Gavin Fairhall Lever return in February with their new album, Tearing Down Walls. Listen to the album opener, Taurus, which displays a poetic cohesiveness and journey-like quality that will leave you wanting more.
Although guitarist Adrian Lever, double bassist Tim Fairhall and multi-instrumentalist and composer James Patrick Gavin made their self-titled debut release in 2022, the trio first featured on KLOF Mag a few years before. The collaboration grew out of James’ debut album, Chewing The Fat, released in February 2018, which touched on his roots and family heritage in both his native North London and in County Fermanagh. The following year, we got to hear James (TEYR, The Rad Orchestra, and Jez Hellard), Adrian Lever (Alma, Horses Brawl) and Tim Fairhall (Yasmin Levy, Piano Interrupted) in a series of live sessions (see sessions 1, 2, 3, 4) recorded by the trio in the beautiful Welsh Chapel (on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross in London). Those first sessions provided a refreshing insight into how their respective traditions/backgrounds were able to create such a unique contemporary sound.
Collectively, they create music for both the head and the feet, as demonstrated here on their lead single Taurus, the opening tune of their new album Tearing Down Walls (February 5, 2025 – Pre-Order here).
From the vibrant and powerful opening bass groove to the more expansive ambient vistas of piano and fiddle, their use of melody and repeated phrases gives their music a poetic cohesiveness and journey-like quality that makes the near-five-minute runtime travel fast and leaves you wanting more.
The album was recorded at the analogue studio of Julie McLarnon (Lankum, Brian Eno). Having worked with McLarnon on their first record, the trio were keen to deepen that relationship, to embrace again the challenges of recording direct to tape, and to craft a sound that bears the grain of the the analogue process. The dynamic and expressive range of the trio is exceptionally wide, and the recording perfectly captures with beautiful analogue warmth the magic of this trio at work.
Tearing Down Walls is released on February 5th and is available to pre-order today via Bandcamp: https://gavinfairhalllever.bandcamp.com/album/tearing-down-walls
Website: https://gavinfairhalllever.com/