Watch: Talking records, Condale and Gary Barlow with Summer Camp

31 October 2011, 13:28

(Summer Camp)

It’s not like in the old days, this music business. 20 years ago, bands were wined and dined by record company big wigs in an attempt to drag them into some needlessly expensive record deal over which they had no control at all.

Not any more though. People are too savvy for those kinds of shenanigans nowadays, and none more so than Summer Camp who, although signed to Moshi Moshi, decided to take the whole record making process into their own hands and create a debut album that only Jeremy and Elizabeth of Summer Camp could have made.

Raising funds through a Pledge Music campaign, the duo offered up such treats as a ‘batch of Elizabeth’s famous chocolate brownies’, ‘a postcard from Summer Camp every month for a year’ and a ‘dinner party prepared by Summer Camp’ as pledge prizes for those who donated towards the production costs of their debut album. It’s not an ordinary way of putting together a debut album, but then again, this is no ordinary band that we’re talking about.

Following a wonderfully unique creation, Welcome To Condale is now finally ready to be taken home. Summer Camp recently offered us a glimpse of what the album had to offer when they played a stunning session for The Line of Best Fit, performing their track ‘Better Off Without You‘. Once they’d finished doing that, the pair took us to Rough Trade East to chat to us about their record, about their favourite albums and about a man that they greatly, adoringly admire, Mr Gary Barlow.

Welcome To Condale is available now through Apricot Recording Company/Moshi Moshi.