Hooton Tennis Club tease second record with jangly new single "Katy-Anne Bellis"

30 August 2016, 12:37 | Written by Laurence Day

(News)

Hooton Tennis Club reveal "Katy-Anne Bellis", the first single from upcoming second LP Big Box Of Chocolates.

The song teases the follow up to last year's Highest Point In Cliff Town, Big Box Of Chocolates, which is released through Heavenly on 21 October. The record is produced by legendary producer/songwriter Edwyn Collins.

It's described as an "ode to band member Ryan [Murphy]'s ex-flatmate" of the same name. Murphy says: "She’d lived in the house for one year and three months. It’s just a mushy song about moving house and staying in touch."

Check out the single below, and view the LP's tracklist and HTC's upcoming shows after.

Tracklist:

Growing Concerns
Bootcut Jimmy The G
Bad Dream (Breakdown on St. George’s Mount)
Sit Like Ravi
Katy-Anne Bellis
O Man, Won’t You Melt Me
Statue Of The Greatest Woman I Know
Meet Me At Molly Bench
Lauren, I’m In Love!
Frostbitten In Fen Ditton
Lazers Linda
Big Box Of Chocolates

If their debut album, Highest Point In Cliff Town, released in August last year, was the band’s sprightly statement of intent, Big Box of Chocolates may well be their coming-of-age: a record that retains all the colour and invention of their debut, while being elevated by richer instrumentation and lyrics that hint at slightly heavier themes: love and loss, nihilism and the ‘non-spaces’ of Northern England, all delivered in the band’s typically laconic, bittersweet style, like a Mersey Beat Murakami.

The dozen tracks continue the band’s knack of combining catchy off-kilter riffs with droll storytelling; album narrators – vocalists and guitarists Ryan Murphy and James Madden – seem to straddle optimism and uncertainty with their lyrics, whether singing about their internal worlds or commenting on a motley cast of characters (Bootcut Jimmy, BBC 6Music presenter Lauren Laverne, Lazers Linda…) who turn up across the album’s 41 minutes to amuse, tempt or torment them. Whether fictional (the awkward genius Jimmy ‘looking shifty in his new shoes’) or real (Ryan’s ex-housemate immortalised in first single ‘Katy-Anne Bellis’), each character shares an equal platform, all revered in Hooton’s own low-key way.

Recorded over three weeks in Helmsdale, during which time they all grew beards, drank copious amounts of tea, became birdwatchers and whiskey tipplers, the album reflects the band’s RELAXED approach to songwriting ; they tend not to labour over recording demos or strumming and beating the life out of songs in the practice room -instead, ideas are allowed to form spontaneously: melodies are hummed into phones or computers, lyrics batted back and forth between Murphy and Madden, songs worked out alone in the bedroom, or layered up from scratch together in the studio.

Formed in Ellesmere Port in Cheshire in 2013, musically, their inspirations range from Big Star to Can while elsewhere; they’re influenced by authors who deliver a ‘down and out skewed view of the world’ like Kurt Vonnegut, Hermann Hesse, Henry Miller.

Having previously toured the UK and Europe, played countless festivals including Glastonbury and Green Man, five shows at SXSW and nine shows at CMJ New York, the band have announced an extensive U.K. and European tour at the end of the year. The full list of dates is as follows:

Pre-order Big Box of Chocolates via Heavenly Recordings here: http://heavenlyemporium.com/buy/big-box-of-choclates/

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