Causing a scene – 6 Day Riot

6 Day Riot

6 Day Riot

Dalston-based 6 Day Riot are a band of mixed emotion – one part heartfelt love story with an eye on the laconic, another part an earnest yearning for the sanctity of honesty and righteousness, and all coated in the warmest of radio-friendly pop.

But then, as Tamara Schlesinger, the band’s singer, main songwriter and label owner points out as we sit in The Wellington pub on Balls Pond Road, radio-friendly pop is not necessarily a bad thing:  “We were the most-played unsigned band on Radio 2 last year!”

6 Day Riot’s debut album, Folie A Deux, sounds akin to how Gogel Bordello would sound without the manic growling and souped-up crazed band. With a honey-drenched voice that could soothe Lyssa herself, Tamara whispers her tender tales of love and loss over country-tinged Eastern European folk ballads.

The new EP, Bring On The Waves, further explores Tamara’s compelling storytelling, upping the ante for the rest of the 21st Century folk movement.

With several major labels showing interest, endorsements by Janice Long, Steve Lamacq and Don Letts, regular plays on Radios 1 and 2 and XFM, a successful tour of Canada and the British festival season, glowing reviews of their live performances and the new EP and single Go Canada! , the ‘Riot have their eyes on the stars.

Although it wasn’t always about the band.  Before 6 Day Riot was even a sparkle in her eye, Tamara had released ‘From Home To Home’, a “low-fi, low budget, recorded-in-three-days” album that, by her own admittance, “doesn’t  really sound like the new (‘Riot) sound.

With the band, my songwriting has developed, and I’m really excited about it.  It’s the sort of thing where you can really see your ideas realised.  The songs I’d write at home on the ukulele or guitar wouldn’t sound anything like the new music without the rest of the band.”

6 Day Riot weave together Sophie Loyer’s trumpets and percussion, Edd Harwood’s upright bass, Casper Riis’s guitar with layers of Alex Bassina’s trumpet, all bound together by Daniel Deavin’s drums, with the occasional accordion, banjo and ukulele, to create an honest blend of perfect, infectious, compelling bluegrass pop.

Standout songs from ‘Folie A Deux’ are easily Drone In a Foxes Ear and River Clyde, representing two distinctive sides of the intricate and thoughtful narrative.

…Foxes Ear is a confessional ode to the human frailties that sour relationships, a painful admission of the shaky foundations on which all complexities are built, while the latter ties the emotion down to an earthly tribute to the Clyde dockers from The Gorbals, a poor working class area of Glasgow, south of the river during a period of industrial disputes and job cuts across the area in the early 20th Century:  ‘And the only possession I own of some value, is the labour I am and the labour I love’.

Says Tamara, “In general I try and stay away from writing about relationships.  It’s one of those things where a female singing about relationships comes across as cheesy but from a guy it doesn’t.  It’s quite frustrating.”

When it comes to ‘Riot’s compelling, raucous, foot-stomping live gigs, Tamara likes to keep it local.  “We had a good year of monthly live gigs in Dalston which we want to restart after the summer tours, did the odd gig in central London, or even out west, but we love to concentrate on east London.

We’re trying to organize a Christmas special around Dalston or Stoke Newington with a few other bands from around the area, which will be great fun.

“We toured around Britain and Canada, but instead of arranging gigs here and there around the area, we just decided it would be more fun to run our own night and our own label in the local area and create a scene around ourselves.
“You’ve just got to carry on, you know?”

The excellent ‘Folie à Deux’ and new EP, ‘Bring On the Waves’ are out now, both on Hubris Records.  The new album is planned for 2009.

The band will be playing in selected venues around Hackney and east London throughout the winter.

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