Thee Single Spy are a London-based, back-to-basics DIY band (think: elaborate home-made packaging, typewriter-generated press releases and sweatshop style vinyl production lines) who seamlessly splice imagery and lyricism in the manner of some of our favourite things - Bill Callahan, Neutral Milk Hotel, Bright Eyes and Elliott Smith. They do this over a carefully orchestrated menagerie of regal instrumentation (we’re talking: harmoniums, impaphones, tritamanchaniums and zigminiums, some of which may just be words I’ve fabricated) resulting in a warm, welcoming sound that is equal parts careful contemplation and noir dream sequences. The brainchild of Alex Mattinson, the band was initially formed to provide the vehicle for his tender, true, dark and dense songs, and over the years the live line-up has veered capriciously between four and ten members before finally settling on the chosen five who today contribute to the ghostly choruses and the stirring-yet-bruisingly-authoritative honesty which is slowly-yet-truly winning Thee Single Spy a fervently rabid following, and collecting them many hyphens along the way.
The chaps have kindly taken some time out from being critically acclaimed salt-of-the-earth types to answer some questions for us, and pass this sampler track on to you. Their new single (Ok Corral) will be out on the 9 August (pre-order it here) and is both the first single to be released on independent label Robot Elephant Records and the first track from their recently completed debut album (Shipwrecking), which they co-produced with Luke Joyce (British Sea Power, Laura Marling, The Maccabees) and recorded in Brighton amidst a flurry of brandy-induced snowball fights. Some people are already calling them the English Arcade Fire minus the pretence, but we think they’re far better than that. You can expect to be seeing a lot of Thee Single Spy in 2011.
