When: 7.30pm on Friday 15 November 2013
Where: Night & Day Cafe, 26 Oldham St, Manchester, M1 1JN

We’re delighted to be bringing London’s Treetop Flyers back to Manchester.

With their quintessential vintage West Coast sound, it’s fitting that Treetop Flyers laid down their outstanding country soul debut in the canyons of Southern California. Though based in London, the British five-piece – Reid Morrison (vocals/guitars), Sam Beer (guitar/vocals), Laurie Sherman (guitar), Mathew Starritt (bass/vocals) and the band’s lone American Tomer Danan (drums/vocals) – swapped urban England for the picturesque beaches and rolling hills of Malibu in order to record the classic-sounding The Mountain Moves.

‘Our music makes sense there,’ explains Sam. Yet The Mountain Moves hits home far beyond the reaches of Los Angeles. A record of hope, honesty and huge choruses, its universally reaching songs are strewn with sunshine-infused four-part harmonies, propelled by an irrefutable open-highway groove. Paying their dues to everyone from The Band and Neil Young by way of Little Feat and Fleetwood Mac, there are also gracious nods towards the more contemporary likes of My Morning Jacket, The Coral and Jonathan Wilson wrapped up in these 11 time-travelling tracks.

Sonically, The Mountain Moves might be easy-going, but the process behind it wasn’t quite so smooth. Heading to California after a successful stint of shows at SXSW in March 2012, a hurricane alert and a harrowing airplane ride meant the band ended up stranded on the outskirts of Denver. When they finally arrived in LA, producer Noah Georgeson (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Bert Jansch) hadn’t quite finished work on Banhart’s latest album, meaning Treetop Flyers had two weeks to kill.

They spent their fortnight of freedom roadtripping to Joshua Tree, making a Gram Parsons pilgrimage to Cap Rock and also stopping at Pappy and Harriets, a far-flung Mojave favourite of Queens of the Stone Age and Arctic Monkeys. They rocked up to the legendary roadhouse’s famous open mic night in their best cowboy threads to play an uncommonly lengthy set. The band eventually got to work at Zuma Sound, a brand new studio which had originally been built for Rick Rubin. However, not long into the album sessions, eviction notices started appearing on the door. “We kept on thinking, are we gonna be here next week? We’ve got ten more tracks to do…”, says Sam.

When they arrived back home, a summer of high-profile festival slots awaited them. They played under Van Morrison at Green Man, and shared a stage with Bob Dylan for the second time at The Hop Farm, after opening up for him at London’s Feis in 2011.

Main support comes from Hey! Manchester favourites Walton Hesse. Burst into being from the sunny imagination of songwriter Matt Grayson, Walton Hesse are a lapsed congregation of optimistic outcasts standing on the shoulders of Big Star and Wilco, peering into the shaft of a 13th Floor Elevator. Frontier-facing and burdened by a twisted nostalgia this alt-country psych creation blend the melodious harmonies of Matt and Nicola Crosby haunted by the ghostly union of Gram and Emmylou to bring Arizona desert plains to the streets of Manchester.

Opening the show are Seventh House, a five-piece mellow-soul harmony group from Manchester. Their sound takes inspiration from classic soul of Smokey Robinson, Issac Hayes, Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, with the songwriting sensibilities of Jimmy Webb, Van Morrison and Neil Diamond, blended with a late period Beatles/mid-Floyd sound to create a mellow yet soulful music. Their debut recording, You’re Not Alone, is available as a free download from http://yourenotalone.viinyl.com.

Buy tickets now with no booking fee. Tickets are available from Common (no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketabc.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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