A Seaside Town in Winter. Could there be a more emotive image? A ghost town. A place of faded glamour. Happy memories drifting away, but tinges remain. The new album from Falling Off Maps is as untouchably lucid and faded as the name suggest, with lead single Honest a heart warming and raw symphonic tune that is haunting and enrapturing in equal measure. Recorded in Basements, Bedrooms, Bathrooms and Living Rooms throughout England, the self produced debut from Nottingham’s Falling Off Maps has taken quite some time to come to fruition, but has neen more than worth it, and the depth and breadth of expression evident. Raw and intimate, as well as epic, it’s testament that big budgets are not necessary where good tunes pervade: the whole thing cost only five hundred pounds.
Simmering in its sparsity with always a flicker of hope underneath its something to indulge in. Sketchy and worn guitar work over a gentle beat and easy melodies are enticing and enigmatic.
‘My parents live in a seaside town and in winter it becomes desperate, desolate place,’ says singer guitar Dave Wright. ‘In summer it’s thriving but out of season when winter arrives the tourist flee, businesses can’t survive and everything just stops. It becomes a ghost-town. A dead place. That image seemed to inspire the birth of the music and the way in which it evolved from there.’
It’s a beautiful if bleak image and one that resonates throughout. Welcome Falling of Maps into your life.
