Artist: We Show Up On Radar
Title: A Theogony
Format: Digital Single
Cat#: Fika071SG1
Release date: 18th January 2019
Bandcamp | Spotify
A Theogony, the first single from We Show Up On Radar's new LP "Zanzibar Whip Coral", is released on the 18th of January.
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Naughty little folk-pop maestro We Show Up On Radar is indeed a person and Zanzibar Whip Coral is indeed his album. A body of songs expelled through his cloud-like body like a turbulent but fruitful gale. This mass of organised air is to be released on Fika Recordings in March 2019.
Nottingham based multi instrumentalist, songwriter and producer Andy Wright - the man inside We Show up On Radar - has conjured up this 9 song popular melodrama using nothing but his own full sized Wurlitzer, complete with rotating platform and wearing his trademark sequinned suit.
Zanzibar Whip Corals is the 4.15 from Waverly Station. The train seats are woven from spun sugar and the train driver is a pelican with secrets in his bill. The gentle breeze spilling through the windows is Andy's voice with a melancholy love story sung for all the weird and wonderful creatures giggling in the distance. His songwriting is tender, almost fragile but his songs are anthemic, bubbling with gentle power. This journey is one of sheer magic and terror, like a lovely nightmare where you wake up smiling.
We Show Up On Radar’s songs are bewitching tales, scattered with references to vegetarian yeti’s, microscopic sea creatures and Greek Gods. It is music that is full of contradictions - childlike and sweet, but a bit wrong; terribly sad, but hopelessly uplifting.
Wright invented libraries and then toured them…. We Show Up On Radar have also recorded on various occasions for the BBC at the legendary Maida Vale studios and Abbey Road. ("surreal, hushed acoustic folk-pop that's both downbeat and delirious" BBC Introducing).
We Show Up On Radar have previously supported The National, Piney Gir, Thomas Truax and Bright Eyes at Nottingham's Rock City and dazzled with a headline show at Club Fandango at the Bull & Gate, London (“an astonishing treat” Artrocker).
Lets all fly away on each other’s smiles.
Press for A Theogony
A Theogony is a wonderful introduction to We Show Up On Radar’s world, a world full of beauty and oddness, strange characters and honest human emotions, laced through with the bleakest melancholies and the brightest, most hopeful swells of uplifting sound. Beginning life with just a Sparklehorse-like distorted guitar line, and Andy’s barely there vocal, A Theogony swells and drifts throughout its perfect three-minute run-time. Meandering piano lines, entwine and dance with a Wurlitzer, backing vocals sound like the most downbeat Gospel-choir you’ll ever come across, and the big brass-finale, that could sound clichéd in a lesser songwriter’s hands, feel like it’s transporting you off to a brave new world.
The sort of track you can listen to time and time again, and still feel like you’ve never quite pieced it all together; fascinating, beautifully rewarding songwriting, existing in the intriguing outskirts of pop-music, where all the most interesting kids hide out. As the press release says, “let’s all fly away on each other’s smiles”, one track in and We Show Up On Radar have already got us grinning from ear to ear.
For The Rabbits
Do you remember those days where we were swept up by crafty songwriters like Jens and Sufjan? Well, Andy Wright and his project We Show Up On Radar are quite similar, at least in their song construction, adding layer after layer. This tune begins with wonky keyboard lines matching Wright’s voice, then a chorus comes in for backing vocals, marking the entry of piano and percussive handclaps…and all that in just the first minute. Then you find this pulsing fuzz move in, and a softer backing vocal all leading to this glorious pop crescendo where horns and drums and melody crash and swirl together. What a wondrous way to begin the day. If you like it, look for the band’s Zanzibar Whip Coral in March via Fika Recordings.
Austin Town Hall