And Also The Trees๐ฒ
So,ย Spring creeps closer towards us, the dark evenings begin to draw out and small things like daffodils and crocuses start appearing where before there only appeared to be just mud, the Forsythia in our garden starts producing its wonderful little yellow flowers as well as other things such as apple and cherry blossom which start falling like confetti from the previous winter skeletons of the trees which have new found growth. Spring is springing forth and it is quite an amazing and welcome thing, a nature rebirth unfolds...
I took the header photo a while ago, oddly enough a year ago at the beginning of March, whilst taking the dog for a walk in our local park, I think he'd found a bit of a branch from the above tree to have a chew on so he wasn't bothered about fetching his ball, I kind of gave up and sat down under the tree and looked up, the way branches were silhouetted against the sky fascinated me.
No, I wasn't in 'A Forest' but strangely enough the song and the link to the other band featured here popped into my head. So for this post I am going back to the 'roots' (no pun intended!๐) of my music styles on this site and checking out a post-punk band...
And Also The Landscape & Influences๐ณ
Formed in Inkberrow a village in the county of Worcestershire which sits between the City of Worcester and Stratford-Upon-Avon in 1979 the band featured here are called And Also The Trees were heavily influenced in song writing by the landscape and history from the area around them, often compared to bands like Joy Division or The Cure. Their music gained interest from The Cure with whom they toured on many occasions. You can catch another band from the same English County in my other post on this website The Dancing Did, a band equally in tune with landscape and history around them. Anyhow for And Also The Trees you can catch a listen to their sound at the youtube video:
Having a check through some of my photographs I took whilst in Worcester a while ago, and remembering myself I can see perhaps how they may have been influenced by some of the landscape around them, it was a quite lovely place to visit. Below are a couple of images I took of leaves overhanging the river Severn and the Cathedral in the distance. For this site it is hard to post the full sized image, but I did load one of the pictures to my Unsplash account which is full sized and is free to use. Have to say there were plenty of lovely landscapes and nature and although at the end of October when I visited the weather would usually be pretty poor, it was still quite warm as well. You can catch more about the area in the post Worcester Punk Sounds at the link.
And Also The Cure Connections๐ฒ
Robert Smith also produced their first mini EP 'From Under The Hill' and Lol Tolhurst was to produce their first single 'Shantell' in 1983 and also went on to produce their first eponymous debut album in the same year. They got noticed by John Peel and were invited to do a 'Peel Session' in 1984.
Whilst we are on the whole landscape and trees theme here is one of my favourite bands The Cure, a band I have loved for so long and have many albums by with their legendary track 'A Forest' released on the Fiction Records labels all the way back in 1980 from the album 'Seventeen Seconds', it still makes the hairs on my neck stand up.
The track is dark, atmospheric. minimalist and in may ways quite basic, a deep bass sound, punchy drums, chugging guitar and oh yeah that whole undercurrent eerie synth sound, regardless of the simplicity, it still stands out as one of my favourites by them. I still have the old VHS video of 'Staring At The Sea', a fantastic video compilation of their earlier material which included the above video, I used to watch it incessantly as a teenager.
Have a listen to And Also The Trees with the track 'Out Of The Moving Life Of Circles' from their eponymous album and also interestingly released a year earlier on the mini E.P. 'From Under The Hill' in cassette format, you can catch the band's full discography on Discogs at the link here.
And Also The Band๐ณ
The band were made up from two sets of brothers:
- Simon Huw Jones - Vocals
- Justin Jones - Guitar
- Nick Havas - Drums
- Simon Havas - Bass
They are still together as a band although the line-up has changed over the years. Their website shows that as at 2024 they are on tour in the U.K. and Europe, nice to see they still appear to be active.
Their website is here: andalsothetrees.co.uk, which features their discography, shop, biography and some words and pictures of the band's early years to mark their 40th Anniversary by vocalist Simon Huw Jones.
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And Also catching you all again very soon. Hoping you enjoyed the read๐ย
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And Also The Video Thanks
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And Also The Picture Sources
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And Also The Gif Sources
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