Pump up the volume: LOU DUFFY-HOWARD’s ‘There and Back’ is a journey into sound

FROM LOU DUFFY-HOWARD, bassist with visionary UK indie outfit Red Guitars, one of the more beguiling concept albums of recent times, ‘There and Back,’ released via DHM.

A combination of songs, spoken word, instrumentals and soundscapes illuminating a series of railway journeys, the solo video album comprises eleven tracks, each one telling a story of its own, each one clocking in at under three minutes.

“The idea to produce ‘There and Back’ came about because I started travelling on the train more than usual, often up to Bridlington where Red Guitars were meeting to record the new album,” explains Duffy-Howard. “I’d already recorded the last track on the album, ‘Belle of the North,’ which was originally an idea for an ‘Agent Starling’ track. Quentin Budworth and I had finished the last album, he had moved up to Skye and was still unpacking his studio, so I decided to work on the next tracks solo.

“That was the start, and I carried on until I had eleven tracks. I used audio recordings of the train journey to create samples to produce or augment the rhythm parts. I manipulated the videos of the journeys and used them to inspire the music and songs, using samples of the sounds of the train to integrate into the music.”

“’Belle of the North’ was inspired by what life is like above the arctic circle, surrounded by ice and diamond mines. In places like Yakutsk, the coldest major city in the world where the temperature regularly drops to minus 50, there are massive diamond mines in the permafrost. It’s a kind of fairy story. I was inspired by the life of the women who live there, bringing up families in such harsh conditions, and I wanted to write about a strong woman as the central character.”

“For ‘Night Train out of Paragon,’ I was on a packed train, full of shoppers and workers going home, departing Hull’s Paragon station at twilight, and I was standing next to a young woman who was leaving her relationship, hoping to start a new life away from trouble, and the spoken word story came to life.

“The conversation was around, ‘My boyfriend, he blows hot and cold. I’m leaving. I’m going to stay with a friend in Leeds, to get some space to think about it. I don’t even know what he thinks about me anymore.’  Then, for the rest of the journey, the lulling sound of the train was saying to me, ‘He loves me, he loves me not,’ and by the time the journey was over, the poem was formed to the rhythm of the train.”

Not only an inspiring collection of music emphasising how inspiration can arrive in the unlikeliest of situations, ‘There and Back,’ also appears to offer a subtle tribute to early electro pioneers, Kraftwerk.

“All the tracks have back stories. For example, I wrote ‘Time is an Astronaut’ as a demo for the band I head up, ‘Loudhailer Electric Company,’ but we were working on other songs, so I included it in ‘There and Back.’

“The story behind it is that for years I had a line from a song in my head – ‘Time is an Astronaut’ – but couldn’t for the life of me work out what the song was, but out of the blue earlier this year I was listening to the radio, and eureka, there it was!  It was a line from one of my favourite Talking Heads songs, ‘Once in a Lifetime,’ but the words were really, “Time Isn’t After Us,” and that was the start of it becoming a song in its own right.”

“But for ‘Another Train Comes Anyway,’ [above] I wanted to tell the story of the journey using words that sound familiar and tell the tale but aren’t real words or sentences. Like the video, it’s real but not completely lifelike, and for the film my husband – fellow Loudhailer Electric Company band partner Rich – and I travelled from Thorne to Saltmarshe, via the twin water towers in Goole known as the ‘salt and pepper pots.’

“There are two videos which pass those ‘salt and pepper pots.’ ‘Another Train comes Anyway’ is virtually black and white, and the other, ‘Colourway 78,’ has very highly saturated colour. Similarly, I wanted to make the music as different as possible, so the former is a relatively accessible song in 4/4 time, the latter a more off the wall instrumental in 7/8 time.

“And I like the Kraftwerk connection, although I’ve not heard everything by them, just the famous tracks. It’s more accidental than purposeful, but I am very happy with the comparison.”

Available now, everywhere, ‘There and Back,’ is a magnificent, first-class journey, a journey which along the way will bring to you a new colour, new dimension, new value, and some great stories. Full playlist right HERE

(Words, music, live bass, vocals, programming, videos, and artwork by Lou Duffy-Howard).

FURTHER DETAILS: Bandcamp  &  Website