My Sad Captains
Ed Wallis, singer and songwriter for My Sad Captains, wrote much of the material for Fight Less, Win More alone in a borrowed house in San Francisco, over a lonely Thanksgiving. The songs flowed out of him, full of yearning for distant places and distant people.
Returning to England, the band – Jim Wallis (drums, keyboards, vocals), Nick Goss (guitar, sonics) and Dan Davis (bass) – decamped to the Cornish countryside to record the album in a barn where the natural acoustics combined with the band’s collective input brought the record to life. Highly personal and at times claustrophobic, the tracks opened out to become wide and expansive.
You can hear it in the driving, motorik jam of the Homefront Pt II; in Ed and his brother Jim’s effortlessly close harmonies on Little Joanne; the distant, echo of slide guitar on Minah Bird that conjures up an open road; the eerie, English folk opening of Threes.
To complete Fight Less, Win More, My Sad Captains sent the album tracks to Portland to be mixed by Larry Crane (editor of Tape Op magazine) known for his work for artists such as Cat Power, Sleater-Kinney, The Go-Betweens, Elliott Smith, M. Ward and Stephen Malkmus amongst many others.
Bringing a vital outside perspective, Crane’s mix has given clarity to the sound and depth to the arrangements across Fight Less, Win More.
Since My Sad Captains 2009 debut Here & Elsewhere (Stolen Recordings) they have grown in both ambition and restraint, which is evident on Fight Less, Win More.
The album is a hand silk screen printed edition limited to 300 copies. It is a collaboration between artists Phil Goss, Nick Goss and Dan Davis.
The eagerly awaited ‘Fight Less Win More’ will be released by Stolen Recordings on November 7th 2011.
…a sparkling, harmony-rich pop edged, touched with occasional fiery noise outbursts…