Jake Hampton And Simon York

Amendment 9th May 2017:-

What a difference 7 months make!! Jake has now left the band for reason i know not of leaving Driving force and main man Simon York on his tod to do the remainder of the work leading up to the release. Kevin Bales played  drums on track 9 and Robert Squirrell did some trumpetry though! Now that the album has been released (28/4/17) I have now had a chance to listen to the finished product at my leisure in a warm room not having to worry about how shit i feel or how many coffees i need to stay awake. This album is well produced, very well produced!! Everything in the mix sounds even and at just the right level in the mix!! It’s not overblown, crowded out or too pompous! Every instrument is crystal clear and no straining of  ear  nor tweaking of EQ is required to get the most out of this album. ”Wash” has a snarling emphatic drum beat which is the perfect counterbalance to  the melted chocolate vocal. The guitar comes in out of the shadows and adds some silvery flourishes before dipping out again. Everything about this track is just perfect!! I actually like the pondering wandering flamenco Wimsey of ”Lady Takes The Blame” Another great track is ”Side of the Road” A great head nodder, just the right side of pensive and perfect for working to!! If this album does not bring in some well deserved and steady revenue for the band then i’d like to know why because a lot of hard work, dedication, sweat, tears, trauma and personal trials have all gone into the crafting of this along with a great engineer!!! I mean, seriously!! There is a lot of crap out there that in my opinion should not be given the light of day or be classed as art and stuff like this gets overlooked ?? Luxury Stranger have been  around for years and deserve recognition in my view!!”

If Ansel Adams was a recording artist he would be pleased with what he’d produced here!!


Venue :- Chameleon Arts Cafe, Nottingham, UK

Date:- 30/11/16

”This venue was cold!! I turned up at around 6pm when the band were setting up and getting the sound right on the PA. The venue is just up the road from the Old market Square and you access it from an alley between a Game Shop and a fast food outlet!! It is on two floors with a bar/lounge area on one level and the stage and loos upstairs. My first impression of the place was that it looked  like a squat and the fact that it was bloody cold did not subdue that assumption!!”


”Simon set up chairs for the invited guests who arrived around 8pm for the 8:45 start. I was expecting a live performance/playback of the album for some reason but it turned out to be just a playback. Two chairs were set up in the stage area as props. When the playback started i had a thought, that it was cold for a reason and as the album progressed the heat would be turned up, it wasn’t!! My imagination was also seeing ghostly figures inhabiting the chairs, staring at each other, staring ahead, flitting from one chair to the other, standing etc. The cold was not part of the performance at all, it was incidental but the ghostly images and the music took my mind off it for most of the 45 minutes.”


”Cold aside, i  enjoyed the playback, the album is basically reworkings of old tunes such as ”Wash” and ”Diver” and my foot tapped for the most part all the way through the proceedings. The Engineer/Co producer on the album was Guy Elderfield from Random Recordings in Nottingham. His credits include working with the Libertines and The Donna’s, there is a link to Random Recordings below if care to have a look!! .  As i said previously, i enjoyed the playback but the cold in the building was having an affect on my concentration and cold does have an affect on how sound travels through the air so in this environment a few tracks did not come across as maybe they should have. So be wise as not to assume that this is my definitive review of ”Darkness Falls Upon The Light” because it is not!! I look forward to having a lot more listens at my leisure when the album is finally released in March 2017”