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STATELESS

0	LEEDS: Brudenell Social Club
P	Thursday 5th May, 2011
N	7:30pm

Event information

LINKS:
http://www.statelessonline.com/
http://www.myspace.com/statelessonline
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Biography

Stateless - biog Stateless were formed in 2003 by singer-songwriter Chris James, who enlisted band members Kidkanevil (programming, samplers, turntables), Rod Buchanan-Dunlop (keys, FX), James Sturdy (drums) and John Taylor (bass) to bring his compositions to life. In true rock-fairytale style, their first demo, “Prism # 1,” was picked up and playlisted by Radio 1, leading to a record deal with Sony. The band were quickly shipped off to the famous Rockfield studios in Wales to record their eponymous debut album with producer Jim Abbiss (U.N.K.L.E., Arctic Monkeys). When Sony merged with BMG, though, the band found themselves in limbo and chose to move to respected Berlin label !K7, who released the album internationally in July 2007. The record met with acclaim from across the board, hailed by everyone from Mojo ("A visionary debut " ****) to DJ ("one of the albums of the year" ****1/2).

Stateless toured the album all over Europe with new band members Justin Percival (bass/vocals), and Dave Levin (drums), coming to the attention of legendary producer DJ Shadow, who enlisted Chris to sing on two songs on his album, “The Outsider.” This was followed by a huge world tour with over 80 shows in 20 countries. With the new album, “Matilda,” James decided to adopt a different approach. The first decision the band made was to push their combination of classic songwriting and story-telling into deeper electronic territory. Kidkanevil pushed his beats and programming to a new level and with the help of producer Damian Taylor (Bjork, The Prodigy) this battle between classic songwriting and electronic programming and production took the album into a whole new territory. It has already been described as sounding like Jeff Buckley battling Modeselektor with a twist of Timbaland.

The band met Taylor backstage at a Bjork gig on her Volta Tour. Soon after, James sent him some of the new Stateless demos, which Taylor loved, and they began working on the album. The process was complex. The band recorded their parts either at home or in a recording studio in Hackney, London. Then they would send all the parts to Taylor in Vancouver, who would start applying his production techniques. “I think I got overly obsessive,” confides James. “I got really bad insomnia. I literally couldn't stop thinking about it. It wasn't a very healthy place at all, it was quite a dark time.” Towards the end of 2009 James flew out to Vancouver to record in Taylor’s studio in the forest on the Sunshine Coast, it was here that the pair did the final production work on the album.
Of the guest artists, first came Shara Worden, of My Brightest Diamond. The band first met her when they both played on a TV show in Manchester in 2007 called City Centre Social on Channel M. They recognised musical like-minds and kept in touch and James wrote a duet called ‘I'm On Fire’ with Shara in mind. He flew over to record the song in her living room in Brooklyn, as live and spontaneous as could be, James wanting to get back to the old school style of having singers in the room together, singing live together, capturing a moment. Next came the world-renowned contemporary-classical string group, the Balanescu Quartet, who have worked with everyone from David Byrne and Michael Nyman to Hector Zazou. James wrote the string arrangements with Gillian Wood, and the group performed them on four songs for the new album.

But it wasn’t just it terms of technology that things changed with this record. As James explains, “The production is much more electronic on this album but the songwriting is quite different from the first album, too. It's more based on surreal stories and characters, it's much more cinematic. It really blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.” It’s a record he’s rightly very proud of, both for the passion and commitment that went into making it, but also for the result. “It’s like a strange and beautiful dreamscape, “ he says. “It's dark, surreal, mysterious, full of weird and wonderful characters. It's a big piece of work. I hope that people get that, when they hear it. I think it's gonna take quite a few listens before it really sinks in. It's a proper album, it works as a whole. I want people to do the Pink Floyd thing, and listen to it from start to finish really loud on good headphones.”
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Press Release for new album "Matilda" released Feb 2011 on Ninja Tune.

It’s easy to talk about the “epic” quality of this or that record, its “cinematic” feel. And how many artists have you heard say, as Chris James, lead singer of Stateless, does that “I wanted the record to be like a journey”? But sometimes it’s true. Sometimes it just is true. Sometimes you have to hold up your hands and admit it.

Welcome to “Matilda,” then, an eleven track, fifty minute follow-up to 2007’s eponymous debut, which takes all of those easy words and makes something concrete out of them. Working with Bjork producer/programmer Damian Taylor, “Matilda” ties together classic songwriting with rhythmic drive, slatherings of sub-bass and enough electronic interference to satisfy the most anal of glitch-nerds. The results are spectacular. From the atmospheric opening of “Curtain Call” you know you’re in for something special. The driving bass of first single “Ariel” is followed by the sinuous melody and building atmospherics of “Miles To Go.” “Visions” features lead vocals from bass player Justin Percival. “As a vocalist he really is something else,” says James. “I think more and more Stateless will become a twin vocal band. Well, it is already!” “Assassinations” rocks as hard as anything on the album, kidkanevil's heaviest beats driving it, with the electronic weight added by
Taylor giving the whole tune real attack. “Red Ocean” functions as an ambient-folk interlude to clear the palate before “I’m On Fire,” a duet with Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond, recorded in her Brooklyn front room over a bottle of wine. “Ballad of NGB” almost has the feel of contemporary r&b, if contemporary r&b producers were bugging out to Bartok’s Hungarian folk songs and working with the remarkable Balanescu Quartet. This world-renowned string group comes into its own on “Song For The Outsider” when, in addition to a superb string arrangement, violinist Alex Balanescu finishes things off with a vicious solo: “At the end of the take the control room was just speechless,” James remembers. “Everyone’s jaws just hit the floor, completely astounded. It was mindblowing.” “Junior” aches with longing and throbs with out-of-focus electronica. “I Shall Not Complain” finishes the album back somewhere in Eastern Europe, piano combining with one of the most beautiful melodies on the record to take us out on a melancholy, uplifting high.

“I wanted you to enter a world,” expalains James, “and travel through that world, meeting different characters, and having different experiences along the way. Matilda, is obviously one of the main characters, but there are other characters too, in order of appearance, you've got Maria, Ariel, The Devil, The Assassins, NGB, The Outsider, Junior, and more, and all of these characters have a role to play in the bigger picture...” He pauses for a moment to consider the enormity of what he hopes he has achieved. “It’s like a strange and beautiful dreamscape,” he says. “It's dark, surreal, mysterious, full of weird and wonderful characters. It's a big piece of work. I hope that people get that, when they hear it. I think it's gonna take quite a few listens before it really sinks in. It's a proper album, it works as a whole. I want people to do the Pink Floyd thing, and listen to it from start to finish really loud on good headphones.”

Venue information

LEEDS: Brudenell Social Club

0	33 Queens Road Leeds West Yorkshire LS6 1NY
>	www.brudenellsocialclub.co.uk
!	01132752411
`	Live music will generally begin around 30 minutes after doors open.