The Wave Pictures return with the promised second album of the year, Look Inside Your Heart – a warm, joyous record celebrating friendship, happiness and drunken party times. In addition to playing their biggest London headline show to date at Koko on 22 November, the band have announced a UK tour in January.
They shared the video for first single from the album, Roosevelt Sykes, via Dork. The video was directed by Fraser Watson and features the band walking in the park where they encounter some people dancing. Dave Tattersall describes the song as; “Lyrically, a tribute to Roosevelt Sykes, a giant of piano blues, to all firemen, to my friend Giles, to John Fahey and to my dreams and to all dreams. Musically, an African pop party in the vein of Zimbabwe’s The Four Brothers and The Bhundu Boys but done with absolutely no puritanical slavery at any kind of authenticity or even accuracy.”
Like the first album they released this year, the more contemplative Brushes With Happiness, Look Inside Your Heart was recorded late at night whilst inebriated back at the tiny Booze Cube Studio in Stoke Newington, live to reel-to-reel tape with no computers of any kind. The album is peppered with giggles and chatter, which adds a sense of spontaneity and place.
As singer and guitarist Dave Tattersall explains: ”Look Inside Your Heart is intended as a rallying cry in the war against the machines; while a computer may have beaten world-champion human being Lee Sedol at Go, a machine could never have made music as joyful, spontaneous, happy, poetic, broken and rambunctious as this. Look Inside Your Heart is a bullet in the face of all pop-poseurs and robot wannabes, a die-hard continuation of the vulnerable rebel tradition of rock and roll music, a vibrant work of outsider art and a masterpiece of electric folk.”
Twenty years after forming in Wymeswold, Leicestershire as teenagers, The Wave Pictures have gone on to be one of the UK’s most prolific and beloved bands. Fond of classic rock, jazz and blues, they are also one of the most accomplished, with Tattersall’s guitar solos becoming the stuff of legend. They have collaborated with varying bright stars of the musical firmament, such as last year’s rock’n’roll surf-garage-rock project with Charles Watson from Slow Club, as new band The Surfing Magazines, or their ongoing partnership with ex-Herman Dune member Stanley Brinks, or the very close partnership with Billy Childish for 2015’s Great Big Flamingo Burning Moon.
They first experimented with recording an album all in one go, straight to tape with 2016’s acoustic A Season In Hull. They took the concept further with Brushes With Happiness, making sure that it was a magical album that was completely improvised, with no songs written in advance echoing the jazz and blues recordings that they admire.
The beloved trio of Jonny Helm (drums), Dave Tattersall (guitar & vocals) and Franic Rozycki (bass), further demonstrate their tight bond, weaving effortless melodies with mind bending sonic and emotional force. Look Inside Your Heart is poignant, witty, wise and wonderful.
The band will play at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds on January 21st.