, Suburbs, greedily gobbling up the music, hoping it will have a similar effect to the first time I heard them (almost inevitably not). Bouncing through Tweetdeck tonight and up pop a series of fevered tweets from @hernameiscalla, a band that also help recreate in me that elusive sense of excitement, the sense of something new and to be discovered. The tweets, once joined up , read as follows:

“my thoughts on the new #arcadefire - i do really like it, but a big part of this is cuz of how important the band is to me ...and how an album on suburban life & growin up makes me think of the band soundtracking my exams, feelin lost at uni, loneliness & boredom...... only arcade fire & broken social scene have followed me from gcse & school, to my halls, lonely houses & then love & working life...”

Isn’t it strange the effect a band, an album or sometimes just a track can have? How looking back they become inextricably associated with a moment, a period, an emotion? I am afraid that Arcade Fire don’t take me back to my school days, you have to travel a wee bit further for that.

The guilty pleasure of my teenage love affair with Yes ironically came right back around when, years later, Heart of the Sunrise became the unforgettable, and deeply appropriate, audio track to the journey home at 1am after the birth of my son.

Writing now I realise how impossible it is to try and succinctly attach specific music to life stages without writing a book and boring everyone to death. But the attachments are there, and sometimes only really clear after the event. The Joni Mitchell album Hissing of Summer Lawns is an unexpectedly durable example, at the time my introduction to elements of jazz and the as then unnamed ‘world music’ elements, later to reflect as it did in Harry’s House my own experience of becoming dislocated from home life through the pressures of ‘business’ life.

More recently music has again become centre stage. After years of not going to gigs, the Lad hit fourteen and off we went. Anally I track all our gigs, the supports, the experience of the night, the triumphs, the lesser nights. With the valued input of @binmouth and IDS we share new hopes and passions – The National have and will keep one of those few treasured places in our hearts - all the new bands that come and go, the impassioned early days of bands, those other artists that stay and grow and don’t grow stale.

The thing that has changed of late is the ability to discover bands and musicians from around the country and the rest of the world. It seems only yesterday that discovering new music was asking to listen to a 45rpm in a booth in record shop down town. The internet has revolutionised all that - it is almost impossible to keep track of all that is out there, trying to find the music that will connect with you, resonate and embed itself, become that part of your own soundtrack. But what a damn fine problem it is, this is a blessed time.

Her Name Is Calla - The Quiet Lamb etc

Well it seems an age that we have been waiting the debut album from the glorious but improbably named Her Name is Calla (I have often wondered but never had the temerity to ask what that’s all about). There of course have been the various EP’s and little snippets of joy including Long Grass, Heritage, Blood Promise and the magnificent Condor and River that first introduced them to me and I have posted a couple of short bits here and here. This later track and a couple of the others are included, I believe in reworked fashion, on The Quiet Lamb debut released on Denovali records ( and their frankly befuddling website).

The lovely chaps at @hernameiscalla (for you Twitter following types) have quite properly been trumpeting some nice, positive reviews of the album but we mere mortals are still holding on for a pre-order date, now expected in September for an October release. HNIC (sorry to introduce an acronym, ah OK I instantly rescind it) hernameiscalla do put out their material in some charming packaging ideal for an artefact collector like me, including a wooden box with bits and bobs inside for Long Grass and a make-it-yourself card box for Blood Promise (I think it was that). So I have high hopes for the wooden box presentation for The Quiet Lamb.

Now in a shameless, but ultimately effective ploy, to garner more Twitter followers there was a promise of an album related ‘goodie’ once a certain threshold had been reached, and true to their word the fine fellows put up Pour More Oil from the new album up on SoundCloud for all to enjoy. A great swelling sound filled out with brass and strings, all boding very well for October.

A pre-album tour-ette is on the cards and dates are up on Myspace amongst other places. Disappointingly the only one I have a chance of getting to is Cardiff and that’s a long shot – so still no live experience for me.... any chance of some post launch dates, maybe one around Bristol or so...

The Mantles, These Monsters and Her Name is Calla

A couple of new chaps to me and a favourite putting out some new material.

The Mantles are a San Francisco bay bunch, proudly proclaiming their (or maybe their parents) record collection influences. They clearly fit alongside The Girls with this charmingly, and welcome retro, Yardbirds sort of stuff. It makes me feel like its 1969 all over again . the track Don;t Lie can be streamed or downloaded from Siltbreeze

These Monsters are a different kettle of fish. Leeds based they are an intriguing mix of

of early Gong saxophone, twangs of Hawkwind and something strangely orchestral in a post-rocky portentous sort of way. Reportedly a great live band - out playing with Mono, iLiketrains etc - they have this self made schlock gothic video to accompany a track from their album that is due for release at the start of March

Her Name is Calla I have been a Her Name is Calla fan since

first hearing the frankly monumental and magnificent Condor and River in all its 16 minute or whatever glory. They produce grand, cinematic and sometimes a bit gothic (here we go again) sounds. Having recently expanded into a six piece, the sound feels even more crafted, uncompromising and from the heart. They have a new three track EP, Long Grass, released prior to their debut album, that can be downloaded or purchased in one of its artistic formats from Denovali who are also streaming the frankly wonderful three tracks

Her Name is Calla

Well in pretty much a volte face from the sublime Fleet Foxes, I have stumbled upon the really rather excellent Her Name is Calla who must labour under the unhelpful Post Rock label it seems.

The blurb on Last FM says , and I quote: "Leicester based 4 piece Her Name Is Calla have recently signed a deal with Gizeh Records. The bands debut single ‘A Moment of Clarity’ is released in October 07 with a debut album to follow in mid 08. Calla’s sound brings to mind a raw, stripped back Radiohead with strong post-rock influences thrown into the mix." Well I don't know about that but the now-unavailable-save-on-download, Condor and River is a majectic 16+ minutes wash of sound, with some nice tinkly bits thown in. The single (not much airtime awarded I imagine) A Moment of Clarity, gives the same sort of stuff but at around six minutes.

Their new album (or is it a long EP - who knows) 'Heritage' is out on Gizeh Records at a mere £6 or via the inevitable iTunes. Of course tracks are on their MySpace site, and much is also listenable via Last FM.

Reviews on Drowned in Sound , The Silent Ballet and Whisperin and Hollerin to name a few