Tristram are a 4 piece London-based band who’ve forged a sound which was rooted in folk, and built upon it by incorporating their combined loves of more powerful and complex instrumentation and arrangement. The result is music which creates a sense of old world drama and romance transposed into a modern context- a hypnotic mixture of the familiar and the unexpected. Drawing on their loves of post punk and post rock, they find a way to deliver a vocally delicate tone, underpinned by dramatic bursts of powerful experimental arrangement.
Tristram Bawtree, Becca Mears (of Peggy Sue – Wichita) and Tom Heather (of Kristrin McClement – Willkommen Collective) met in Brighton whilst studying art, and bonded over shared loves of something musically and visually different. The three moved to London, where Tristram began playing solo sets at warehouse parties, and encountered multi-instrumentalist Greg Griffin (of The Lofty Heights). Gradually, what began as a solo offering became a rare find – 4 individuals all contributing their own unique styles in equal measure. It’s this genuinely collective approach to their music which makes for such an unexpected, yet perfectly fitting sound.
Finding a balance between such varied influences, and
to give weight to each is no small achievement. Tristram explains the
source best- “I've always loved post-rock bands like Silver Mt Zion/Godspeed
You! Black Emperor and post-punk bands like Joy Division. I like to incorporate
some of the power and scope of that kind of sound into what we are making.
By contrast I am also a sucker for anything involving harmonies, and for
the simplicity of old folk songs. If the music we are making is folk music,
I think it’s appropriate that folk has always evolved and changed
to suit the needs and situations of the people singing it, and their surroundings.”
Tristram have recently finished recording their new EP ‘Accidents
& Artifice’. It was recorded in a basement home studio and is
set for release on November 15th. The freedom of recording in this way
has resulted in an EP which feels natural, honest, and unrushed. Closing
track Coelacanth was written whilst the others were being recorded, a
nod to the spontaneous nature of the band.
Tristram have found a way to tie together the worlds of the experimental
and the accessible with beautiful clarity. These are lyrically honest
songs, with a sideways approach to universal themes (love, lack of love,
histories, politics and so on). What was rooted in one sound, has now
become something so reformed that its origins are blurred. A true, natural
evolution.
Accidents & Artifice is available to pre-order now from our
shop.
