| Biography
Stuart Nicol: vocals and guitar
David Nicol: bass
Malcolm Cochrane: lap-steel and pedal-steel guitars
Robert Dillam: guitar
David Jeans: drums There was another band called The Zephyrs, once. They were something of a fixture on the Scottish East Coast dance scene, guaranteed to add sparkle and jive to any function. They were named after the Ford Zephyr, or a mysterious breeze, or Zephyrus, Greek god of the western wind, depending on who was asking.
One night The Zephyrs pitched up at the social club in Currie, outside Edinburgh, all slicked hair, battered cases and stubby fags. That night the Currie Gala Queen was being crowned; The Zephyrs were the entertainment. By evening’s end, after guitars were put away and victory sashes neatly folded, after all that was left on the dancefloor were puddles of ale and a discarded tie, Gala Queen and Slick Singer had fixed up a date. (He probably gave her the Greek God angle.) They would live happily ever after.
The band their sons formed 25 years later would also be called The Zephyrs. See, at least here there was good reason to call yourself a ‘The’ band.
Songwriter Stuart Nicol and his brother David have been making music together for ages. They’ve been together as The Zephyrs for around four years. In that time they have released two albums, a single, an EP (in Spain), lost umpteen band mates, and a label, and a publishing deal. But along the way they found a new home at Setanta and discovered kindred spirits in members of Super Furry Animals and Mogwai. They nearly didn’t get here, but get here they have.
A Year To The Day, from the title onwards, is compelling evidence that adversity is a right pain in the arse. But that great music can result. ‘Wee prick Sneddon’
The record was nearly called Thirteen Months And A Day, a reference to how long it took to make. Then Idle Pop winner David Sneddon called his album something like that. So they had to change it. Given that halfway through recording The Zephyrs all but imploded, in context this wasn’t too much of a hassle. But still. Sneddon. What a wee prick.
The Zephyrs first album, 1999’s It’s OK Not To Say Anything, was limited to 700 copies and came out on a tiny Edinburgh indie label. In 2000, friends Mogwai signed them to the Glasgow band’s Rock Action imprint, which in turn released their records through new label Southpaw. In 2001, The Zephyrs released their album When The Sky Comes Down It Comes Down On Your Head. The title was appropriately doomy. Not because of the songs, which were glorious, sweeping, orchestral indie-rock and occasionally sounded a bit like This Mortal Coil, but because Southpaw went tits-up the week the album came out. A related publishing deal evaporated. The plug was pulled on all promotion and tour support. Which was a shame, because The Zephyrs were great at the Reading Festival that year. They’d just started to reap the rewards of the album’s good reviews, in Europe and Japan, when they had to call a halt and go back to the dayjobs. The Incomplete Stone Roses
But the Nicols were determined to keep on keepin’ on. In early 2002 they began work on a new album. But by now the band, which had ballooned into an unwieldy eight-piece with the addition of violin and cello, was getting a bit niggly. People fell out, then fell in, then fell apart.
A Spanish label, Acuarela, had loved When The Sky… Last spring they invited (what was left of) the band to play a festival in Barcelona. In June Acuarela released an EP, The Love That Will Guide You Back Home. In November, the Madrid-based label arranged a two-week Spanish tour for The Zephyrs. Malcolm Cochrane, who had been the original lead guitarist in the band but left after the first album, rejoined for the tour. He brought with him the pedal-steel guitar he’d bought in the interim. David Jeans, an old schoolfriend of the Nicols who had previously drummed for The Complete Stone Roses, also came along. The last piece of the new line-up fell into place with the addition of guitarist Robert Dillam, who used to be in Adorable but is alright now.
Around and throughout this Iberian activity, The Zephyrs got on with making their new album. They recorded some stuff in Ca Va in Glasgow. Setanta boss Keith Cullen had been offering ad hoc managerial advice. Impressed with how the new line-up had both settled the band and, on the evidence of the demos, expanded their horizons, he signed them to his label. Super Furry Laptop Fandango
The Zephyrs producer since Day One has been Michael Brennan. He and his dad, Mick, are co-proprietors of Fife’s Substation studio. Mick is a sound veteran, having worked with the likes of Seventies Scottish heavy rockers Nazareth; he currently does monitors for Mogwai. Michael is Super Furry Animals’ live engineer.
Via Michael the Nicols met the Furries’ keyboard player and techno wizard Cian Ciaran. He came up to work on the album last summer, to help with programming. But his new laptop didn’t work properly. They filled the time by working on ‘Go Slow’, an album stand-out. It could be a single but perhaps there aren’t enough lyrics. But, as Stuart Nicol reasonably points out, it’s only meant to have that many lyrics. Anyway, if there were more words, there’d be less room for the four drumkits that are on it (including a pipe band snare drum and Nazareth’s giant old-school Ludwig bass drum), the hypnotic guitar refrain and – icing on the cake, this – the Hammond Organ that hustles in to magical effect. A glorious song that climbs to a thrilling, brass-rich climax, its epic simplicity is testament to the wonders of Cian’s wayward Welsh magic.
‘Roberta Flack’ is another good one. Appearing right at the end of recording, this instrumental is so-called because it reminded Stuart Nicol of the Roberta Flack song in Play Misty For Me. The simple, picked guitar is actually the same lines played four times over. Why? Why not? Then full band, strings and steel come in. It’s preceded by ‘Empty Eyes’, which shows there’s life yet on planet post-rock; it’s followed by ‘A While’, which is sheer bloody poetry. On their last album, The Zephyrs had used Sean O’Hagan to arrange their strings; this time, they did it themselves with a couple of local players who manage to coax their instruments (cello and violin) to give up what sound like loops.
‘Watercolour’ was originally written for an Acuarela compilation (‘acuarela’ means watercolour) but the band liked it so much they kept it. Buouyed by atmospheric lap- and pedal-steel, it reveals the band’s impassioned understanding of the starker, darker end of country music. There are ten songs on A Year To The Day
It begins with the psychedelic overture of ‘Lacuna Head’, which features Cian Ciaran, a Fender Rhodes and a Tone Generator, last used at Rosyth Dockyards to test the fastness of joints and rivets.
In the middle it features the ghostly vocals of Adele Bethel, former Arab Strap associate, on ‘Stand Around Hold Hands’, and in duet with spectrally-voiced Stuart Nicol on the Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris-like clip of ‘One Year Many Mistakes’.
It ends way too soon. Craig McLean, May 2003 |
