Bido Lito June 2021 Issue 114

More documents

Recommendations

Info

time. Even his voice, people don’t have that accent anymore. It’s a piece of time delivered to people.” The mechanics of the fairground seeped in the very production of Coral Island, the gear itself mimicking sounds and the oddness of a temporary, rootless community. It took a lot of graft to make it sound “wrong”, as James puts it. “To move something out of time so it would be not correct, or not in time. Or if the tape is broken and everything is moving at different times, it almost sounds as if you’re playing a music box with the batteries running out. If you go to those places, the seaside or a fair, and they turn the machines on they don’t just come on like they would if it was digital. It’s like coming to life. It’s not a digital moment. It’s real, the way the wind is real. Like a broken fairground ride.” So. Coral Island, the place itself. Does the band have an image of what it is, an idea of where it is located? Cardiff-based Edwin Burdis created a sizeable walk-in sculpture of the island, seen on the album artwork, but that is Burdis’ vision alone. Is Coral Island the band’s very own Coney Island but based locally? An actual familiar seaside place from all our childhoods: Blackpool, New Brighton, Llandudno, Rhyl? “I’ve always found it a place where I can relax, and I can’t always relax in some places. It’s a holiday from life, you come back to it,” James says of his Welsh holidays as adult and child, but his personal vision of the island takes him to more surreal territory, melting together 1960s sci-fi thriller and high-concept psychological drama The Prisoner, and folk horror movie The Wicker Man. With elements of Lost, maybe. “Like a series I wanted to see. It was more this strange place just floating in the sea of your mind. Almost a metaphor for your imagination. That’s what it was to me. Probably be something else to someone else. It can be what it is to you. That’s what it is. Half the time I don’t want to know what the person’s vision is in my head. My version would be better to me.” We’ve seen independent artists with a proven fanbase triumph in the album chart over the past few months – Jane Weaver went top 25, The Anchoress top 40, The Coral’s Modern Sky labelmate Jamie Webster at number six late last summer – which is doubly impressive given the zero opportunity to engage with audiences in the traditional sense. In the end, Coral Island surpasses James Skelly’s expectations easily, reaching number two. It feels timely to recall how the record’s single from March, Lover Undiscovered, reminds us of how as adults we view the world through cynical weary eyes. “One day you’ll see a seagull fly above the sea and it’s almost like CGI and think, have I manifested this? How is this happening? How has it gone from being nothing to just gas, or whatever it was when the big bang happened, to that? It’s a discovered moment again,” he told me. Maybe the message got through, via the airwaves. Through Spotify, and those vinyl copies of the album in every colour of the rainbow. How we take things for granted, take creatives for granted. Whatever it is, the mystical Coral Island is doing its magic for the band, both on the record and off it. The Coral Rediscovered, indeed. ! Words: Cath Holland / @cathholland01 Photography: John Johnson / @john.johno Coral Island is available now via Run On Records in association with Modern Sky. thecoral.co.uk 20
FEATURE 21
Page 1 and 2: ISSUE 114 / JUNE 2021 NEW MUSIC + C
Page 3 and 4: TATE LIVERPOOL UNTIL 5 SEPTEMBER 20
Page 5 and 6: COMING SOON ANTI SOCIAL JAZZ CLUB /
Page 7 and 8: In Liverpool 2-year degrees and 1-y
Page 9 and 10: E D I T O R I A L Proximity has bee
Page 11 and 12: The Orielles - Photo: Rebekah Knox
Page 13 and 14: LIFE IS FUN Podge has always refuse
Page 15 and 16: “Everyone has the capability to m
Page 17 and 18: their own lanes and they’re not f
Page 19: THE CORAL On their 10th album, The
Page 24 and 25: Riotous, emotive and informing, Dan
Page 26 and 27: LIKE THE FIRST TIME Live music retu
Page 28 and 29: “I’d convinced myself I would b
Page 30 and 31: MAKING WAVES Adam Noor highlights t
Page 32 and 33: STATE OF THE STUDIOS, STATE OF THE
Page 34 and 35: RON’S PLACE 34
Page 36 and 37: SPOTLIGHT SEAGOTH “Songwriting al
Page 38 and 39: SPOTLIGHT A LESSER VERSION Liam Eva
Page 40 and 41: PREVIEWS “If I’d just had it ea
Page 42 and 43: PREVIEWS GIG VLURE 15/06 - Future Y
Page 44 and 45: REVIEWS Rashid Johnson, Stacked Hea
Page 46 and 47: REVIEWS haunted, not by people, but
Page 48: FUTURE YARD 75 ARGYLE STREET SOCIAL
Page 52: Tara Finney Productions in Tara ass
Page 55: THE FINAL SAY “Die-hard fans are

Bido Lito June 2021 Issue 114

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?