Way back one early autumn evening in 2000, I was busy devising methods to curtail my amorous ramblings in order that I might appear less keen on a young lady I was rather too keen on at the time. One of these eternally-botched methods led myself and a friend to eat a large amount of marijuana in our terraced house on Chadwick Road, Peckham Rye. I would be meeting the young lady at midnight at Trash, an indie club at The End in Central London. The plan was that, come midnight, I would be pleasantly stoned and relaxed.

On leaving the house for the railway station, we greeted one of our neighbours who, at that time, played Inspector Monroe in the popular TV series The Bill. Much laughter ensued as Mother Nature’s pleasing invention began to work its magic. It is only now, as I research the actor, Colin Tarrant, that I find that the poor bloke committed suicide in January of this year. Very sorry to hear that, Inspector.

After the mad laughter, and tears of laughter, on the train in to Charing Cross, I knew I’d better temper the marijuana with more booze. “I’ve never seen you like this before” said our third housemate Grundy, reprimanding us for our behaviour. Our heads were turning slightly green. The three of us somehow made it to The End by about eleven. An hour later and I was completely unable to communicate beyond one or two very simple words when the young lady arrived. I disappeared to the toilet and fell asleep. For about three hours. When I regained consciousness, the venue was closing and she was long gone. I felt pretty excellent though, having slept off the drowsiness.

Just over seven years later I was at the very same club setting up wires, pedals and amplifiers in preparation for One More Grain’s gig on the day of the release of our second album, ‘Isle Of Grain’.

The venue had barely changed over the years but the Monday club night was now called Durrr. It still attracted the same mix of art students, bohemians, posh tossers, minor music celebrities, snobby girls, indie drug enthusiasts. It was better than most London nightclubs but there was still a dress code, something to which I have always been vehemently opposed.

Earlier in the day, myself and manager Luke Turner, now of The Quietus, were babbling on Gmail chat as per usual. On this occasion the topics included initial sales on Amazon and regional press features:

We had been plastered all over the British press in the run-up to the day’s release. It was hoped that the publicity might finally mark the turning point for the group which had, up until that point, been regarded as something of an obscure peculiarity. Here’s a review which is typical of how many people felt when they ‘encountered’ the Grain…

It’s a rare occasion to hear an album that baffles you, unsettles you even, and doesn’t come with an easy set of references. An album that once you’ve heard it you need to hear again just to get your head around, before you can even consider whether you actually like it or not. This, One More Grain’s second full length, is such a record. 

‘Isle Of Grain’ may be a strange offering that seems to have emerged from its own little micro-world, but there are a couple of certainties here. It’s certainly a very English record and not just because of the strong Lancashire accent of Daniel Patrick Quinn, who provides the spoken/poetic/rambling vocals for the quartet. There’s a surreal, tweedy eccentricity to the whole affair that’s specifically, if inexplicably, English. 

The other certainty is that it’s not of this time. The lazy jazzy riffery that underpins Quinn’s whimsical musings can often sound straight out of a 70s cop show but this is hardly a retro homage. If anything the meeting of skittering brass and drawling, conversational verses makes for a timeless, not to mention drug hazed, sound. Quinn’s vocals aren’t high in the mix so it’s easy to hear the record many many times and have the words wash over you, with only snatches sticking in your mind. When you do concentrate on the words, they only add to the dreamlike and almost random nature of the music. 

No doubt, it takes some digesting, it’s original, and it’s really very good, but do we like it? Hard to say. What we can say is that even if it’s not necessarily going to be on high rotation, we won’t be forgetting it in a hurry. by Jennifer Perkin

Have you forgotten us yet, Jennifer? Click below for the desk recording of the live performance on January 28th 2008.

One More Grain Live @ Durrr

Notes:

Setlist: Won’t Get Fooled Again / Confession Time / Figure Of Eight / A Town Is What You Make It / Walking Off The Map / Having A Ball / Giriama Wedding

Personnel: myself – vocal and guitar, Andrew Blick – trumpet, Merek Cooper – bass, Kev Campbell – guitar and synth, Laurie Waller – drums.

Many thanks to Fred Glenister.

No makeup has been applied – I have left the file unedited, exactly as it came to me. This is why the volume decreases after about a minute and a half (the sound guy must have pushed down the master fader) and why there is a couple of minutes of silence at the end. Also bear in mind that there is very little audience noise because it is mixing desk-only. The quality of the recording is reasonably good, and hopefully makes up for the lack of real-life ambiance which you would, of course, get from a rougher audience recording.

Daniel Patrick Quinn, May 2012

A few months ago I had a dream that I was in Liverpool. I went to a bar in a converted church – a very promising start, eh? Elbowing my way through the crowds to get to the bar to place an order, I happened upon the two main guys from It’s Immaterial. Naturally, it was a rather debauched evening and all I recall was having trouble trying to find a cab to take me back to Lancaster at the end of the night.

It’s Immaterial are a band who have been in my head quite often in the last few years. Particularly the pieces from their poorly-promoted final album ‘Song’ (1990), which is a wonderful impressionistic voyage through the unemployment hopelessness of those living in the late 80s urban lands of northern England. Although I never heard it until about 2008, it conjures up the late 1980s atmosphere so well in places that it is almost nauseous for those who experienced it. I recall Sunday trips into Morecambe with my dad to visit DMC Records and the nearby secondhand shop Sleeves. I’d be looking for ELO and any brand new cds on special offer and my dad would be after rare KLF releases. Both shops closed down not long afterwards. I often wonder what happened to the friendly man who ran Sleeves.

There was another great record shop, Discovery, in Bolton which I used to visit at this time when seeing my grandparents in Great Lever every month or so. The bloke who worked there was also a very pleasant chap. He must have been pretty confused by a 9 year old ELO collector!

The album’s opener, ‘New Brighton’, evokes the empty, windswept semi-urban coastal regions of the Wirral and further north towards Blackpool, Fleetwood and Morecambe. It has none of the euphoria of 60s and 70s music. Well, why would it? This is a record from the late 1980s and its mood perfectly matches the mood of the times. It was the sound of a nation in reduced circumstances. A country of carboot sales. I was only 9 years old in 1990 but the music echoes the emotions I gathered from my environment in North Lancashire back then. It captures the blandness as much as the beauty.

The second standout piece on the album is ‘Ordinary Life’, a subtle, Miles Davis ‘In a Silent Way’-esque sonic watercolour about a checkout girl and her hopeless admirer. The piece contains many simple, delicate touches and minor ambient flourishes that cannot be assessed on first listen. These subtleties are the dense elements which ensure the album offers more with every listen. A single guitar note here, a hurdy-gurdy synth drone, an ominous gong rumble. It’s a tapestry of gentle, understated shades. In many ways, the record is a more pop-orientated and less indulgent twin of Talk Talk’s ‘Spirit of Eden’.

But it’s on ‘Summer Winds’ that the music reaches hallucinatory heights. It makes me think of plastic carrier bags blowing around the empty streets of Morecambe on a rare near-tropical summer evening. It’s probably a Saturday night, and the unusually high temperature in this sad northern town allows the inhabitants to believe they are in a more refined and sophisticated town in France, Spain or Italy for a moment. Even the ruffians shed an emotional tear as they feel a oneness with their continental brothers and sisters. The trumpet mournfully acknowledges that this heatwave is either all a dream, or just a freak occurrence. It will be business as usual in Morecambe come tomorrow morning. Enjoy the balmy weather while you can.

Another reason I like It’s Immaterial is because their situation puts me in mind of a slightly more successful version of One More Grain. Neither group quite had the success we could have had. Maybe neither group was good enough. But maybe we just never quite fitted in, tetris-like, to what was expected at the time. Or maybe myself and J J Campbell just weren’t handsome enough.

The final track on the album, ‘Your Voice’, is another balmy, tropical atmosphere piece. And it’s that juxtaposition between the mundane reality and the peculiarity of a hot, sultry, sophisticated Morecambe that brings the album to its emotional close. Only by viewing these northern towns through alternate – perhaps drugged – lenses can one come to terms with the sad reality of them.

Daniel Patrick Quinn, May 2012