35 f 21st Century Folk Rock
Boring, predictable and decades past its play-by date, old school folk rock was on life support. But Jim Moray, Sam Carter and the False Lights gang have thrown away the template and started again. Elizabeth Kinder is excited! Grumpy-look photos by Judith Burrows.
K
icking off with the keening feedback of an electric guitar announcing a sampled Albert Camus quote, “I rebel, there- fore I exist,” False Lights fling
their hat into the ring – and rock. Their latest album Harmonograph is a work of dazzling class. The arrangements and instrumentation spring from an inspired musicality that brilliantly realises the folk narratives in a filmic way whilst never foregoing the seductive joy of a sing- along chorus. With False Lights, Jim Moray and Sam Carter have created a band that’s in total command of its mate- rial and produces an exciting, instantly accessible and sophisticated sound. Ignoring boundaries and preconceived ideas of how these traditional songs ‘should be,’ False Lights emphatically stamp them “mine!”
Many would argue (not just me) that anything with folk and rock in the same sentence should have a big sign at the end of the bed saying “DO NOT RESUSCITATE.” Happily, Moray and Carter can’t read. They’ve turned up and administered the Class ‘A’s of their combined musical influ- ences. These include hip-hop, grime and electronica, and the former patient dances exuberantly along the cutting edge of mainstream music and production aesthet- ics with a clean bill of health.
Harmonograph has, for me, stirred up the exhilaration of being in a club with your head right up to the speakers, gazing at an indie band with boundless adoles- cent enthusiasm (in one of those transcen- dent teenage moments when you’re not feeling resentful and hard done by). Eagerly, I attempt to convey this to Moray and Carter when we meet. As there is a clear disconnect between my girlish excite- ment and clapped-out appearance (in stark contrast to their own good looks), they’d be forgiven for thinking they’ve just schlepped over from Hackney in the pissing rain (after a photo shoot for these pages) to Carluccio’s in Chiswick, only to be met by a cretin.
“…And honestly I don’t want to make any assumptions but, you must be influ- enced by XTC.” “Yes, well, I covered All You Pr…” “And Radiohead, and Blur and Jimmy Webb and Elbow and Nirvana and using the studio as a compositional tool… By the way, do you use Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies?” “Actually, I have the…” “You know, those cards they made to free creativity, particularly in a recording studio, that say things like ‘Hon- our your mistake as a divine intention’…” And so on, in a way easily suggesting Carter and Moray have never done any- thing before. But these two icons of ‘young British folk’ are both completely charming and only look slightly alarmed.
Carter, who of the two is more at ease, says he first met Moray in a rehearsal for a gig for Sandy Denny. “No,” says Moray, “we did something before that. My first manager managed me and Sam. I heard a demo by Sam and there was this New Act thing at Sidmouth and I MC’d Sam’s gig.” “No,” says Carter, “it was for QEH in 2008. We met in a rehearsal studio, at London Bridge…”
“The point is,” says Moray, “we’re a similar age doing a similar thing but we weren’t on the same gigs very often.” Indeed, when they got together, Moray and Carter were each pursuing well docu- mented award-winning solo careers. Moray has been nominated several times for Best Traditional Song at the BBC 2 Folk Awards, as well as chalking up other nomi- nations in several categories in his capacity as a producer. Both he and Carter have picked up the Horizon Award for Best Newcomer – Carter in 2010 and Moray in 2004, the year he also collected the gong for Album Of The Year for his debut, the critically acclaimed Sweet England.
The seeds for False Lights were sewn,
says Moray, as they bonded “when Sam did this rural touring thing. I had a car and drove Sam around and did the sound and we stayed in people’s houses.” Then in 2014, at the first English Folk Expo in Bury, Lancashire, he says, “We were at a hotel
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