You can hear the single’s exclusive first radio play on Alex Baker’s show on Kerrang Radio on Sunday 12th September between 8pm and 10pm

The video, stills of which you’ll find below, produced by our good friends We The Conspirators is getting it’s first play on RockSound‘s website at Midday on Friday 17th September.

Put the dates in your diary!

THE SINGLE
We can finally say with reasonable confidence that ‘To the Skies From a Hillside’ comes out on 7″ and Digital Download on the 4th October through Field Records. It’ll be available to buy in all respectable record shops in the UK and Europe and from our store, field record’s store and all the usual online retailers. You’ll also be able to buy it from iTunes and various other places with some extra bonus bits and pieces included

THE VIDEO
We’ve been working with our friends WeTheConspirators (who made the videos for Co-Conspirators and Last Time This Year) on quite an ambitious video for the single, and we think you’ll be able to see it quite soon. We’ve seen the first rough edit this morning and it looks amazing, so we’re excited to get it out to you. Watch this space so to speak.

RECORDING FEATURES
This months RockSound magazine features a short studio report we wrote while we were out at Park Farm tracking the guitars for ‘To The Skies…’.  John talks about sheep, and not much at all about what we’re actually doing. Jamie (who’s taking the recording helm on this record, as well as playing bass) did a longer interview which is full of all the techy nonsense we all love. You can read that over at Audio Geek Zine.

TOUR
Everything is finally confirmed for the UK and Irish legs of the autumn tour. The UK shows are with &U&I and the Irish shows are with A Plastic Rose. Check the website and myspace for all the deets you should need.

BOOKING AGENT
As of January we’ll be booked for by our good friend Haydn Britland at Northern Music. He’s the man behind the incredible Brainwash festival in Leeds amongst other things, and consequently we’re looking forward to getting out and doing a lot more shows that we have previously. You can get in touch with him via haydn@northernmusic.co.uk.

ALBUM
Lastly but by no means leastly, progress on the album is continuing apace. We want this to be something we’re proud of on every level, so you may have to wait a little while, but we’re tentatively looking at getting it out in the spring, just in time for festival season, so keep your eyes peeled.

We’re not a massively festival hardened band – we’ve tended to do two or three per year so far – but of those we’ve seen, it’s now our favourite (home-town festivals excluded). The audience and atmosphere was unrivalled (Kudos to the now legendary Dan who crowd surfed in a crocodile costume almost constantly on Friday), and the line-up was astonishing. I don’t think we’ve ever spent so long trying to get off stage whilst saying hello to so many old friends – which became something of a theme over the following 16 hours.

This Sunday we’re off to Off The Cuff in Birmingham, which has a similarly incredible line-up, which we’re looking forward to equally eagerly. Hopefully we’ll see a few more friendly faces but come home in slightly better shape than last weekend.

As usual, we’ve been filming the tedious process of making shit sound right, and getting it played right, so here’s the video…

We’re very excited to let you know that, as announced in RockSound yesterday, we’ll be joined by &U&I for the English and Scottish dates of our Autumn tours. Comprised of three ex-members of the once awesome Blakfish, you can expect incredible things. Here’s a video to wet your appetite.

Joining us for the Northern and Southern Irish dates (excluding Belfast) are A Plastic Rose. We met these chaps last time we played over in Belfast for one of the most surreal shows of our life, and we’re delighted to be hooking up with them again.

The dates in full (so far) are…

OCTOBER
1st. NEWCASTLE, The Cluny 2
2nd. ABERDEEN, Moorings Bar
3rd. EDINBURGH, Bannermans
4th. GLASGOW, Stereo
5th. MANCHESTER, Moho Live
6th. LEEDS, Josephs Well
7th. BLACKPOOL, Blue Room
8th. BIRMINGHAM, Flapper
9th. CARDIFF, Buffalo Bar
10th. BRISTOL, Thekla
11th. BRIGHTON, Prince Albert
12th. KINGSTON, Fighting Cocks
13th. PORTSMOUTH, Edge Of The Wedge
14th. LONDON, Wilmington Arms
15th. NOTTINGHAM, Rock City
16th. LEICESTER, Y-Theatre

19th. CORK, Tbc
20th. LIMERICK, Baker’s Place
21st. GALWAY, Aras Na Gael
22nd. DERRY, Masons
23rd. BELFAST, Auntie Annie’s
24th. DUBLIN, Whelans

So this is going to be a bit of an odd recording blog, in the same way that for us it’s a bit of an odd recording session. Today we officially start work recording our third LP, but because of schedules, money and the way we write, it will probably be a good few months before anything is anywhere near finished.

Today we’re tracking drums for four songs at Seamus Wong’s in Leicester where Youthmovies recorded ‘Good Nature’ – collectively one of our favourite albums of all time. In a few weeks we head out into rural Leicestershire to Park Farm studios, run by our bassist Jamie, where we’ll record the bass, guitars and other bits and bobs which make songs ‘songs’ and not just the sound of Jim hitting things – as pleasant a sound as that is. In a few more months we’ll come back to Wong’s to record some more drums, then head back to Park Farm to do some more guitars.

Confused? We certainly are.

Having done all our previous recording in spare rooms, having nice spaces and equipment at our disposal is an unusual experience for us, so we’re determined to make this sound as good as humanly possible. Jamie’s taking the lead on production duties, so everything’s still being done ‘in-house’ so to speak, but it’s another step up and we’re pretty deliriously excited about it.

Having said that recording is, like many of the realities of being in a band, really fucking boring once the initial excitements over. Whilst Jamie sets up and Jim’s still at his day job, the rest of us are entertaining ourselves by making  the video blog you can watch above, drinking excessive amounts of tea, and doing bits and bobs for our day jobs.

Enjoy…

x

It’s been a privilege playing with our boys These Furrows at the shows, and we’re excited to see what happens with them in the next few months. If you missed it, Darryl from Furrows joined us on vocals for a pretty special one-off rendition of Seraphim & Cherubim at White Noise – It’s on video HERE

TOUR
We’re pleased to announce that we’re heading out on a month long UK and Ireland tour in October. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, due to the awesome turn out at the shows last week we’ve had to hold back on announcing a couple of the dates – Notably London, Leeds and Manchester, as well as a couple of Irish shows – but we’ll have the rest of the dates with you very soon.

OCTOBER
01. NEWCASTLE, The Cluny 2
02. ABERDEEN, Moorings Bar
03. EDINBURGH, Bannermans
04. GLASGOW, Stereo
08. BIRMINGHAM, Soundbar
10. BRISTOL, Thekla
11. BRIGHTON, Prince Albert
13. PORTSMOUTH, Edge Of The Wedge
15. NOTTINGHAM, Rock City
16. LEICESTER, Y-Theatre
17. DERBY, Vines
20. LIMERICK, Baker’s Place
22. DERRY, Masons
23. BELFAST, Auntie Annie’s
24. DUBLIN, Whelans

TO THE SKIES FROM A HILLSIDE
The second bit of news is that we will be releasing the first single from our third album to coincide with the tour. It’s entitled ‘To The Skies From A Hillside’ and although we’re just hammering out the finer details with our friends at Field Records at the moment, it will probably come in 7″ and digital form, with a selection of B-Sides. Artwork comes courtesy of Hannah Mosley, who we’re delighted to be working with, and we’ll be recording it at two studio’s around Leicester with our bassist Jamie Ward at the engineering helm.