Saturday Night Howff with Carla J Easton, Callum Easter and Becci Wallace
howff /haʊf/. A favourite meeting place or haunt, especially a pub.
Welcome to Saturday night at the Howff, Bella’s lounge for the lockdown. This week we feature Carla J Easton, Callum Easter and Becci Wallace.
Glasgow’s Carla J. Easton has been a core element of the Scottish DIY scene for some time now, both as part of TeenCanteen and as a solo artist. Following on from her SAY-shortlisted 2018 album Impossible Stuff, she returns with Weirdo, a gloriously pop-infused and synth-heavy record that once again demonstrates her ability to craft dreamlike, upbeat tunes, but with an uncompromising edge. The album was written and recorded with help from Scott Paterson (Sons and Daughters) in CHVRCHES’ old basement studio in Glasgow, and features guest appearances from Honeyblood’s Stina Tweeddale, Micah Erenberg and Dave Hook (Solareye, Stanley Odd).
Of lead single ‘Get Lost’, Carla says: “I took in my beat up Casio MT 45 and Scott quickly stuck it through some tape loop and echo reverbs over some electronic beats. Everything came quickly after conversations about the first time you go away with someone you are beginning a new relationship with. All we needed was a handful of chords and my lyric notebook that was bursting with ideas about hiring cars and driving to the coast.”
You can hear from more from Carla and support her work at her Bandcamp here: https://carlajeaston.bandcamp.com/album/weirdo
WORDS: ARUSA QURESHI
Callum Easter’s new album ‘Green Door Sessions’ was released last week – an album made up of tracks re-recorded from his debut album ‘Here or Nowhere’ (released on Lost Map) and two earlier EP’s ‘Get Don’t Want’ and ‘Delete Forever’ (released on Soul Punk). This time round the songs have been reworked at the cult Glasgow studio using mainly accordion, drum machine and drone patterns.
“The premise was to record the versions of the songs I’d been performing live using mainly accordion, drum machine and drone,” he says. “One take, no overdubs, straight to tape. All done in Glasgow’s Green Door Studios.
You can hear more from Callum and support his work at his Bandcamp here: https://callumeaster.com
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WORDS: IONA LEE
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The Things They Say About Love is the first single taken from Becci Wallace‘s new album, ‘Present Tense’. Becci’s first album, Fragmentality, was released in 2014 and made it to the SAY award long list.
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Since then she has co-written on 2 of last years breakthrough Scottish albums, The Pearlfishers Love and Other Hopless Things and Catherine Rudie’s, The Mobius Kiss.
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What else has she been up to? Well, having 2 children in 5 years has meant time to reflect on the impact being a mother has had on her as an artist and woman in the music industry. Present Tense, documents the very raw and visceral road back to music.
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Present Tense has been produced in collaboration with NovaSound studios- ‘every song on this piece of work is driven by the voice, emotion and honestly’.
Look out from much more from Becci in the coming months.
You can hear more from Becci and support her work at her Bandcamp here: https://becciwallace.bandcamp.com/
WORDS: JIM MONAGHAN