LeftLion's Latest Listens #26: Notts music we're currently spinning

Album: Midnight Rodeo - Chaos Era

Assembled from stalwarts of the live music scene in Nottingham and forged in the subsequent friendship, Midnight Rodeo have garnered plenty of attention in their early phase. Now, they hit the majorly anticipated milestone of releasing their debut LP Chaos Era, via FatCat Records. It’s clear now that this is a band who deserve to be held up as a fine example of what Nottingham’s exceptional and prolific scene is capable of creating at the moment.

The album makes a bold and well-judged first impression before the needle has even dropped; Chaos Era’s artwork is a thing of beauty and the perfect summation of the feeling of the record to come. It’s a portal to a more analogue time, looking as though it belongs on a dog-eared old vinyl you’ve dug out of your parent’s collection, earthy and grounded in 1970s psyche tradition.

It begins with Dixon, stabs of reverb-soaked guitar and whirling Rhodes piano clearing the path for Maddy Chamberlain’s vocals, which arrive as though having been preserved in amber decades ago for presentation now. They float beautifully atop the arrangement and are immediately a substantial bonus in the record’s attempt at nailing a nostalgia-flecked atmosphere.

The lyrics are as airy and open as the music. “It’s not easy being you, so won’t you go for a ride” paints an image of expansive spaces, of catharsis and escapism. It’s the ideal opener to act as a mission statement to this effect.

As the album rolls on, the songs ebb and flow beautifully, shifting between modes and unafraid to take breather for a few bars, in service of bolstering the sense of place. Instruments are free to wander, but are ultimately magnetised to the melodies, which are sharp, memorable and above all fun.

The low-slung menace of Growl acts as a fine counter-point to the perkier, slightly cleaner Cleanshirt, with Chamberlain’s sultry and sardonic voice adding to a hint of a dark fairground atmosphere.

Daisy is a more straightforward sunburst of 70s-esque pop, with an instantly catchy chorus and a sense of constant forward momentum. The band have commented that they looked to avoid politics and social commentary on the record, instead focusing on the personal and the power of music to escape, and Daisy is perhaps the clearest demonstration of this devotion to escapism on the record.

Without enough of a guiding concept or thread, albums risk incoherence. Happily, this is not the case here. The strength of Midnight Rodeo’s internal identity and their commitment to finding and expressing the sounds they’re drawn to are such that the album feels exceptionally coherent; all of these songs are unmistakably Chaos Era.

The production and mixing throughout is judged perfectly, too. Mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer, who has previous experience with Parquet Courts and Temples, the soundscape is open and warm. Guitar lines are allowed to glitter and a wide open stage is left for the vocals, which sweep forward with power. Playing the album evokes a mental image of these songs being piped through an old radio or a set of battered wooden speakers, albeit with the clarity and edge of modernity.

The songs are bathed in a uniform glow. I Can Say Anything is inlaid with noodling guitar lines and a swaggering, propulsive bassline from Harry Taylor. El Medina showcases the accuracy and technical strength of Ferg Moran’s drumming. Both of them are distinct, swirling with different sounds and moods, and yet they both sit beautifully together at the start of the back half of the album.

The band have described themselves as a ‘family’ brought closer by chaotic events in their individual lives. Despite the stress of this catalyst, the resulting cementing of their relationships has clearly worked wonders for the music. It’s a bond which brings to mind the almost telepathic understanding of each other which a band like Big Thief demonstrates. As such, Midnight Rodeo come with that startling and always exhilarating sense of a band of like-minded artists transcending the sum of their parts.

The album drifts away on the tender piano chords that conclude the grand closer Nothing To You. The lyrics are open to interpretation, and like many lines on the record can be read with varying degrees of seriousness and weight. “They’re nothing to you, they’re just passing through,” could be an excoriation of our inability to connect on a meaningful human level in an atomised world, or it could be an acceptance of the beauty of fleeting contact. That openness hints at a depth to the lyrics and a sense of weight beneath the surface. Yet there's a playfulness too, which when augmented to the instrumentation, suggests that heavy themes and profundity were not at the top of the list during the songwriting process. The fact that an argument can be made for both sides is a great compliment to the writing. 

Chaos Era is an incredibly assured, confident debut from a band who have used their obvious and immense chemistry to alight on a sound that serves their vision, and who have both the talent and resolve to see it through.

We are entering the Midnight Rodeo era: please enjoy the ride. 

@midnightrodeoband