When: 7.30pm on Sunday 6 March 2022
Where: Gullivers, 109 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LW

We’re excited to working with Spencer Cullum for the first time!

London-born, Nashville-based Spencer Cullum‘s debut solo album, Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection, may pay homage to the 1960s and 1970s psych-pop, folk and proto-prog heroes of his homeland. But with a supporting cast of fellow Music City stage and studio aces like guitarist Sean Thompson and multi-instrumentalist Luke Reynolds, as well as singing and writing partners like Caitlin Rose, Andrew Combs, Erin Rae, Annie Williams and James “Skyway Man” Wallace, he’s bringing a bit of Britain to Tennessee.

‘I wanted to write a very quintessential English folk record, but with really good Nashville players,’ Cullum says of Canterbury Scene conjuring Coin Collection, name-checking Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt, Fairport Convention and Sandy Denny. The album manifests his love for psych-prog ground-breakers the Soft Machine, digs deep into cerebral ambient inspirations like Robert Fripp and Brian Eno and even krautrock icons NEU! ‘I’ve always wanted to mix krautrock music into folk and psychedelia,’ he explains.

With an arm’s length list of credits stretching from the likes of Kesha, Dolly Parton and Deer Tick, to Miranda Lambert and Dylan Leblanc, pedal steel savant Cullum is one of Nashville’s most in-demand session cats. That’s in addition to making up half of acclaimed, primarily instrumental space-country duo Steelism. Clearly he’s had little trouble fitting in since moving from his native London by way of Detroit eight years ago, even if it’s mostly meant blending in. ‘I guess I’ve always hidden behind [the instrument],’ he deadpans. ‘I’m always the guy who looks like he’s studying for a test in the background.’

Produced by Jeremy Ferguson and recorded at the Grammy-winning Nashville indie-rock producer’s Battle Tapes Recording studio, the album boasts a wide-open, bell-clear sound fit for a deftly shimmering set of songs with non-narrative lyrics culled from the mystic corners of the subliminal mind. The lyrics come from ‘my own experience,’ Cullum explains, ‘but [I] also wanted to not be emotionally specific, almost in a dreamlike, subconscious state. Like spidergram.’

Though on the new single Imminent Shadow, Cullum reveals a little more of himself: ‘I wrote Imminent Shadow when I was having lucid dreams a few years ago and pondering if it had something to do with hereditary depression stemming from my grandfather. I’ve never wanted my songs to be too personal of my own situation but instead for them to have a sub-conscious dream-like aspect to them. This, I guess, is the most personal track on the record.’

Spencer will be accompanied on the night by Sean Thompson. Born and raised in Nashville, Thompson cut his teeth playing in a slew of projects around the city’s rock, folk, and experimental scenes both as creative collaborator and session player. Taking equal inspiration from the improvisational grooves of the Grateful Dead as well as the craft of songwriters like JJ Cale and Joni Mitchell, Thompson’s songwriting debut marks the arrival of a unique voice grounded by wide-reaching, generous ears.

Special guest is Bobby Lee. Bobby Lee trades in a wide screen brand of cosmic country-folk, full of space and pawn shop guitars. There are touches of JJ Cale’s analogue Americana, the swampy groove of Tony Joe White and Richard Thompson’s sinewy, modal guitar work. Amps hum in the warm afternoon sun, kids and dogs snooze on the grass and broken drum machines keep time with the universe…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMQWeaMsXEw

Bobby released his debut album, Shakedown in Slabtown, in August 2020, on his own Natural Histories imprint, which Mojo described as ‘word of mouth sensation amongst discerning heads’. It was swiftly followed by Origin Myths in March 2021, released on the legendary Tompkins Square Records, becoming album of the week on Huey Morgan’s 6 Music radio show and gaining support from BBC’s Late Junction, No Depression, The Guardian, NTS and WFMU, among others. His latest single, Walking With Trees, a collaboration with Mia Doi Todd, was released in September 2021 via Re:Warm.

‘Lovers of swampy gnarly folk guitars will love Origin Myths’ – the Guardian

‘Open sky instrumental wonders’ – 8/10, Uncut Magazine

Buy tickets now. Tickets are also available from Dice.fm, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook