Watch Owen Spafford & Louis Campbell performing their new EP – 102 Metres East live at Real World Studios. The whole session is really quite breathtaking to watch. Pure gold from start to finish.
Owen Spafford & Louis Campbell should need no introduction to our regular readers, especially following their 2022 debut album You, Golden, also one of our Featured Albums of the Month. Uplifting, probing, exciting, as well as wise and patient are not terms you expect to describe a duo whose average age at the time was 21. Nor would you expect their musical structures, moods and tempos to be likened to the playing of Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill. All these things and more were used to describe their debut, an album that instantly set them apart from the crowd.
With that in mind, it’s probably no real surprise that their live performances should capture attention and open new doors for them. Some months ago, while playing an unamplified, wholly acoustic performance at Christ Church in Bath, Owen and Louis received an invitation to come and record at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Wiltshire. A chance to capture the essence of their live performances in one of the world’s most revered recording spaces was an offer they couldn’t refuse.
The result of that session is three new recordings that make up their new EP ‘102 Metres East’. 102 Metres East is digitally released today, Wednesday, 6 March 2024, via Real World X, an imprint of Real World Records. You can listen to the EP across streaming services now. They have a series of shows this April in the UK, with further dates to be announced later in the year.
About 102 Metres East
“Since the release of our debut album last year, we have spent a lot of time as a duo exploring what being ‘English folk musicians’ means to us and our backgrounds,” says Louis. “Owen, who grew up in Leeds, has a strong sense of cultural identity while I am a little more confused, with a more mobile sense of ‘home’. Therefore, with the music we recorded at Real World we have been trying to incorporate a more pluralised and contemporary sense of cultural Englishness, relying more on original material and the unbroken aural tradition than we had previously. The aim is to be as authentic to our own backgrounds as possible, as opposed to a forgotten pastoral England we have no real connection to.”
The EP takes its name from one of Owen and Louis’ original compositions, ‘102 Metres East’ — a reference to the movement of the global meridian line from the original ‘Airy line’ across the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, to a new point 102 metres east of this, through some unassuming woodland, grass and public bins. Initiated by technological advances in how we measure the earth’s shape, the relocation was a kind of reconsideration of tradition in a contemporary context that made for a quirky analogy of the duo’s musical modus operandi.
102 Metres East Video Session
Watch the live Real World Studio Sessions below, which opens to Pop Goes The Weasel, followed by the tranquil Curlew, a tune on which you get to really experience the gracefulness and restraint of their playing–nothing flashy, no over embellishment, just pure gold. The set ends on 102 Metres East, another fine example of how two musicians can paint a thousand words with vibrations of air. The piece has an ethereal and, at times, melancholy sway, which adds a strong emotive quality. Louis’ gentle yet precise guitar playing is, as ever, exceptional, and he creates some stunning harmonics mid-way through; seeing it all visually unfold adds to the appreciation of the sound they create, while Owen’s playing ranges from long sweeping notes to hushed pin-drop moments that, alongside Louis’ spacious notes, generate a beautiful intensity that’s really quite breathtaking to watch.
102 Metres East is out now on Digital and Streaming Platforms.
Owen Spafford & Louis Campbell Tour Dates:
Thursday 18/04/24 – New Room, Bristol – Link
Friday 19/04/24 – Old Fire Station, Oxford – Link
Saturday 21/04/24 – Moth Club, London – Link
https://www.spaffordcampbell.com/