After the addition of a new member, upgrading Home Counties from a 5-piece to a 6-piece, the band has truly found their sound and developed it perfectly to cover and tackle many problems in a war against the mundane. Matthew Rowe explains all.
Formerly Buckinghamshire-based band Home Counties have been on the scene for a while, but have unfortunately stayed under my radar until recently. Whilst I was shuffling on Spotify, I was lucky enough to hear one of their earlier songs, Back to the 70s, which instantly struck me. In their earlier days, they adopted a much more post-punk central sound while attempting to maintain upbeat instrumental tracks to accompany them. This was a nice change to the genre’s status quo, especially as it appeases my love for funk and post-punk, forming the new genre of post-funk.
Before making their debut album, Home Counties picked up pianist and second vocalist Lois Kelly, who I believe was the key to fully fleshing out their songs. The combination of Kelly, as well as already established vocalist Will Harrison, is executed to perfection, with both voices able to deliver loud, cutting lines as well as much more melodic background vocals that work in harmony with one another. The introduction of Kelly also changed the band’s sound, tackling their funky, disco-inspired instrumentals head-on. This leads to a set of much stronger-sounding tracks and keeps a consistent theme that varies just enough to avoid too many repetitive singles.
Picking up a second vocalist was the best thing Home Counties could have done
Home Counties have managed to stay completely balanced on a scale from having either the instrumentals or the vocals drowning out the other, both in their mixing but also in the musical intricacy and the importance of the lyrics. One great example of this is Cradle, Coffin, which boasts a very punchy 4/4 beat, but the band alongside both Harrison’s and Kelly’s lyrics work perfectly, allowing enough focus to lay off the beat while they get their point across to us. This balance allows for a particularly enjoyable listening experience. I have found that it’s great background music if you are working, but also a great album to sit down and listen to in its entirety.
A lot of hard-hitting and relatable themes are explored in this project. This was inspired by the band moving to the big city of London from their previously calm, out-of-city lives, which is a big change for anyone. The first single from this album to be released was Bethnal Green, a song tackling the topic of gentrification and how it can lead to the feeling of not belonging to where you came from. “Just say you don’t contest me, just say you won’t forget me” is a particularly poignant example of the two. Another song, You Break It, You Bought It directly attacks the general public’s, and specifically my least favourite kind of collector, landlords (M3 Lettings and Fit Property; if you are reading this, I do not like you). This track nails it when it comes to the state of renting as well as providing a brilliant, funky instrumental including my favourite bassline on the project from Bill Griffin. The vocals provide both an insight as to how predatory these companies are as well as their rather personal thoughts, “Lynching landlords in my dreams” being rather extreme, but getting the point across.
In some of their songs, they have also adapted a newer, more electronic style of music, my favourite example being the title track, Exactly As It Seems. This kicks off with an instrumental that is akin to the intro music to ITV’s The Job Lot. This results in an 8-bit-sounding backing track, which you wouldn’t think would work, yet it does almost seamlessly with the dynamic duo of vocalists I have grown to love over this album. This is also apparent in Funk U Up, which boasts a very impressive electronic keyboard track straight out of a futuristic soundscape to accompany a song about constantly falling behind and messing up.
One thing Home Counties does to a very high standard is build songs up to a huge crescendo, often releasing the anger built up throughout the song in a blaze of funk glory. This is done best in Wild Guess, which is the single that made me most excited for the album. This starts nice and slowly but builds up from stripped-back instrumentals, setting a calm tone for most of the song while solemnly putting across a message about the cost of living crisis before hitting the final chorus, which elevates the instrumental into a catchy, ride cymbal driven melody composed of all the previous parts.
As well as developing their general sound, they have done an incredible job of developing their structuring and variety
Their final track in this album puts together all of these factors of individual greatness in previous tracks into one brilliant finale, Posthumous Spreadsheets. It starts off with a very Beatles-esque Come Together inspired drum track and much like Wild Guess, continues on relatively calmly at the beginning, demonstrating their ability to deliver strong monologues above an electronic beat, before kicking in halfway through. This song wraps up the themes covered elegantly, with the final song being about how awful the pressures and stress of a modern office is through a combination of satire and much more serious lyrics about how difficult it is to enjoy yourself whilst working at the bottom.
To summarise this project, I was blown away both during the release of the singles and the grand release of the album. They have blended two of my favourite genres perfectly and have given me a new view of what post-punk truly means. Home Counties are a very underrated band, and I hope they gain more traction soon, so if you’re reading this, please go and listen to them.
Presented with a once in a lifetime chance to witness one of Europe’s most renowned orchestras in all their pomp, Undertone had no choice but to grasp the opportunity with both hands. Still a relative newbie to the classical world, there is surely no better way to hear Mahler’s stupendous First for the first time.
It was mid-November and the stars seemed to be aligning. I had secured what was essentially a week off university (in my course, ‘reading week’ involved surprisingly little actual reading), and I secured myself a four day gap free from any obligations at all at the end of the week. One bored Saturday I was habitually clicking through Skyscanner when I noticed a convenient £30 return flight to Riga that slotted neatly into those four days and all of a sudden my stomach started to flutter with the excitement of borderline reckless spontaneity. A couple of hours later the parents had been called, Ryanair tickets snapped up and a well-reviewed hostel booked. To add to my giddiness, I checked online for any local concerts (just as I had done for similar adventures in London and Dublin) and found exactly what I was looking for: a proper orchestra in a proper traditional venue playing proper classical music (none of that trashy Four Seasons rubbish I had attended in London). I excitedly rushed through the booking process so quickly I misinterpreted the Latvian-language webpages and accidentally bought tickets for the following night of LNSO’s tour, which would have involved a eight-hour return train journey across rural Latvia; even I conceded that was probably an adventure too far. Still, the prospect of the Riga concert was so perfect I wasn’t as fussed by the unnecessary financial contribution as I perhaps should have been.
Even though the most well-known fixture in the evening’s programme, Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D Major, was unfamiliar to me, the feeling of trepidation as I joined the crowds approaching the ornate, immaculate cube of the Great Guild was electrifying. This was no Brudenell Social Club: I was given a funny look when I asked a suited attendant whether the cloakroom was free (it was, and the Latvian bourgeoisie had plenty of thick winter coats to be stored despite the unseasonably warm weather) and the small, glossy bar seemed to exclusively serve expensive wines, so I decided trying for some Coke was a non-starter this time. Feeling out of place by the unusually lavish surroundings and the older, far more sophisticated and well dressed concert attendees all around, I eventually worked out where my seat was, acquired a programme and took my place, smiling politely to the old lady who seemed to say something in Russian to me as she settled down into the next seat along.
Concertgoers approach the Great Guild in Riga, home of the LNSO
I had picked a good seat given the relatively affordable ticket price, and had an aerial view of the huge orchestra from my balcony perch. Andris Dzenitis’ Preludium. Light, a warm up opener by a local Latvian composer who was in attendance, gave an intriguing introduction to the collective musical might of the scores of instruments in front of me. Strange and deeply atmospheric, the piece started and ended in a whisper, but built into successive waves of enormous tension. Trumpets and violins strained and squeezed themselves ever higher, the clashing semitones piercing through an accumulating, earthy rumble of timpani. The eventual, ear-splitting crash from the cymbals was a reminder to stop holding my breath with enthralled anticipation. The piece lacked a clear melodic direction, instead slowly ebbing and flowing like tides, transitioning from a subtly unsettling flute solo to hideous cacophony and back again, the higher instruments always within opposition with one another. The few moments a huge, decisive chord was agreed upon by the orchestra felt monumental. Above all, the prelude was an apt introduction to the sonic capabilities of a top class European symphonic orchestra; no other genre of music can even come close to the range of volume and emotion within the realms of the group in front of me. Most excitingly of all, the night had only begun.
Osokins was not the sort of pianist to miss an opportunity to pointedly flick back his coattails at the start of a more involved section.
I was fairly unfamiliar with his music, but it was somehow reassuring to hear fellow Brit Benjamin Britten making an impact so far from home with his 1938 BBC-commissioned Piano Concerto completing the first act. The musicians discreetly shrank in number for the less ambitiously orchestrated piece, allowing extra focus on Latvian pianist Andrejs Osokins, who gave an assured if somewhat ostentatious performance behind the keys. In fairness, flamboyance seemed to be exactly what Britten’s score called for, and Osokins’ fingers spent much of the thirty minutes blurrily fluttering up and down the keys, occasionally summoning pianistic thunder with a deft flick of the wrist when delving into the piano’s meaty lower register. There was a limited display of tenderness too, particularly in the intricate Impromptu, which was only appended by Britten seven years after the concerto’s original publication. Not the sort of pianist to miss an opportunity to pointedly flick back his coattails at the start of a more involved section, the attention was inevitably drawn to Osokins, although there was plenty to see and hear amongst his accompanists. Still a newcomer to the symphonic world, I was in awe of the comically large mute produced by the distant tuba section in the second movement, which returned in the finale to contribute to a regal march of horns. It was that final March that turned out to be the most orchestrally interesting too, with Osokins’ confidence finally finding its match in a muscular, pulsating final few minutes from the orchestra. A broad smile to the audience and the first of the night’s interminable applauses concluded an engaging first half. Despite the strong performances, it was clear the best was yet to come. Mingling amongst concertgoers during the break and wandering down the pristine corridors leading outside into the biting Baltic air, the sense of anticipation for the night’s main event was palpable. Leaving early was unthinkable.
Some attendees got some fresh air during the interval
Sitting on a bench in the picturesque Livu Square a few days prior, my pulse quickened as I read about the unfamiliar piece that would be the headline number on Friday night. As far as Tom Service was concerned, Mahler’s First Symphony was one of the greatest of all time, and a career high from a composer renowned for his groundbreakingly ambitious orchestral melodrama. I knew I was in for some “stunning symphonic shocks”, but Mahler’s First started, thrillingly, with a whisper. That spellbindingly quiet unison opening note – a seven-octave spread on A – provided the sort of magic that makes hairs stand on end when witnessed in the flesh. Exquisitely controlled, that initial drone provided a thin mist through which the symphony’s many memorable ideas gradually emerged. First came a slow, foreboding woodwind melody, then an incongruous brass fanfare that felt so atmospherically distant I briefly assumed the brass players were performing from a nearby practice room. An oboe gently mimicked a cuckoo above menacing low strings, its melody propogating out amongst the dozens of violins. Delicate pizzicato eventually established an image of cheery springtime forest in the early morning. It was of course entirely wordless, but the images conjured by this multifaceted first movement came to mind effortlessly. As the volume receded once more, a sublime, guttural long note from the tuba provided a seismic shift in mood towards the sinister before the movement built into its dazzlingly loud conclusion. Already, I was gripped.
The introduction of a mellifluous second theme in the oboes was so sublime a man beside me audibly gasped.
Part of the challenge with classical music is that, unlike pop, it requires a degree of effort from the listener to keep tabs on the various motifs as they are brought in and out of view in their many guises. However, sat in such a beautiful venue amongst other attentive listeners, getting familiar with the memorable, sprightly main theme of the second movement, for example, hardly felt like a challenge. It was at about this point that it became clear why Mahler had earnt a billing higher than that of Dzenitis and Britten; the intricacy of the exchanges between strings and brass in the opening felt more packed with detail than anything I’d heard all night, and the synchronicity of the strings in the bold, demanding scalic passages was spectacular, their bows rising and falling with the same breathtaking beauty of a densely-packed flock of starlings making a swift change in direction.
The third movement opened with one of the First Symphony’s most famous moments: a rare double bass solo outlining the tune of Frère Jacques in a haunting minor key. A chilling funeral march followed, made all the more grotesque by the repurposing of an innocent children’s nursery rhyme at its heart. The introduction of a mellifluous second theme in the oboes was so sublime a man beside me audibly gasped, prompting a furious shushing from a woman in the row in front. The skill in which Mahler twisted and manipulated that new melody, its sound echoing sonorously through the strings and deep brass before emerging high above in a shrill blast of flute and piccolo, was remarkable. Although technically the most straightforward movement and certainly the least outwardly theatrical, the third movement was one of the most compelling passages of the whole evening.
And so, the end was here. The fourth and final movement, it seemed, occupies a special status as one of the most spectacular finales in the history of music, and a monumental achievement from a composer renowned as a producer of classical at its loudest, stormiest, most earth-shattering. Fittingly, it began with a shocking crash of cymbals – a rude awakening immediately following the hushed finish of the third movement. The first three movements had been memorable in their own right, but if I was to leave the concert hall (and indeed, Latvia) with one lasting memory, it would be of the quite unbelievable 20 minutes that concluded the symphony. The three previously established main themes coalesced magnificently above the awesome din of 40-odd enraged violinists slaving away at their instruments, stray bow hairs flying wildly amidst the chaos. The monstrous passages were balanced by two delectable slow sections in which solemn low strings took the spotlight with a lugubrious melody. A final build into another apocalyptically loud section – evoking planets colliding or a battle between gods – was followed at last by fanfare and a rousing brass melody in a deeply triumphant major key. The sense of relief was so strong I still find myself welling up when I listen back to it.
The sense of relief was so strong I still find myself welling up when I listen back to it.
For a brief moment before that final chord the room was filled with nothing but percussion – timpani boiling over, a shimmering snare, the sparkle of a trilling triangle. The final note landed with a decisive thud, like the closing of an epic fantasy novel once and for all. A man behind gave an apparently involuntary shout of “bravo!” in the instant before we began clapping and cheering during a lengthy but deserved standing ovation. The LNSO had done it, and done it in style. A formidable masterpiece was over, and a precious memory had been made. Live music doesn’t get more magnificent than this.
Bursting onto stage with trademark energy and buckets of charisma, when Sigrid found her stride in Newcastle she had the place well and truly bouncing. It was the more tender numbers that needed the most refinement.
Since arriving in the city two months ago, I’ve learnt one thing: Newcastle loves football. Walking through town on a Wednesday evening I soon found myself fighting against a thick swarm of many thousands of black and white shirts, bypassing overflowing pubs and cars plonked onto pavements presumably by fans who concluded the parking wardens must be going to the game too. It seemed a fair assumption, given that everywhere else outside the immediate vicinity of St. James’ Park was so eerily quiet. Even the streets leading up to O2 City Hall that I remembered had been so packed with punters when Declan McKenna was in town had no queue to speak of, and I breezed through the security and tickets checks in a matter of seconds. Inside I found what seemed to be the remaining few Geordies that had managed to pry themselves away from a Newcastle United home fixture for the sake of their chosen popstar. An hour before the evening’s two events took place, that crowd of outliers numbered only a few hundred.
Sigrid may not have been the biggest act in town, but sure enough the O2 City Hall filled up nicely as support act Tommy LeFroy’s set came and went. Like her Norwegian peer AURORA, Sigrid has found a second home over here in the UK, and a string of feel-good hits in recent years has earned her regular appearances in the UK Top 40 and popular repeat appearances at many of Britain’s biggest summer festivals. Where AURORA is an artsy and occasionally experimental Björk descendent, Sigrid deals squarely with no-nonsense, party-ready pop hits. At her best, her exuberant hooks and uplifting lyrical themes of love and self acceptance are easily good enough to overcome any need for added profundity; any critic who listens to sure fire pop bangers Strangers or Mirror and bemoans a lack of lyrical depth needs to go out more.
Sigrid hardly stood still all evening.
A huge part of what makes Sigrid such dynamite at those summer concerts is her radiant stage presence. Never one to stand still, her renowned tirelessness was in full display at Newcastle as she skipped from one side of the stage to the other, hopping on and off monitor speakers and boogieing alongside bandmates with more hip movement than a Strictly final. Her connection to the audience was ever present, often dishing out knowing winks or discreet waves mid-verse to specific concertgoers, invariably triggering an adorable little forest of arms vigorously waving back in the dizzying excitement of being looked in the eyes by Queen Sigrid. The result was a lovely, congenial atmosphere in the City Hall, as if the universally liked friend had gone up in karaoke to sing our favourite tunes along with us.
And, as karaoke singers go, Sigrid turns out to be a pretty great one. She was already belting out an unscripted high note in punchy opener It Gets Dark, her voice piercing and crystal clear, with a well judged hint of grit when the soaring melodies demanded it. Early highlight Mistake Like You also provided an example of Sigrid’s vocals at their genre-leading best, and a dynamic performance from her backing band helped elevate the ballad well beyond its lacklustre studio recording. By far most extraordinary aspect of Sigrid’s performance was how well she managed to keep the standard of vocals so consistently strong in spite of all her onstage athletics. Attempting to sing along to the hits whilst bouncing along in the crowd, I can vouch that breath control like that takes serious skill, and far from all popstars possess it.
It helped too that Sigrid’s band are not your typical karaoke backing track, and clever edits often turned good songs into great ones. A deserved reprise of It Gets Dark‘s deliciously scratchy guitar solo gave guitarist Sondre Berg Abrahamsen – who spent much of the night humbly lurking in the shadows of stage left – a few more glorious seconds to twiddle away till his heart’s content, and the crowd rightly lapped it up. Burning Bridges, the finest example of Sigrid’s punchy, 80s-hinting brand of pop, had an even more surprising edit with a new outro driven by a pummelling techno synth. A track blessed with an anthemic chorus and a sensational strings melody, placing Burning Bridges at track two of the evening set a very high bar that was never quite overcome for the remainder of the show.
Sigrid took to the piano for a selection of acoustic ballads
Her opening numbers may have been a bit too good for her own good, but the momentum was never completely lost. Even the piano ballads at the show’s heart offered a nice change of pace, and Sigrid’s choice to accompany herself on piano, alone under the spotlight, added a degree of drama and earnestness on a night of straightforward pop earworms. Dynamite was poignant but a simplified piano part made it rather unmemorable, and follow up three-chorder Bad Life lacked any of the songwriting or lyrical quality necessary to stand up to the scrutiny of the solo piano treatment. Drab and trite throughout, the song remains easily her most overrated. The inclusion of Bring Me the Horizon’s clichéd pop punk guitars found on the original would at least have added an iota of interest. Unremarkable Dancer followed and lacked an emotional climax for it to stand out amongst the pack of similar pop songs. Sucker Punch was more warmly greeted by fans but – let’s admit it – its verse, with its bumbling, unintentionally comical synth bass and cheap-feeling drum machine, already feels hopelessly dated. Perhaps the song belongs to an era of pop that sounds deeply uncool now but will be in vogue once the early 2010s sound begins to be considered ‘retro’, but, listening in the year 2022, something about Sucker Punch just doesn’t quite work.
Luckily there was still plenty of safer hits in Sigrid’s locker to deploy in a breathless final few tracks. Don’t Feel Like Crying was a quintessential Sigridian self empowerment anthem and surely a direct offspring of Call Me Maybe with its sprightly strings chords. Old faithful Strangers was improved further with some monumental fills from Kasper Waag, who was enjoying his best moments of an outstanding overall performance behind the drum kit. Even relatively unknown encore track Grow was a success, serving as Sigrid’s most affecting love song by far. “Take me anywhere… I’m home,” we sang together softly under the light of our own phone torches, Sigrid’s hips no longer gyrating but instead swaying gently to the reassuring lilt of the acoustic guitar. Basking in the warm glow emanating from behind Sigrid, the only disappointment was that the ballad had to eventually draw to a close.
Unquestionably the song of her career so far, flawless pop smash Mirror was the only choice for the evening’s set closer. “I love who I see looking at me in the mirror” was Sigrid’s simple but effective self love philosophy distilled into the perfect chorus hook, and a wonderfully uplifting mantra to live by. Unfathomably still with plenty of dancing energy left in the tank, Sigird’s passion had those in the stalls jumping up from their seats and bobbing along with the rest of us amidst a dazzling multicolour light show.
Mirror marked a triumphant finish to a somewhat imbalanced performance. Nonetheless, the buzz of deeply satisfied fans in the room after Sigrid had left the stage was heart-warming. Squeezing onto a packed double decker on my journey home was one of the more brutal returns to reality after a gig I’ve experienced. Thickly-woollened men thoughtfully discussed why exactly Miguel Almiron didn’t take that penalty whilst scantily clad young women loudly replayed endless recordings of the Sigrid back catalogue on their phones. So, which was the more fulfilling occasion, an uplifting night dancing the world away to the tune of rejuvenating self affirmation or a 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace? For me, it’s a no-brainer.
