Delicate AWOL

Delicate AWOL were a British experimental rock band active between 1998 and 2005. The band were notable for their cross-pollination of various musical forms (including indie rock, art-rock, post-rock, jazz, Latin and out-rock), for their links with British post-rock band Rothko, for their activities in promoting the London underground music scene of the early 2000s, and for establishing the brief-lived but well-regarded indie record label Day Release. Members of the band later went on to avant-folk duo Tells and the later Rothko line-up.

Sound and influences

Between the formation and demise of the band, Delicate AWOL’s sound underwent an extensive transformation. Originally favouring a harsh, guitar-orientated urban indie sound, the band passed through a more ethereal art-rock mid-period and ultimately arrived at a more groove-orientated, jazz-influenced sound incorporating electronica, elements of Brazilian music and electric-period Miles Davis. At various times, the band cited influences including Mogwai, Cocteau Twins, Low, art rock from 1990s Chicago (such as Tortoise and The For Carnation) and Montreal (Godspeed You! Black Emperor) and 1970s Britain (King Crimson). Reviewers sometimes compared them to the bands Stereolab, Bardo Pond, Movietone, Pram, Tarwater and Parlour.

Early years

Caroline Ross had been an early ‘90s London indie scenester, occasionally playing guitar or bass in various bands. At some point in the late ‘90s she teamed up with artist and occasional musician Jim Version. The duo’s first band was called Ripley, soon to be renamed Vaughan.^[1] By 1998, after line-up changes, this had metamorphosed into Delicate AWOL. Centred around Ross (vocals, guitar, flute) and Version (guitar), Delicate AWOL would undergo a few more personnel changes before arriving at their definitive line-up.

Ensconcing themselves in Toby Robinson’s Moat Studios in Stockwell, the band began to work on refining their sound. In 1999, Ross and Version set up the Day Release record label to release their own future recordings and those of others. (Releases on the label eventually included material by Robinson’s Krautrock project The Nazgul, singer songwriter David Hurn, Godspeed You! Black Emperor spinoff Trois Pistoles, The Monsoon Bassoon, and many others).

In mid-1999, Delicate AWOL released their debut EP Random Blinking Lights. At this stage, the band was still very much in their indie rock stage, with an abrasive edge, relatively simple rhythms, Version playing heavy distorted guitar and Ross singing in an incantatory tone reminiscent of Patti Smith. The band had also developed an all-instrumental alter ego called Forty Shades Of Black, under which name they released a simultaneous single called "Belisha" (displaying a taste for experiments with pace, rhythm and texture). Despite Ross and Version’s initial plans for an instrumental Forty Shades Of Black album, the Forty Shades Of Black project was soon reabsorbed into Delicate AWOL to expand the band’s working methods.

A tour of England and Scotland to promote the new releases ended in near-disaster when the band’s rhythm section mutinied mid-tour. Delicate AWOL completed their tour obligations at King Tut's, Glasgow, as a two-piece of Ross and Version,^[1] but met with such a positive audience reception that the split ultimately strengthened their working relationship. Returning to London, Delicate AWOL began recording their debut album (to be titled Our Genome) as a duo.

A stable line-up

Michael Donnelly (bass) and Tom Page (drums) were recruited into the band via an advertisement in 'Loot'.^[1] Ross and Version became so enthused with their new bandmates’ contributions that they scrapped the original version of Our Genome altogether and began rewriting and recording the album from scratch. (Some tracks from the original Our Genome - which had an almost entirely different tracklisting from the album eventually released under that name - surfaced later as EP tracks, and a few complete copies of the album are in private hands).

Delicate AWOL released the "Hurray for Sugar" single in the summer of 2000 - a delicate, whispering song which clearly indicating that the band had moved on from their more abrasive beginnings. At around this time, the band expanded their sound by adding Tom Page’s brother Ben (percussion, keyboards) to the line-up, and Ross began to add more instruments to her live armoury (including ocarina, melodica and assorted small percussion instruments). The band’s next release was part of the Day Release "Four Seasons Singles Club", a series of releases each of which featured three EPs from three different artists. Delicate AWOL (along with Rothko and Jamie Owen) contributed to the "Autumn" issue (three tracks). Some of the pieces were the band’s most extended and experimental to date.

In November, the band performed at the fourth Terrastock festival in Seattle, Washington State, USA.

Mid-period

Our Genome was finally released by Day Release Records in the spring of 2001. It displayed a much-evolved band sound – more cohesive and dynamic, and considerably quieter, with added instrumentation (including horns) on several tracks. It featured none of the early singles and no previously released tracks, demonstrating the band’s intention to continue moving. The band were now heading in a post-rock direction, with Ross’ vocals assuming more of an ensemble/instrumental quality and various experiments with textures.

By this time, Delicate AWOL had also established themselves as a significant band within the London math rock scene, sharing stages and audiences with bands such as The Monsoon Bassoon, Rothko, The Shrubbies (featuring future North Sea Radio Orchestra members), Geiger Counter, Billy Mahonie and others. For a while, they also ran their own club night, "Everywhere Is Mouse", in the basement of Helter Skelter music bookstore in Denmark Street. The event attracted performers including The Monsoon Bassoon, Stewart Lee and Al Murray (performing as part of a band), Keith Burstein and others.

Adding trumpeter Jo Wright (later known as Jo Downs) to the line-up, Delicate AWOL toured America during the summer and returned to play the fifth Terrastock festival (this time in Boston) in October. The Driesh EP, released in autumn 2001 (with the band’s elegiac set-closer "Dust" as the lead track) ended the band’s middle period. One track - the instrumental "Evergreen China Prairie Tribunal" - pointed the way forward towards the next phase.

The groove period

As a live act, the band were now becoming more and more influenced by the lighter and more fluid rhythms of jazz, with the rhythm section now embracing spacious groove and Latin-inspired rhythms, Wright improvising complex trumpet lines and Ben Page playing analogue-style synthesizers as much as percussion. Although Version’s overdriven guitar maintained a link to the band’s art-rock past, Ross was now a committed multi-instrumentalist with a vocal style that had begun to incorporate folk, Latin and swing stylings.

In 2002, the band signed a deal with the revived indie label Fire Records and wound up Day Release Records in order to concentrate on band work (David Hurn also made the crossing from Day Release to Fire). The band’s second album, Heart Drops From The Great Space was released on Fire Records the same year and was accompanied by the 12-inch vinyl EPTime And Motion Studies Deep Underground. Both clearly demonstrated the evolution of the live band.

The entire band cemented their links with Rothko by providing most of the instrumentation on the 2004 Rothko album A Continual Search for Origins (the first Rothko album following the dissolution of the original three-bass Rothko lineup).

Relocation and split

In 2003, Delicate AWOL (minus Wright, although she maintained a connection with the band) had relocated from London to Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. This was apparently an attempt to escape urban pressures, to liberate their musical creativity and to get more involved in community activity and the band’s other love (visual art). In fact, the move led to the slow dissolving of the band. Donnelly, who’d been reluctant to leave London, soon returned to the capital and joined Rothko full time. He was replaced for a while by the Aberdeen-based Philip Johnston (bass, flute, saxophone).^[2] In 2005 the Page brothers also left the band and returned to London - they would eventually join Donnelly in Rothko.

Ross and Version continued to make music together. A late version of Delicate AWOL is listed as having performed at the Tunnels club in Aberdeen on April 10, 2005, with a line-up cited as Ross, Version, Neil Scollay (drums), Danny Ashton (guitar), Kate Mutsaers and Martha Buckingham (vocals)^[3] The same lineup (plus Marian Nagahiro) performed at Forgue Kirk near Huntly on April 30, 2005.^[4] However, Ross and Version began to find that their new compositions were unsuited to the restrictions of a settled band. The demise of Delicate AWOL was never formally announced, but Ross and Version quietly put the band to rest in order to reform as avant-folk/experimental duo Tells. The projected third Delicate AWOL album - entitled Hope Your Wounds Heal - eventually materialised in 2006 as the first Tells album.

Related projects

Another Rothko/Delicate AWOL connection occurred in 2005 when Ross worked with Rothko leader Mark Beazley on the album A Place Between (credited to Rothko/Caroline Ross). Ross also recorded two tracks for Susuma Yokota's Distant Sounds of Summer album.

In 2009, Caroline Ross joined the live lineup of Brighton band Woodpecker Wooliams, singing and playing "flute, glock, omnichord, cheese-grater etc."^[5]

Discography

Albums

• Our Genome (2001, Day Release Records)
• Heart Drops from the Great Space (2003, Fire Records)

Singles & EPs

• "Random Blinking Lights" (1999, Day Release Records)
• "Hurray For Sugar" (2000, Day Release Records)
• "In a City of.... (I Saw Your Face First)"/"Busted Pony"/"Feelings Hardly Ever Mean a Thing" (2000, Day Release Records – included in "Autumn" triple CD EP box-set release as part of Four Seasons Singles Club)
• "Driesh" (2001, Day Release Records)
• "Time & Motion Studies Deep Underground" (Fire Records, 2003)

As Forty Shades of Black

• "Belisha" single (1999, Day Release Records)

Miscellaneous

• Our Genome (2000 – original debut album with completely different content apart from one track - unreleased)

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Jockrock interview with Delicate AWOL. Retrieved October 13, 2008.
2. ^ Terrascope interview with Caroline Ross
3. ^ Listing on aberdeen-music.com, 2005 - retrieved October 14, 2008
4. ^ Listing on aberdeen-music.com, 2005 - retrieved October 14, 2008
5. ^ Note on Woodpecker Wooliams MySpace page. Retrieved August 17, 2009.

External links

• Delicate AWOL page at Fire Records website