Well ladies and gentlemen, it's finally here. When you think about bands in the Leeds scene that were absolutely calling out for a Contact Buzz session, it had to be the band that wrote such show-stoppingly beautiful songs like ‘pillows’ and ‘weather’, some of my favourite tunes to come out of this scene. Contrail are a band on the formidable Private Regcords and I saw them last year at the Fenton with Ponzo and Dinnerbone on the supports (what a lineup that is by the way). It’s such a small, cramped room, especially when the Regcords posse get in there, but what a wave of sound they could muster in there. Exquisite.

Yeah, I've been chasing these guys for a while and after months of trying to find the right time and one cancelled session, I've finally added them to my Pokedex. Where better to place a band like this than in the Monomyth room at Eiger Studios? (alright now pay up Dom and Bob x). When we're all settled, sunk into the sofas, Luke spills the news that drummer Enzo won’t be joining us. Sounds like game over, right? Wrong! We decide drums were invented so long ago by cavemen hitting rocks with sticks, surely we’ve evolved past the need for them? Maybe not, but we were gonna have a go at forgetting they exist for a day.

We start off with Luke on guitar. A guitar which couldn’t conceive of letting us use the bridge pickup without a fight. Any slight knock would send the guitar into humbucker mode, so we decided to give the guitar what it wanted. A pretty dry signal for those dead stops in the verses and a deeper tone than expected, it’s smooth as an operator though. At the same time, we had Max (who reminded me of a young Tim Key) again, smooth as you like, pretty dry. I think a bass line that picks its moments is so much more effective - as in the little stops, refraining and then coming in heavy for the crescendo.

After sending the guitar and bass to channel 4 (it's based in Leeds you know!), we went straight to the vocals! Not the normal choice, but when the other two parts are slightly improvised lead lines, it's nice to know what you're playing around. We pulled out the star of the moment, the BM88. I just love the way it sounds and I knew Chloe’s voice is made for some of that lofi squeeze. Again, pretty dry, just a touch of reverb and delay. Practically whispering her part, the telephone mic doubles the melancholia in her delivery. Luke stood behind to croon the call and response too. Really reminded me of Thurston Moore’s vocals on Sonic Youth's cover for the ‘If I were a carpenter’ compilation.

After a trip to Hunslet Tesco Express, borrowing Max’s mum’s clubcard (I usually just find a qr on google images) we decide to continue with this so far successful recording… You guessed it, it continued to be successful. Asher unsheathed his sax, so I pointed an sm57 right down its hole (that's the technical term, I'm sure). What a talent this guy is. I mean they’re all talented, but going nuts on the sax just seemed so effortless to him. Asher had this little echoplex too, in fact we only went near my pedals for vocals I think. The dynamics created because of Asher wailing on his saxophone is massive and those little stops at the end whilst he’s going all 80s sax on everyone is nothing short of a pure stank face moment.

One slot left, had to be a more ethereal lead to mirror the sax on Luke’s temperamental guitar. This time we got more use out of his Memory Boy and Find out yellow pedal - add in a glass slide and you’ve got spaceships beeping, stars shooting by and alien vocalisations. There’s just something so troubling about this demo, desolate almost. So rich with little details though and utterly sprawling. I sometimes think things happen for a reason and whilst it would have been lovely to meet Enzo and work on some real crispy drums, this track needed a version out there in the stratosphere that wasn’t tied down to a rigid rhythm section. So if you’ve listened to this track ten times already and you’ve already been bopping their other songs for a while now, rest assured, because I'm pretty sure there's an EP on the horizon, you just need to be patient, like I was.

For the full write-up, visit our YouTube Channel or Website.

For Fans of: Sonic Youth, Slint and Mazzy Star