BARELY REGAL RECORDS

Welcome to the Family: Soul Structure

We were pretty distraught when Nottingham punx Plaids called it a day last year. Just when it felt like they’d really hit on something special, when they’d really nailed the sound they'd been hinting at all along, they sadly had to call it a day. Luckily though, people that prolific tend not just straight out quit music, which is why we’re honoured and delighted to announce that the latest addition to the family is Joe’s new band, Nottingham trio Soul Structure. We’re releasing their debut EP this June, which you can stream (and download for free now) here: While it’s feels slightly reductive to simply frame Soul Structure as ‘Joe’s new band’ (the other two lads are equally prolific people, for a start), the music is definitely a continuation of past projects, and consciously so. As Joe quite neatly puts it: 'Plaids was the first time I ever successfully did something conceptual and thematic, I had more ideas from things I'd read and become interested in that I wanted to explore on future Plaids releases but it was cut short before we got the chance to’. Soul Structure puts some of those ideas into practice, framing them in a new context. While fans of Plaids will still find a lot to like here: frantic and distorted blasts of guitars and drums that bring to mind the likes of Moss Icon, Assfactor 4 and Ordination of Aaron, these are offset by sudden tempo shifts and looping breakdowns that fall into nothing. It’s in the quieter moments of Soul Structure EP that some of the more unusual reference points start to shine through – with the band indulging their interest in nature-inspired folk music from the 60s and 70s (without the record ever straying into terrible folk-punk territory), manifesting as intricate noodling sections that have a free, almost improvised quality, with the guitars on ‘Zapain’ in particular even panned specifically to sound like weird raga-esque drones. There’s even some train samples threading through the record (taken from an excellent record in Joe’s collection called ‘trains in trouble’, literally samples of trains crashing), which both helps to tie the record together as a whole, and also an excellent reference to early emo records like Boys Life. It’s a surprisingly coherent record for a first release, flowing from start to finish like one big piece of music (without ever trying to sound overly grand or pretentious). But enough of me hammering on it about it, you can download the record and digest it yourself, and even pre-order the record on 12”, if it takes your fancy, on either black or grey/white vinyl: There’s already been some slight line-up changes since we announced the release – drummer Istvan is leaving to move to Chile (!), with Chris from The Blue Period taking his place, but there’ll be more live dates in the pipeline soon.