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Noah and the Whale are all set to play at the Roundhouse among other high-profile summer gigs |
The ark of noise: Noah and the Whale's reign
PREVIEW: NOAH AND THE WHALE
The Roundhouse
THEY are the school band kids who took everything they learned and turned it upside down. They are the smiley, happy people who are obsessed with death. They are Noah and the Whale – minus any biblical implications.
Holed up in his King’s Cross flat, 21-year-old chief songwriter Charlie Fink – and that is his real name – is trying to explain what his band is all about. And it’s not all that straightforward.
One thing is clear, they have captured the imagination of summer music lovers. Their single Five Years Time is one of those tunes you wake up humming.
The four-piece – Charlie and his brother Doug, classical musician Tom Fiddle and former child actor Urby Whale – are regularly joined by a string of musicians for their live performances – “the more I can have the better”, says Charlie.
Folk singer Laura Marling guests on their album, Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down but, since her own career took off, the band have been working alongside Lily Flynn.
Charlie, who used to live in Agar Grove, recalls playing in a small studio at the Roundhouse for the Camden Crawl.
“I thought it was brilliant, a really special gig for us, the start of a new wave of things happening,” he said. “The Crawl was pretty manic for us. We did four gigs in two days. I went the year before and saw The Pipettes. You’ve just got to settle on who you really want to see and stay there.”
This time, the band are playing the Roundhouse’s main theatre and are bringing more musicians with them.
Charlie said: “It’s the day the album comes out. We’re playing the album in full.
“All the songs are purposely written as a unit. They are all about love, death and time in some way. The whole album’s meant to be optimistic, although on quite intimidating dark subjects.
“Death is big for me. It’s been a constant fear since I was too young to be scared of it. It’s the world existing completely as normal without you.”
Instead, Charlie neutralises his fears through lyrics: “It’s writing optimistically about something that scares you. Songs are the one place you can talk freely.”
He is secretive about the band’s name: “I really like that people seem to be fascinated by it. They seem to have really strong opinions where it’s from so I’m reluctant to say.”
Explaining their interest in unusual instruments, Charlie says: “I was always in bands and stuff at school. Tom was a classical musician until a couple of years ago. We’ve always messed around with things. It didn’t seem peculiar to us to be playing all the different instruments, taking influences from different places. Like the harmonium, taking that out of context.”
Typical of his dark/ folk/fairytale style, Charlie cites Wes Anderson as the director whose films he would most like to score. The Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums director is working on an animated version of Fantastic Mr Fox, and you can almost hear Charlie’s musical mind spinning possible tunes.
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