'Afters' LP - buy here - thehothg.lnk.to/Afters
Live: St Pancras Old Church 20/4/22. Tickets via Ticketweb & Dice
THE GUARDIAN interview: bit.ly/guardgree
THE QUIETUS long read: tquiet.us/Reeves
UNCUT: "...luxurious laments...dominated by a morose beauty. 8/10"
PROG: "Mark Morriss turns these melodic songs into something poetic...the result is a lovely album"
MOJO: "fittingly dreamlike...a deeply cryptic underbelly"
LOUDER THAN WAR: "merits repeated listens, weaving an indefinable spell"
THE QUIETUS:
"Crayola Lectern's playing... autumnal prog of (the) Canterbury Scene nodding to artists like Robert Wyatt or Bob Stanley’s 'English Weather' compilations"
GIDEON COE, BBC 6MUSIC: "mighty fine. The story is quite something; the record is quite something too"
ROBERT ELMS, BBC RADIO LONDON: "See, I told you it was good!"
THE WEE REVIEW, SCOTLAND "A dazzling debut, unique, compelling"
BIG ISSUE: "defies the odds, astonishing it was ever made"
POPIPTICA albums of the month: "Slowly rendered after a long period hidden away, Afters is a colourful but never pushy album to keep you company for many days yet to come"
GOD IS IN THE TV: "...a startlingly beautiful record. One that uncovers different elements and depths every time you listen. When you add together musical talents such as Crayola Lectern, Mark Morriss and Simon Raymonde and fold that into the melodies from over twenty years ago, you’re striking gold"
The Helicopter of The Holy Ghost are Billy Reeves, Crayola Lectern, Mark Morriss and, on guitar, Mark Peters. LP: 'Afters' available to stream/buy on very ltd vinyl or CD via this link: thehothg.lnk.to/Afters. #14 Independent charts, #26 vinyl charts
Billy Reeves formed theaudience for a bet, fortunately meeting the fabulous Sophie Ellis-Bextor two days later at The Garage, Islington. (He won the bet seven months later). The band reached the dizzy heights of 12 in the LP charts. In 2000 he signed to Sony with the group ‘Yours’ but this project was violently curtailed by joy-riders that hit his Morris Minor at 99 mph (on the way home from promoting the first ever gig by the popular heavy metal band, The Darkness). A long coma, many operations and a housebound year ensued. In 2017 his brother gave him two mini-discs that had been saved from the wreckage, including demos of songs he had forgotten - due to crash-related amnesia. These songs were recently moulded into an album, ‘Afters’ by Reeves, Mark Morriss, (solo artist and singer with the chart-topping guitar-janglers The Bluetones), Mark Peters (of Engineers - Rough Trade included his solo LP ‘Innerland’ in their best albums list of 2018), and Crayola Lectern (from Crayola Lectern/Zofff/la Momo/Departure Lounge and Damo Suzuki's band up the Con Club in Lewes).
What are these songs about? No-one knows. They are, however, very pretty.
twitter: @helicopterholy insta: @thehothg facebook/ thehothg
The Bluetones scored 14 top-ten singles and 3 top-ten albums. They continue to play and are off on a UK-wide tour this year to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut LP (which got to number 1). As well as a successful solo career both as a recording artist and live act Mark Morriss also plays in Matt Berry’s band, The Maypoles, and with Chris Helme & Nigel Clark as MCH, (who are touring the UK in Dec).
Billy Reeves is in the 2018 ‘Guinness Book of Records’ for the ‘World’s First Jigsaw Puzzle Vinyl’. He is the only winner of the Channel 4 ‘Alternative Eurovision Song Contest’, broadcast live from the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in 1997.
The album was written by Billy Reeves except ‘Slow Down’ & 'I Will Never Hurt' which were written by Crayola Lectern, 'Tony Got A Car' written by Billy Reeves, Jordon Zadorozny and Chris Pitman and ‘End of Loneliness’ which was written by our friend Gavin Fisher and arranged by Billy.
Richard Archer of Staines' number-one-in-the-charts funk aggregation Hard-Fi recorded Mark’s vocals and co-mixed/co-produced the album with Billy Reeves and Cola Ray.
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