Reuben’s Daughters

Event information

Reuben Myles Tyghe’s second album as Reuben’s Daughters is a massive leap for the UK singer/songwriter, as he continues to push his sound and instrumentation into new and fascinating places while developing his innate sense of songcraft. At once reminiscent of the Sea and Cake’s airy post-rock sonics, the wooly chamber-pop of Super Furry Animals godhead Gruff Rhys, and the Beta Band’s more acoustic moments, Leylanding picks up where Tyghe left off with his beguiling 2022 debut Mami Wata, further cementing him as an ascendant craftsman in the field of independent music.

“Bath UK group Reuben's Daughters make lovely pastoral pop that feels like the first buds of spring… Mami Wata is a sunset-at-the-beach kind of record where, near the end of your holiday, you ask yourself "How do I stay here forever?...” (Brooklyn Vegan [USA]).

Leylanding is the latest step in Tyghe’s musical journey, which began in his home county of Wiltshire (where musical greats like XTC and Julian Cope also hail). At the age of 18, he formed his first band, released five albums across 13 years, toured consistently before entering a 2020 enforced hiatus—the resulting downtime from which birthed Reuben’s Daughters as a project.

He describes the Reuben’s Daughters debut Mami Wata as the result of self-recorded experimentation that eventually transformed into a full body of work: “The day that I mastered that record was one of the happiest days of my life, because I didn't think I was capable of even producing anything like it.” After its release, he formed a band with like-minded musicians from the greater music scene in Bath - including members of The Brackish, Kill Mirror Image, and the Hannah Nelson Band - and struck out on tour with them. This period saw Tyghe introducing new material to the newly formed group, the signature live favourites making the Leylanding cut.

“Playful and adventurous pop where solid grooves undulate underneath technicolour island slide guitars, who knew some of the sunniest new music in the world could be crafted in the southwest of England?" (Kelley Stoltz [Sub Pop, Third Man Records]).

Thematically, Leylanding touches on Tyghe’s acceptance of the circumstances and responsibilities that come with entering his late thirties—as a father, as a partner, and as an adult in general. “I went through quite an emotional time with the first record,” he explains. “Now, life is settled, and I’m learning how to not be in fight-or-flight mode - to just settle and be. A lot of the songs reflect on how certain situations in life play out. It seems that often the best thing we can do is accept a situation instead of trying to understand it.”

Leylanding came about over the last three years, as Tyghe balanced family duties with his creative endeavors. ”It was quite a long, drawn-out process that I wouldn't typically recommend,” he laughs while recalling the record’s creative gestation. “The record that I have now is nothing like what it sounded like in 2021.” While his care for sound played a role in recording - with the acoustics of Fleetwood Mac’s underrated classic Tango in the Night and former Deerhoof member Chris Cohen’s solo material looming heavily as influences - Tyghe eventually found that a first-thought-best-thought approach benefited these songs: “The further recording went on, the more I accepted that it's okay not to be so forensic while recording and mixing,” he explains, which resulted in a record that’s both rich in texture and resolutely human in composition.

As a result, Leylanding is as deliberate as it’s blessed by happy accidents - like the swaggering hook at the center of “You Think About It,” which is anchored by a steady, propulsive backbeat. “I was really struggling with the vocal hook, and my daughter comes in the room stomping her feet going, ‘You think about it, you think about it.’ And I was like, ‘That is it,’” Tyghe recalls, before elaborating that the song addresses “thinking about the things that we should deal with, when we should just deal with them there in that moment.”

The dreamy and drifting “Little Wanderer” is a straightforward dedication to the person who provided the hook for “You Think About It”: “It’s a straight-up love song for my daughter,” he explains. “I had this riff kicking about, and by the end of the day I had the tune written. I had this moment with her where I thought, ‘Wow, where have you been all this time?’ But, also, she’s always been there.” Elsewhere, Tyghe zooms out and tackles society’s ills - from the ways we talk to each other to how we express ourselves in day-to-day life - over the slinky rhythm of “Did You Hear?” and the gloriously racing “Another Contradiction,” the latter of which was one of the first songs written for the album: “The moment we open our mouths, we've contradicted ourselves somewhere,” he reflects while discussing the song’s thematic bent.

How does one reorient their own way of thinking amidst an age of chaos and confusion? For Tyghe, a literal change in location helped influence his current mindset. “I moved from the city out to the country, and we've got this beautiful valley out across the window,” he explains. “I needed to internalize what I was seeing - to be calm and lay in this land, if you will.” And if you picked up on an allusion to the album title in his words there, it’s more than intentional: “There's a bit of a play on words there, this is the West Country, this is Wiltshire after all. It's ancient land, and it’s where I've always come from—and I’m accepting that again, rather than chasing other dreams that I’m not geared up for.”

The literal ground he walks on influences Leylanding in more ways than one; it’s the second in a cycle of four records that will embrace an elemental theme - a subtle nod to Tyghe’s favorite band Morphine, who employed a similar conceit across the first four records of their discography. “When I made Mami Wata, I was reading about West African folklore and this deity that stems back from 4,000 years ago,” he explains while talking about the culmination of what Leylanding represents. “Then I thought about the progression from the water to the land: You've been at sea, and then you're coming back. So I really wanted to get the word ‘land’ in the title of this record, and now I'm on a mission for these first four records to honour my heroes and do something similar to what they did.”

But with Leylanding, Tyghe has achieved something far more momentous than paying tribute - he’s presented a body of work that showcases his continued evolution as a songwriter. He likens this record to a classic Beatles album in form - “A good collection of songs that flow well and make sense together” - and once you lay your ears on these tunes, you’ll find yourself hard-pressed to disagree with that assertion.