Since the release of their debut album ‘The Younger’ in 2006, Harris Tweed has made good on the set of folk/pop songs contained in that recording by becoming one of South Africa’s premier acts.
This is evidenced through a full slate of domestic gigs, slots supporting the likes of Swedish master singer-songwriter, Jose Gonzales, and a turn at Austin’s highly-regarded South By Southwest Festival – the result being Cherilyn MacNeil and Darryl Torr and their regular musicians Alan Shenton and Darren Leader are now regarded as a strong calling card on any live bill. A recently recorded Live DVD captures the intensity and sheer inescapable magic of a Harris Tweed performance and is due for release in July 2007.
That Harris Tweed are admired by their peers and fans alike has also seen not one, but three songs off ‘The Younger’ occupying some significant time on the county’s airwaves: Starting with lead radio single and album opener, ‘Superfly’, and soon joined by ‘Ode To Confusion’ and, more recently, ‘Beautiful Mystery’, Harris Tweed’s organic and heartfelt songs are now firm favourites with radio listeners countrywide. In addition, ‘Ode To Confusion’ has notched up airplay on MTV Europe as well as VH1, introducing Harris Tweed’s impeccably crafted songs to a broader audience - the video earning finalist status at the International Gold Broadcast Design Awards along the way.
Just recently, too, Harris Tweed were chosen as part of the ‘The Cover’ album, put together by one of the country’s leading radio DJs, Highveld Stereo’s Julio Garcia. That the song MacNeil and Torr chose to cover was Bob Dylan’s ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ speaks enormously of their affinity for songs that use simplicity to become memorable.
In fact, more than six months after it first made its appearance, ‘The Younger’s’ ability to balance a playful wittiness with sincere songs of love lost, won, and all its complications is nothing short of a revelation, no matter how many times it gets a spin on your music player. It’s no wonder the album earned a nomination at the 13th Annual SA Music Awards.
That MacNeil and Torr have managed to pursue a musical vision that pays little attention to current chart fads and the conceits of those who occupy the mainstream says a whole heap about Harris Tweed’s single-mindedness – which is driven by a desire to create a songbook that lives long in the lives of those who come into its path.
For instance, armed with a hook that grabs you straight out of the gate, ‘Superfly’ has an energy that butts up against its gut-wrenching lyrical content (“starting to wonder/wonder if I’m able to love again/don’t dare come near me/I’m very dangerous/you’ll walk away with a black eye and two broken legs”), making for a potent combination that spares no-one who comes within earshot.
But if ‘Superfly’ – and the likes of ‘Easy To Leave” - occupy pop’s centreground, there’s much on ‘The Younger’ that veers off into less easily identifiable terrain: ‘Le Musketeer est Brave’ lets an Americana aesthetic surface, through quite lovely guitarwork and MacNeil’s plaintive vocals, and its hard not to be drawn in by the distinctly 21st century folk threads that work their way through ‘Stuck On This Course’, a song that spotlights MacNeil’s unerring ear for a melody, here delivered on the piano.
Proof that MacNeil is a songwriter in possession of a real gift comes on ‘Don’t Forget’, a song of desolation (“cause love forgot me when she passed through/seems I wasn’t deemed worthy/but I know that she’ll be round again soon/don’t forget me, don’t forget me”) that unmasks her particular way of wrapping words around music that seems to make its way up from an almost other-worldly place.
But for all MacNeil’s compositional capabilities, Harris Tweed is a duo in every sense of the word.
While MacNeil’s elegantly crafted songs form the fulcrum, listen closely and it’s her co-production with Torr that gives the material its force. The spaces between the sound and the percussive beat that supports a repetitive piano melody on ‘Hurt Enough’ are evidence of an intuitive approach to producing. And the delicacy with which a song like ‘Better Than This’ is treated adds a weightiness to this terrific cut. “I may write the songs but the production changes everything,” MacNeil testifies.
Twenty-four-year-old MacNeil is, like her songs, all intensity and quirkiness. Of her group she says, “Harris Tweed’s musical vision is about excellence. We are desperate to be excellent – and we’re ambitious. We don’t want to be ‘rock stars’. We are very hard working. People want to be treated like rock stars and have everything done for them because what they are doing is ‘art’ and I think that is weird. Everyone has to work. We understand this is art but it’s also a business and we are working hard at making it work.”
Part of that devotion to their particular cause includes ensuring Harris Tweed is available to their fans. Says MacNeil: “We didn’t go out to make a radio-friendly or commercial album but at least for me, art is about communication and accessibility and I think we are very available to our fans. Some bands are all about the mystique – but we’re not.”
The latter comment explains why Harris Tweed pays so much attention to its website – www.harristweedmusic.com – and myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/harristweedmusic) which is where MacNeil especially communicates directly with fans, through her blog (which sometimes includes her poetry) and other elements, including strong recommendations for the music they are currently listening to.
Indeed it was a love of music that first drew MacNeil and Torr together.
Says Torr: “I’ve always been in music. I ran away from school in my last year to be in a band.” It may sound like a soundbite dreamed up for a biog but Torr in fact did flee from his boarding school to play guitar in a band and when the band broke up, he found himself working in the studio. Many years on Torr now owns his own production company, Openroom Productions assisting bands with “a total production solution”.
It was Torr who encouraged MacNeil – then a university student – to pursue music, and late 2004 the two formed a band called Pilot which gigged throughout 2005 until Torr and MacNeil realized their musical trajectory was different to that of their then-bandmates.
Harris Tweed came into being at the beginning of 2006 but it took MacNeil and Torr an intensive search to find a name. Deploying friends and more to help hunt for a name, Harris Tweed (found while randomly looking in an encyclopedia) just felt right. But since the name is a trademark, the duo had to phone ‘The Harris Tweed Authority’ in Scotland and ask for permission to use it. “They simply said it was fine and that we were to have fun,” MacNeil reports.
Fun is something Harris Tweed is having since the release of ‘The Younger’, especially when it comes to live shows. Lined up for July is a theatre tour, featuring beautiful sets and lighting, and never-heard-before collaborations with their contemporaries – “it will be a proper experience!” says MacNeil.
Also in the works is a new album, which is likely to surface in the second quarter of 2008. And even though ‘The Younger’ is an album of real loveliness, Torr and MacNeil are intending their next offering to be something truly special.
“We have learnt a huge amount over the past year,” says Torr. “Playing at South By Southwest, and being exposed to the amazing music there has played a part but so has having the time to really develop a sound that is distinctly Harris Tweed.” Says MacNeil: “Our guiding light for everything we do is to stay true to our artistic vision and that is what we will be working towards over the next six months as we create the new songs. Nothing matter more to us than that.”
[June 2007]
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