British Birds have a new single out called Stuck In A Room, and it's a song about the kind of day where you just can't be bothered. Singer Bobby Townson puts it better than I could: "Put some crap on the TV, open a bottle of wine and write off whatever's happening, I think it's healthy to have those days." Which sounds perfectly reasonable to us.
It's the latest taste of their new album Murmurate, Oscillate, which is out on Skep Wax Records on 16 October on yellow vinyl, CD and download. The title comes from the low hum a big flock of starlings makes when it takes off (some people reckon the sound can cure diseases, apparently).
If you haven't come across them yet, British Birds are siblings Bobby and Emma Townson from Chorley in Lancashire, with Dominic Lawson on drums and James Robinson on bass. They're about as DIY as it gets – Bobby records and mixes everything, Emma does all the artwork, and they sold their first 2 albums themselves at gigs and a few record shops. The label pitches them somewhere between Billy Childish's garage-punk, XTC and The Lovely Eggs, and they've already done sessions for Marc Riley and Gideon Coe and toured with The Bug Club, BC Camplight and Lovely Eggs.
The album has 11 tracks, and from the sound of the press notes it mixes sharp songs about the state of the country (Lie Down With Dogs, Stand Up With Fleas, and Polka Dot Eyes, about lads from their school who came back from the Army damaged) with more personal ones – Scary Movies is about their grandad, who used to show them horror films when they were kids. The label says every song has "a chorus as big as a house".
There's a big tour too, starting with an acoustic set at Rough Trade West and running into March:
- Sat 17 Oct – London, Rough Trade West (acoustic)
- Sat 24 Oct – Blackpool, Bootleg Social
- Sat 14 Nov – Cambridge, Indiepop all-dayer (Blue Moon)
- Fri 11 Dec – London, Lexington
- Wed 24 Feb – Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete's
- Thu 25 Feb – Newcastle, Cumberland Arms
- Fri 26 Feb – Leeds, Hyde Park Book Club
- Sat 27 Feb – Leicester, Indiepop Weekender (Firebug)
- Tue 2 Mar – Oxford, Little Bully
- Wed 3 Mar – Bristol, The Croft
- Thu 4 Mar – Cardiff, Clwb Ifor Bach
- Fri 5 Mar – Manchester, YES Basement
- Sat 6 Mar – Sheffield, Hallamshire Hotel
- Thu 11 Mar – Nottingham, Bodega
- Fri 12 Mar – Halifax, Grayston Unity
Watch the videos for Lie Down With Dogs, Stand Up With Fleas: https://youtu.be/8XguZoMOn3U and Scary Movies: https://youtu.be/l7P23NVqKRI
Bandcamp: https://britishbirds.bandcamp.com