Underground music icon Harry Stafford, long associated with the city of Manchester, has teamed up with Marco Butcher for the new ‘Bone Architecture’album. Ahead of releasing the 12-track effort, they reveal the track ‘Termite City’with a video featuring Stafford riding through England’s northern capital.
“’Termite City’ is a celebration of the dirty city that always keeps standing no matter what people throw at it. Bombs, Riots, Scottish Football fans, Demolition, bad planning. People love this city and will do everything to protect it and despite their cynicism, they just can’t help themselves but be proud. Show a little love. A city is a termite tower with thousands of people all working to make their way in it. This termite Tower is Manchester; termites even build cathedral mounds,” says Harry Stafford.
“Jazz supremo Kevin Davy plays trumpet on this track and it is one of his finest pieces of work ever, IMO, and one of the best collaborations I have had the fortune to put on my record. The cat can blow.”
Not long ago, the duo released the single ‘There’s Someone Tryin’ To Get In’, which was well received and has garnered the duo press attention and airplay in several dozen countries.
Despite the distance between them Stafford and Butcher are punk soul brothers from the same muddy musical pond. Connecting during a year of ‘lockdown hell’ inadvertently led to their collaboration.
‘Bone Architecture’ is a superb collection of songs that is raw and, at times, an unforgiving forage into urban punk blues with fuzzed up jazz and garage trash rock. Here, Harry and Marco’s styles have clashed magnificently into a powerful record that crosses a multitude of genres but with a dirty blues makeover. The LP includes reworked older material, brand-new compositions and even a dirty blues version of the Pink Floyd classic ‘Arnold Layne’.
Best known as founder, guitarist and vocalist of Manchester post-punk gothic rockers Inca Babies, Harry’s two most recent solo albums (‘Guitar Shaped Hammers’ and ‘Gothic Urban Blues’) reflect a cooler, less frenetic vibe, leaning on piano, trumpets and blues guitar. All this made him the perfect collaborator to set words and lyrics to Marco’s sonic backdrop.
From Sao Paulo, Marco Butcher now lives in Winston Salem, North Carolina. A prolific artist, his acts include The Jam Messengers, Chicken Snake, and The Jesus and The Groupies. Professing the American underground of blues, jazz, rockabilly and screaming punk blues, he has collaborated with Hugo Race and members of Tex and the Horseheads, Pussy Galore, Gumball, The Gories, Gibson Brothers, Jerry Teel, The Oblivians and The Workdogs.
“There’s something about collaborating that is pure magic to me, cause you’re not sharing ideas at the same time and you’re in the moment. There’s something about the not knowing what the other will bring . . the surprise factor. The fact that music is very elastic and not always the way ya listen to it in your mind but something else, something cooler, greater,” says Marco Butcher.
Marco’s tracks were recorded at his Boombox Studio. Harry laid down vocals, piano and other instruments at Black Lagoon Records. London-based trumpet supremo Kevin Davy added jazz tones into the mix. After engineering, agonising, production and debates, they were finally mastered by Marco.
As of August 20, ‘Termite City’ will be available everywhere online, including Spotify and Apple Music. The ‘Bone Architecture’ LP will be released on September 3 via Black Lagoon Records, both digitally and on CD, now available for pre-order via Bandcamp and the Louder than War shop.
CREDITS
Harry Stafford – vocals, piano, guitar
Marco Butcher – drums, percussion, bass, sax, guitars, vibraphone
Kevin Davy – horns
Written by Harry Stafford and Marco Butcher
Produced and Mastered by Marco Butcher at Boombox Studio
Catalogue no. BLRCD0055
Photos by Allie Jade Butcher and Harry Stafford
“Unapologetically weaving their way through varied genres, Stafford & Butcher’s bluesy story-based music is raw around the edges, while sucking you willingly inside – a sonic diamond in the rough, so to speak” ~ The Spill Magazine
“The symmetry between the two artists is remarkable… a refreshing track, meshing the grit of blues with an urban thematic. This is dirty but agreeable, weaving straightforward guitar work through the prism of a junkyard instrument approach. Goes down smooth like a good shot of bourbon” ~ Big Takeover Magazine
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