apparently there's a hacked facebook video doing the rounds on weibo of the blackburns off their faces being "interviewed" by what sounds like claude amick and i shouldn't look because hacking isn't cool but.....

Female voice behind camera: What are your real feelings on Nandos?

Helen: I didn't love the pita I had in Bethnal Green when we were drunk. If being drunk can't make it taste good you're in trouble. I mean, kebabs.. does anyone eat kebabs outside the hours of like, midnight and 6?

John: They serve kebabs at other hours? I don't believe it. As for Nandos, it's for people like me who don't care about what they're eating after they've had several pints as long as it's edible.

H: That's a good point, actually. They're probably like.. is it in Gremlins where he goes to return the thing and the shop doesn't exist anymore? And no one can confirm that it was ever really there in the first place?

J: Yeah, that was in Chinatown and you know that there's always something weird going on there when you see a scene or two featuring it. For all we know, Rand had some great drugs prior to stepping inside the antiques store. I mean, why else would you think it's a good idea to buy a random animal from an antiques dealer? Drugs. A lot of great drugs.

H: He was looking for a kebab. He left with a mogwai. We've all been there.

J: You'd leave with a mogwai?

H: I love rummaging for Scottish post-rock in the small hours.

J: [appears to be in acute physical pain from this dad joke]

ALL HAIL BIRD COBAIN.

Tell us about the cinematic video for Fire. How did you come to cast Blackbird in the clip alongside yourself?

I was introduced to Helen by our mutual friend, filmmaker Louis De Caunes. He had played the song to her and told us, "you have to meet." So she came to a show in Paris and we hit it off immediately. She had a beautiful interpretation of what the song is about, really digging in to the tumult of desire and betrayal. The concept of holding your breath is a metaphor for how love can feel languid and weightless even though the threat of drowning is never far away. When things start to go south, it really is like sinking right to the bottom, like your lungs are burning up for lack of oxygen.

The two of you seem to have quite palpable chemistry.

That was authentic. She's brave, and we aren't together anymore, but the fact that it ended up being such an emotionally charged video is solely down to it having captured a very real and unexpected beginning. Something you aren't usually able to catch as it happens.

i got my blackbird vinyl signed after the gig! helen was really nice but her speaking voice is hilarious? she looks like she woke up at 3pm on a couch, rolled off it and walked out the door, but then she opens her mouth and it's all posh totty.

Blackbird: An Appreciation

Last Friday on November 6th, Blackbird played a sold out show at (probably) London’s most beautiful venue, Union Chapel. To say it was an incredibly special evening sounds saccharine, but I mean that in the most literal sense of the word: uncommon and unique.

Blackbird’s debut album We Slept At Last (released in February via Dirty Hit Records) is quite simply, a beautiful record. 

It’s an acquired taste - something that you need to take time with to explore. It’s not exactly laced with catchy pop bangers designed to stick upon first listen, but you would be a fool to forgo it purely on the premise that it might take some time before you (and you will) fall in love with it. 

It’s also a personal record, not in the sense that it’s obviously autobiographical in any way but more that Blackbird opens up a space for the listener to bring their own context with them. As a result there is a deeply intimate connection between her and the listener - you feel like you know exactly what she means, whilst remaining contextually ambiguous all at the same time.

So now imagine this feeling, coupled with a chapel lit mainly by tea lights and an audience seated in church pews, and you begin to get an idea of why Friday night’s gig was so remarkable. Gig opener ‘Drown’ (also the opening track on the album), heads straight for the jugular as an eerie reminder that Blackbird won’t fit in that twee folk-box people try and stuff her in. Older tracks like ‘Wolf’ and ‘Deep Green’ come out as fantastically atmospheric with the help of Blackbird’s band (George Cook and Paul Noels), powered by assertive drumbeats and anchored in Helen Blackburn’s pure, evocative vocal that hangs in the air long after she’s finished singing.   

Treated to the majority of Blackbird’s repertoire thus far, there was a real sense of progression in her as an artist: a confidence in herself as a songwriter and performer that bleeds into her live show. On paper, Blackbird’s song writing is dark and biting, but listen closer: subtle shifts in key give her lyrics a hopeful spin which work in tandem with bursts of lighter guitar to offer an alternative account to the doom and gloom. You have to work to get there, but if you pay attention, you’ll get the joke.

Blackbird finished the set with ‘Wanderlust’: a new track that she debuted live. Moving and honest, ‘Wanderlust’ is an exciting taster of what we can expect from a second album and greedy and impatient as we are, let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later!

Jelly Denniston

Sundara Karma - Prisons To Purify ft. Blackbird.