The Long Blondes 'Couples' album

The original goal of this Sheffield 5-piece, was to form a fantasy pop group: Nico, Nancy Sinatra, Diana Dors, Barbara Windsor. Sexy and literate, flippant and heartbreaking all at once. With this in mind, the Long Blondes went falling and laughing headlong into the glamorous world of heaving amps onto trains and touring and touring and touring.

The first kindred spirit to notice the Long Blondes was hip south London independent label Angular Records. Through them, in 2005 the band released a brace of exhilarating singles in the UK. The band spent most of that year leading double lives, taking odd days off work to play in New York, Stockholm and Barcelona and signing autographs while their bosses weren’t looking. Meanwhile, word was spreading and their three singles were capturing the hearts of pop music lovers all over the world. They kicked off 2006 as recipients of the NME Philip Hall Radar Award (previously won by Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs) and played to increasingly frenzied crowds as everyone across the pond from the Guardian to Vogue proclaimed the Long Blondes to be the Best Unsigned Band In The UK. In April of 2006, the Long Blondes signed to the legendary Rough Trade records. Their label debut, Someone To Drive You Home was released in the UK in November of 2006, and came out stateside in June of 2007, and now 2008 will see the release of “Couples”.

What makes the new Long Blondes album so different, so appealing?
PLAY> Track one, 1.47: “Out of synch, out of fashion”.
On “Couples”, The Long Blondes still mix the extravagant and the everyday as only they can; the illicit thoughts that let a bit of excitement into the tedium of life. But this is no longer a sepia-tinted picture postcard of a past era, instead it is the aural equivalent of people watching the moon landings on a newly acquired colour TV or Futurists painting cityscapes of dizzying shapes and violent colours. It is the shock of the new.

- popular & witty
First of all, the album title. “Couples”. Note that the quotation marks are imperative, highlighting the Long Blondes’ penchant for self-referencing (see track three on the album) and also tipping a hat towards Bowie’s “Heroes” and Adam and the Ants’ “Antmusic”. Although many may pass this off as mere triviality, it is just such an eye for detail that defines the band’s views.

Legend has it that the recording of the album took place under the watchful gaze of the ‘couples wall’, constructed in the studio by the band and featuring images of dynamic duos throughout history; The Two Ronnies, Gilbert and George, Ron and Russel Mael of Sparks and Basil and Sybil Fawlty to name but a few. Bassist Reenie Hollis explains: “Situations continually arose when we would look towards famous couples for inspiration, entertainment or enlightenment. It was either fate or the onset of cabin fever but “Couples” seemed like the ideal title.” Emma Chaplin elaborates: “A lot of the couples on the wall seemed like tragicomic figures, the type of people Andy Warhol would have …we decided to take this further by using snippets of dialogue by the likes of Peter Sellers and Kenny Everett as album interludes.

More prosaically, most of the songs relate to the relationships between couples, or at least ex-couples. Even album opener ‘Century’, a song expanding the Blondes’ traditional subject matter, is still an ode from one century to its predecessor. Singer Kate explains, “Century was supposed to feel like watching a history show about the Cold War. You feel a sense of disbelief that the world could have reached such a dangerous point, but also yearning for a simpler time of space exploration, table lighters and mass-produced British-made cars. As with all relationships we have to look to the past, serenade it and then break away from it in order to realize the future.”

- glamorous & young
The Long Blondes were aided and abetted on this new musical journey by visionary dj/producer Erol Alkan. Already recognized as one of the UK’s most revered and respected DJs (he’s remixed Klaxons, Hot Chip and Daft Punk amongst many others), he has a burgeoning reputation as a producer that is sure to be sealed with “Couples”. Guitarist Dorian Cox describes Alkan’s input: “Erol has a non-musical approach to production in the tradition of Joe Meek and Brian Eno which was very inspirational. The last thing we wanted was a self-satisfied big name producer who didn’t care about the music or the band. With this album, we were hungry to prove ourselves and we needed a producer who felt the same.”

- sexy & big business
Musically, "Couples" sees The Long Blondes stepping, dancing, falling and laughing into brave new worlds; “Century” fuses the lyrical collages of Bryan Ferry and the musical cut-and-paste of Saint Etienne. The glacial, minimal “Too Clever By Half” contrasts with the dark murmurs of “Round The Hairpin”, essentially a 1950s teen death-disc taking an unsettling turn via drummer Screech’s Krautrock rhythms and Kate’s backwards singing. “Couples” and “Guilt”, meanwhile, take furtive dances with Stereolab's charm and the Pet Shop Boys’ high art/camp midpoint respectively. Then there's the poignant maturity of “Nostalgia”, the heavy lidded piano and Kate's smoky vocals reaffirming what, by now, you'll already know, " that was then, and this is now... that's all in the past."

The result? In a nation of identikits, no other group could have written “Couples”. The Long Blondes are moving effortlessly and upwards to those giddy stratospheres that are rightfully theirs.

who is who
THE LONG BLONDES are Kate Jackson (vocals), Dorian Cox (guitar), Reenie Hollis (bass), Emma Chaplin (keyboards), and Screech (drums).

press quotes
“The Long Blondes’ Kate Jackson sings like she has expensive taste in lipstick, delivering smart, sex-as-a-weapon lyrics with a swaggering smirk that conveys both glam-charged confidence and femme-specific vulnerability.” - SPIN, 3.5 stars

“Filled with more hits than Doherty’s arm, this record flashed with more deliciously faded glamour than a crumbling Cuban city ... this is a record – and a band – which many people will fall in love with ...” - NME

“If my hunch is right ... The Long Blondes are en route to becoming one of the most important British bands of our time” - The Independent (London)

“Most so-called "cinematic" records earn that distinction due to some quirk of reverb or their use of space, but the Long Blondes only have modern England's typically confined, 17-year-old-from-Doncaster guitar-dudeish sound. Instead, it's the songs themselves, their narratives and their characters that speak to the band's widescreen ambitions.” - Pitchfork 8.2

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The Long Blondes - Couples