Admiral Fallow

Admiral Fallow on tour in the UK November 2015. The brand new album Tiny Rewards out now on all formats with double gatefold vinyl release 4th September including 3 bonus tracks and printed lyrics.

As a Glasgow band prone to self-deprecation, Admiral Fallow will probably wince at the plaudits their extraordinary third album, Tiny Rewards, has received. Heartbreakingly beautiful, sonically audacious and lyrically bewitching are words that spring to mind. The quintet, however, would more likely describe Tiny Rewards as a dozen songs from an 18-month experiment to do something different.

“When you’ve played your own songs hundreds of times, you can start to mock some of their features,” says drummer Phil Hague, apparently unaware of how few bands possess the self-awareness to do anything of the sort. “There were certain aspects of our sound that, two albums in, we decided we should maybe steer clear of – acoustic guitars being the most obvious.”

Which is how the band once categorised as indie-folk (or nu-folk or folk-rock) began on the path to Tiny Rewards, an album created largely on keyboards, on which acoustic instruments remain but are often unrecognisable, on which space matters as much as sound and with textures as rich as the melodies are moving. Key to that shift in sound was starting the album instrumentally as a five-piece, rather than coming together to work on songs already roughly written by front man and lyricist Louis Abbott.

“On our first two albums, I wrote whole songs or sections of songs and we arranged them as a band,” explains Louis. “This time we did the exact opposite. Fragments of music came first, whether a piano part or drum beat or just a certain sound or atmosphere. Because there was no framework and no lyrics, we could all pile in and be more experimental.”

Taking time off to kick ideas about was crucial. Formed in 2007 by a group of Glasgow-based music student mates (Louis and Phil from Edinburgh; bassist Joe Rattray from Dundee; singer, flautist and keyboardist Sarah Hayes from Northumberland; clarinettist and keyboardist Kevin Brolly the only genuine Glaswegian) Admiral Fallow released their adored debut album, Boots Met My Face, in 2011 and its widely-acclaimed successor Tree Bursts In Snow the following year.

On the magical Evangeline (which rhymes ‘common sense’ with ‘ebullience’, reason alone to adore it) he ponders becoming a parent, or as Louis puts it, “to someday be in charge of a small person of your own and the energy and craziness that brings in to your life. It’s inspired by some our friends having kids. You think, shite, that might happen to me at some point.”

Listen to Evangeline here: https://soundcloud.com/admiral-fallow/evangeline

Admiral Fallow won’t tell you this themselves, but they’ve made of one 2015’s most compelling records. It is very special when performed in the live arena. Bring on the gushing accolades and see them squirm.