HOOTON TENNIS CLUB SHARE NEW TRACK “KATY-ANNE BELLIS” | ANNOUNCE NEW LP ‘BIG BOX OF CHOCOLATES’ VIA HEAVENLY RECORDINGS
Liverpool band Hooton Tennis Club are thrilled to share heartfelt new track “Katy-Anne Bellis”, which is pulled from their recently announced sophomore LP Big Box Of Chocolates that will see release on October 21st through Heavenly Recordings.
Clocking in at less than three minutes, it’s a brisk yet alluringly sincere ode to band member Ryan’s ex-flatmate, Katy-Anne, on which Ryan states: “She’d lived in the house for one year and three months. It’s just a mushy song about moving house and staying in touch”.
The song is the first to be revealed from the band’s forthcoming album, which was produced by Edwyn Collins at his Clashnarrow Studios in Helmsdale, Scotland.
If their debut album, Highest Point In Cliff Town was the band’s sprightly statement of intent, Big Box of Chocolates may well be their coming-of-age: a record that retains all the color and invention of their debut while being elevated by more rich instrumentation and lyrics that hint at slightly heavier themes: love and loss, nihilism and the ‘non-spaces’ of Northern England, all delivered in the band’s typically laconic, bittersweet style, like a Mersey Beat Murakami.
The dozen tracks continue the band’s knack of combining catchy off-kilter riffs with droll storytelling; album narrators – vocalists and guitarists Ryan Murphy and James Madden – seem to straddle optimism and uncertainty with their lyrics, whether singing about their internal worlds or commenting on a motley cast of characters (Bootcut Jimmy, BBC 6Music presenter Lauren Laverne, Lazers Linda…) who turn up across the album’s 41 minutes to amuse, tempt or torment them. Whether fictional (the awkward genius Jimmy ‘looking shifty in his new shoes’) or real (Ryan’s ex-housemate immortalised in first single ‘Katy-Anne Bellis’), each character shares an equal platform, all revered in Hooton’s own low-key way.
Recorded over three weeks in Helmsdale, during which time they all grew beards, drank copious amounts of tea, became birdwatchers and whiskey tipplers, the album reflects the band’s relaxed approach to songwriting ; they tend not to labor over recording demos or strumming and beating the life out of songs in the practice room –instead—ideas are allowed to form spontaneously: melodies are hummed into phones or computers, lyrics batted back and forth between Murphy and Madden, songs worked out alone in the bedroom, or layered up from scratch together in the studio.
Formed in Ellesmere Port in Cheshire in 2013, musically, their inspirations range from Big Star to Can while elsewhere; they’re influenced by authors who deliver a ‘down and out skewed view of the world’ like Kurt Vonnegut, Hermann Hesse, Henry Miller.
Having previously toured the UK and Europe, played countless festivals including Glastonbury and Green Man, five shows at SXSW and nine shows at CMJ New York, the band have announced an extensive U.K. and European tour at the end of the year.
Hooton Tennis Club are: Ryan Murphy (vocals / guitar), James Madden (vocals / guitar), Callum McFadden (bass) & Harry Chalmers (drums).
Big Box Of Chocolates Track Listing
1. Growing Concerns
2. Bootcut Jimmy The G
3. Bad Dream (Breakdown on St. George’s Mount)
4. Sit Like Ravi
5. Katy-Anne Bellis
6. O Man, Won’t You Melt Me
7. Statue Of The Greatest Woman I Know
8. Meet Me At Molly Bench
9. Lauren, I’m In Love!
10. Frostbitten In Fen Ditton
11. Lazers Linda
12. Big Box Of Chocolates
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(Background Photo Credit: Rob Blackham)
