Music
Press
'Dorothy begins with a calmative wash of heat-have guitars, then cedes to a lazy, joined at the hip groove that's a small marvel of poise and subtlety.... Enchanting'
MOJO
‘Dizzyingly intricate… they bristle with energy and ideas’
Q
‘Strong compositional ideas… a careering piece’
Uncut
‘Absurdly talented’
Word
‘Syd Arthur are sons and heirs of those Canterbury musicians who did sometimes whimsical, sometimes intense things with psychedelic and progressive rock’
The Guardian.co.uk
‘Staggeringly good. It will take something exceptional to beat On An On to Prog Album Of The Year’
Classic Rock
‘Fleet-fingered folky flavours steeped in prime prog history’
Prog
‘Their debut album On An On has maintained the psychedelic influences and enhanced them with a modern pop sensibility. The musicianship is intricate and finds them sounding like Devendra Banhart in his softer moments’
The 405
‘Ornate and glassy-eyed perspectives’
Daily Mirror
‘A unique sound that is both full and intriguing… curious and surprisingly uplifting’
Guitar Techniques
‘Blends taut mandolin lines with fuzztone propelled jazz guitar… fresh and relevant’
Guitarist
Also heard on
BBC Radio 2, (Dermot O Leary), BBC 6 Music (Gideon Coe, Cerys Matthews, Tom Robinson), XFM, Amazing Radio, BBC Scotland, NME Radio, Q Radio
- N/A
Discography
MOVING WORLD EP – 28th MARCH 2011 – CD/DIGITAL
ODE TO THE SUMMER (SINGLE) – 21ST OCTOBER 2012 - VINYL/DIGITAL
ON AN ON – 4TH JULY 2012 – VINYL/CD/DIGITAL
DOROTHY (SINGLE) – 12TH NOVEMBER – DIGITAL
EDGE OF THE EARTH / ODE TO THE SUMMER - DOUBLE A-SIDE - 12TH MARCH - DIGITAL
Photos
Bio
Syd Arthur, a quartet of Canterbury-based devotees of sound immersed in the simple pleasures of songwriting, performance and exploratory musical interplay. Brothers Liam and Joel Magill met drummer Fred Rother at school in Canterbury in their early teens and soon found themselves jamming and playing music together. Meanwhile… Raven Bush was busy studiously playing his violin just down the road and heading to the same parties, although he wouldn't enter the fray until he too joined the same school. It all began from there, with name changes and an exploratory few years performing at festivals and such all over the country.
Greatly inspired by the sonic pioneers of the late 60s and early 70s, they patiently learned how to engineer, produce and mix themselves, using an innovative hybrid of analogue and digital techniques. Naturally, in 2009, Wicker Studios, their own studio space was created, followed by their record label, Dawn Chorus Recording Company. Syd Arthur may revel in the music of decades long past but, as psychedelic rock goes, they match the hallucinogenic sounds of modern contemporaries like Wolf People, Black Mountain, Tame Impala, even Making Dens era Mystery Jets - with imaginative, whimsically sweet, melodies.
When the band released early tracks in 2010 (on their Moving World EP) they were swiftly picked up by The Guardian and included in their Band of The Day feature. On their debut album proper, they seamlessly mix bucolic, retro reveries, devastating blasts of precision controlled riffing, sweeping folk, fleet-fingered mandolin work and a musical vocabulary that’s as fluently conversant with world music as it is the time signature twists of Soft Machine. That these influences are successfully integrated into their songs rather than merely grafted on as stylistic affections says a lot about the band’s desire to hone their craft. And hone it they very much have on debut album On An On - with Radio DJ's such as Dermot O'Leary, Cerrys Matthews and even Paul Weller and Bradley Wiggins spinning there tunes whenever they can, the airwaves have never been more in Syd's favour.
Their intricate, high-energy live sets, which to date include Glastonbury and Secret Garden slots, have resulted in a large following emerging – one that is also burgeoning in Europe as they continue to pick up tours in France, Belgium, The Netherlands and most recently Italy. This is an accomplished live band.
With the benefit of an extra 40 years of popular music culture, WOMAD festivals and the entire world’s musical output at their fingertips, the Psychedelic genre no longer sits, gathering dust, in the decades gone by. Syd Arthur embrace its origins, lodge their feet in the present, and hold up a triumphant head, pointed firmly at the future.
2013 see’s a February tour of the UK and Ireland, heading to the USA for SXSW in March, before getting their heads down and working on album number two.
Links
