Kid Harpoon 'The First EP' album

Kid Harpoon grew up in Medway, playing a host of other instruments. From a young age he formed various bands until he left in 2005, with a guitar and a small suitcase to his name. In February 2005 he moved to London to write as a solo artist, and happened to move into Nambucca on Holloway Road. Part squat, part live music venue, Nambucca was home to musicians, DJs, promoters and a large number of mice, rats and cockroaches.

Having put out a limited single “Riverside” on small indie label Brik-A-Brak, Kid Harpoon set out to tour the UK and hone his craft. 2006 saw him play over 200 dates nationally, touring with The Kooks, Jamie T, Mystery Jets, Larrikin Love and Fionn Regan. He gained the attention of XL Recordings, signing in late November of that year.

Since then, Kid Harpoon has put together his backing band 'The Powers That Be' from a collection of his old Medway bandmates, and set about recording his debut album, from an archive of over 200 songs (written in less than 2 years).

This EP then is the first chance people will have to hear some of those songs from the album sessions. The first thing that’s clear is that Kid Harpoon is very much a singer/songwriter in the lineage of Great British songwriters – think Syd Barrett or Marc Bolan – one whose lyrics, far from conventional, transport the listener to another world. Sometimes idealized (“Milkmaid”), sometimes introspective (“As It Always Was”) but full of the feeling of free spirit that pervades so much of what Kid Harpoon does.

Musically, The First EP shows the depth of Kid Harpoon possesses. From the gypsy-rock of “Fifty Seven,” the almost electronic-like background accompaniment of “Aeroplanes and Neon Lights” to the lo-fi acoustic strumming of “The Water,” it’s an EP that is both encapsulating in its depth, scope and debt to the long lost art of real British musicianship.

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Kid Harpoon - The First EP