Circa Waves
“I’ve just got back actually. We’ve been on a two week
mini tour of Europe, ending up in Amsterdam and Hamburg”. It’s been a busy
couple of weeks for Kieran Shudall and his band CIRCA WAVES. One rainy evening
last month, I was three service stations deep into a mercilessly long five-hour
drive from my hometown in Kent. And after exhausting a four year old, painfully
over-sentimental compilation CD that I found under my seat, I turned on the
Radio and was greeted by that familiar, Kiwi yelp introducing what he referred
to as the Hottest Record In The World. Despite being one of the most polarizing
broadcasters of our generation and sounding like a philosophy student on his
third line of beak, being brought up on Zane Lowe’s show means that sort of ludicrous
hyperbole still resonates quite significantly with me. And having been a
functioning (although entirely unsuccessful) music journalist in Liverpool for a
couple of years now, I’d even dare to suggest that I’ve developed a not
entirely misplaced local pride (although my six pint faux-scouse accent probably
is). The song was Get Away, the new single by Kieran Shudall’s CIRCA
WAVES. A punchy, confident number that has rightfully propelled the band to the
summit of the industry’s endless guitar bands to watch lists.
Most acts don’t make it out of the city, let alone the
country, so this European tour is a remarkable milestone for a band still
barely getting to know each other. “We basically drove like twelve hours”,
Shudall explains. “Eventually we arrived at a radio station (Holland’s renowned
3FM Radio) and played a little session. So on the following day when we played
the London Calling Festival in Amsterdam, people had got onto the recording and
were already into it, so it was pretty packed out for our show and everyone
went a bit nuts”. You can forgive Shudall for sounding surprised, as he recalls
these tales like a man who can’t quite believe his luck: “Circa Waves was just
me until earlier this year. I didn’t really know what I was doing before then,
just sort of wandering around Liverpool and playing a few shows. I had written
some songs that I thought were quite good, and I had a few mates who had kind
things to say. Then eventually people who’s opinion I respected suggested that
I needed to start a band. My mate knew a bassist and drummer so I got them
pretty quickly. Then I drunkenly met our guitarist at Sound City. So yeah, it
all came together very easily actually”. Circa Waves’ debut release, a double
A-Side consisting of the aforementioned ‘Get Away’ and new track Good For Me
comes out via the excellent Transgressive on the 2nd December.
Otherwise though, Shudall is keeping his cards close to his chest: “I’ve got twenty-thirty
demos which I’ve played to a few industry people and close friends”, he reveals
tentatively. “We’re going to lay them down soon, but I’m just trying to figure
out the best way to record them at the moment, whether we do it ourselves, bring
someone else in or whatever”.
Between wedging young women into their ceilings, Two
Door Cinema Club recently urged their 340,000 twitter followers to check out
Get Away. And reluctantly or not, with their sharply executed tunes and bouncy
rhythms, Circa Waves will have listeners compulsively comparing them to the
likes of TDCC, The Vaccines and the relentlessly competent series lad-rock acts
heralded as the savior of the great British guitar band. “Yeah, it’s nice to a
degree I suppose. I mean they’re all pretty successful artists”, Shudall
explains cautiously. “I’m massively influenced by The Strokes as you can hear. I
do think that the next few singles will show a lot more of a diverse sound
though, which will hopefully have people drawing more varied comparisons”. He’s
right to sound concerned, as time has proven that for every apparent savior
there are ten VIVA Brothers. The fact is though, Circa Waves are worth paying
attention to not because of what they sound like, but what they’ve done with
those sounds. Those frantic, immediate opening guitar swipes, the wild and
frenetic chord changes, all allow the song to burn through a range of emotions
with fearless abandon. It’s a plaintive tale of anxiety and fear disguised as
an anthem, which is what makes it so disarming. And unlike The Vaccines and
their many contemporaries, Shudall doesn’t sing like a man who thinks that
apathy and ennui is the same fucking thing. And I know its just one single, but
by avoiding detachment and conceding that however imperfect, however
irrational, he might actually have something personal to say, Circa Waves have
already outgrown that sort of meat and potatoes rock that they are being
relentlessly compared to.
The bands more starry eyed backers have them down as
one of the biggest new acts in the country, with many in the industry even hailing them as the next Arctic Monkeys. Guitar music has been meandering
in the UK for some time now, though. That’s not to say that there isn’t good
stuff out there; it just seems to exist in this perpetual state of perceived underachieving.
The fact is that it hasn’t really connected with youth culture on a mainstream
level in Britain since the days you were questioning your sexuality over The
Maccabees’ video for Toothpaste Kisses. “Yeah, this is definitely something I’m
quite wary of”, he explains carefully. “I’ve been trying my best to keep a
reign on all this sudden attention. I’ve never experienced anything quite like
it, and I definitely didn’t expect any of this. We’ve had everyone and his dog
interested over the last couple of months, which is good and bad really. I
mean, it’s quite hard to write songs when you’re getting fifty phone calls a
day like”. We all know that hype can be a double-edged sword, and Shudall
certainly seems to be treading it very carefully.
It’s impossible to predict what the name Circa Waves
will mean to Liverpool next year, and Shudall will know as well as any that he
could just as easily be on the cover of NME as he could busking on Church
Street. You do get the feeling though, that despite the accessible hooks and widescreen
choruses, if he is going to find vindication for all this hard work anywhere
then it won’t be among the fickle masses, but with those quiet, attentive listeners,
treasuring these songs with the knowledge that they mean more to them than they
do anyone else.
Mike Townsend
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