Pennines - Recordings 2008-09 (Clear Blue Vinyl)

The six tracks comprising recordings 2008-09 make up the entire pennines discography to date. In 2006 the four-piece began writing their first songs in Norwich, UK, releasing ""Whiskey Tango Foxtrot..."" and ""Open Closed Open"" in 2008 on the retroactively titled First CD (aka demo or free cd), the original physical copies of which were homespun and given away gratis at shows. Coming up in the UK mid-late 2000s indie music scene, pennines were lucky enough to share the stage with contemporaries such as Stapleton, Hot Club de Paris, Colour, Dartz!, TTNG and other like minded musical friends. Popularized by genre forebears toe and American Football, pennines favoured arpeggiated guitar, syncopation, staccato call-and-response harmonies, and unexpected rhythm decisions. ""One of the things I loved about pennines was the absolute lack of bullshit,"" recalls singer/guitarist Henry Tremain, referencing the band's straightforward approach to their sound. Pennines used a clean guitar tone with no distortion or effects pedals and a DIY approach to recording, aiming for a natural representation of the songs. The downtempo, meditative coda of ""Collapsing New Buildings"" exemplifies the pennines signature, as does the entrancing guitar play midway through ""Pilot Holes,"" two songs that also feature upbeat, crashing passages that demonstrate the band's ability to balance energy and subtlety. #recordings 2008-09 concludes in under twenty minutes with the scurried ""Does Not Want,"" whose abrupt ending tricks the listener into expecting more - fitting punctuation for a band whose original run was no more than a few years, and resulted in a discography shorter than most albums.