Claire Gardner
This second album from Brighton band The Miserable Rich is everything I expected it to be plus a bit more; which is good, because I expected to like it very much indeed.
Opening track Pegasus makes me smile, the band’s characteristically beautiful string arrangements paired with frontman James de Malplaquet’s melodic vocals give it a perfect laid back summer feeling. Indeed, the strings on the first half of the album’s tracks are so pretty that they almost belie the dry and sometimes dark wit and sentiment of the lyrics. Almost but not quite that is. The pretty strings help set the scene on tracks like Somerhill with it’s tale of concealed romance in a small town (Somerhill also has some pleasing Brighton references for this Brighton dwelling reviewer)
After the second of the four brief instrumental intervals on the album, the tone of the album changes; subtly at first with Bye Bye Kitty with it’s more forceful pace and then more so with the darker and deeper bass led sound of For a Day with it’s off kilter strings lending the track a sense of being dizzy and slow and woozy.
The absence of the strings (actually absence of everything bar piano and backing vocals) on final track Hungover lend an air of quiet contemplation.
You could listen to this album at full volume on a warm summer’s day with a drink in hand* and your head in a far off place or you could sit quietly listening intently to the lyrical content, smiling to yourself with a drink in hand*. But however you do it make sure you listen, it’s definitely worth your while.
*drink optional
Of Flight and Fury is out now
Check out The Miserable Rich here.
Of all of the current crop of bands who could be described as chamber pop, Brighton quintet The Miserable Rich stand out as that which embrace the concept most whole heartedly. While other bands use the chamber pop sound to add an extra dimension to their folky or indie backbone, The Miserable Rich are as pure as they come. Strip James De Malplaquet’s timbrous vocals from the mix and what you have here could easily form part of the soundtrack to a BBC period drama, so baroque is their sound.
Somerhill , a preposterously pretty song about hidden love in a small town, will be the first release from their forthcoming album, the follow up to the velvety 12 Ways To Count.
Somerhill, backed with Bye Bye Kitty is available for download now from i-Tunes and Boomkat. The album Of Flight And Fury will follow in May.
The Miserable Rich MySpace is here.
The Miserable Rich – The Cluny 2, Newcastle
Even with a sore throat, James de Malplaquet sings like Ella Fitzgerald. Hoarse and whispery in conversation between songs, The Miserable Rich singer’s voice never once falters while in full flight during this, the opening night of their current tour.
Despite the constant threat of vocal breakdown and the numbing cold of the venue, Cellist Will Calderbank and violinist Mike Siddell have to warm their hands against a radiator before taking to the stage, the band manage to give a run out to new single Somerhill and its b-side Bye, Bye Kitty, a cover of Iggy Pop’s Shades and a handful of old favourites from their 12 Ways To Count album including the sublime Boat Song.
What makes the Miserable Rich such an attractive proposition when playing live is that the strings aren’t there to simply augment their sound; they are the sound. Mostly, that’s a gorgeously lush sweeping sound, but Calderbank and Siddell aren’t afraid to ratchet up the sound. At times they are as close to a wall of sound as two instruments more at home in the orchestra pit can be.
Somerhill is available now through Humble Soul with an album to follow at the end of May.
Sore throat or no sore throat, James de Malplaquet has also croaked his way through the Suitcase Orchestra Q&A.
If I were to play just one of your songs to someone who hasn’t heard your music, which would it be and why?
That’s going to be pretty tricky as the track I’m thinking of, Oliver, is on the new album and thus net yet available. I think you can probably get a preview of it live on YouTube though.
I’m choosing this one because it encapsulates a lot of what the band is about now. It was written by the group as a whole, and we all had a hand in it. It’s in an unusual time signature, and has fairly strange subject matter – and yet it’s extremely catchy and immediate. It also has both the tender and the raw sides of our output.
You are being sent to the moon. You’re allowed to take 1 album. What is it?
It is You Forgot It In People by Broken Social Scene
What was the last album you bought?
Marissa Nadler – Bird On The Water, which I learned about on 6Music R.I.P. Fittingly sad.
Tell us an interesting fact.
All firefighters and rescue teams in Chile are unpaid volunteers.
Tell us about a band or singer we might not have heard of who should be featured on Suitcase Orchestra.
There’s this husband and wife/brother-sister duo from the states.
Wear a lot of red and white……..
Oh, alright then. We played with a band called Vadoinmessico in London. We like them.
What film would you be a character in?
Ok. Since we’re in fantasy land now, can we please please be the characters in Withnail and I?
Reckon there’d be stiff competition for the parts of Withnail and Danny.
Somewhat less for I and Uncle Monty.
Personally, I’d be happiest dressing up lots and playing all the bit parts.
Recommend a book.
Les Miserables, Victor Hugo.
But of course.
Which literary character would play you in the book of your life?
Wilkins Micawber.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
What’s the worst record in your collection?
That would be one of Jim’s many Status Quo records.
Although I believe I have a copy of Love Is In The Air by a Spanish flamenco singer which really does need to be heard to be believed…….
What question should I always ask in a Q & A? And answer it please.
A lady at the student radio in Newcastle (hullo Laura!) asked us this question, so we’ll nick that.
Which band would YOU like to cover a song of YOURS, and which one?
Again, this is fantasy land, so let’s have the Pixies doing Pisshead please.
The Miserable Rich MySpace is here.
Of all of the current crop of bands who could be described as chamber pop, Brighton quintet The Miserable Rich stand out as that which embrace the concept most whole heartedly. While other bands use the chamber pop sound to add an extra dimension to their folky or indie backbone, The Miserable Rich are as pure as they come. Strip James De Malplaquet’s timbrous vocals from the mix and what you have here could easily form part of the soundtrack to a BBC period drama, so baroque is their sound.
Somerhill , a preposterously pretty song about hidden love , will be the first release from their forthcoming album, the follow up to the velvety 12 Ways To Count.
Somerhill, backed with Bye Bye Kitty will be released 8th March on Humble Soul Records. The album Of Flight And Fury will follow on 31st March.
The band have also announced the following UK tour dates.
February
25th Cellar, Oxford
26th Folk House, Bristol
27th With the Willkommen Orchestra, King’s Palace, London
March
2nd Cluny, Newcastle
3rd The Yorkshire House, Lancaster
4th Glee Club, Birmingham
5th The Black-E, Liverpool
6th Red Rooms, Glossop
7th The Deaf Institute, Manchester
The Miserable Rich MySpace is here.
