making music Archives - Hangover Square

We’re back! No, seriously we actually are this time. We are so very happy to announce we have a new release soon to be sent out into the wild. Through the heatwaves of the summer of ’22 we took some time to reflect on a difficult year and penned five songs for a new EP.

We’ve had a lot on our minds this year and the new music reflects that. We’re very happy with how it’s turned out and are very excited to share it with all of you soon.

History’s Tale

After the lavish production of our debut album, we’ve decided to go with a more stripped-back and intimate collection of songs, partly to make them practical to perform and partly because the songs asked for it.

It will be a digital release only at this stage and free to download to all our lovely mailing list members, so if you’re not on it yet sign up HERE.

It’s highly likely that these songs will end up on CD at some point but not just yet.

Horizons

Happily, we are also finally returning to the stage. We’re going to be road-testing the new material at select open mics across Bristol. These will be our first real live outings as Hangover Square, this band began as a Lockdown labour-of-love and now we need to set it free.

Sunbeam

We will be planning and announcing an EP launch party during which we’ll play all the new songs and most of the material from our debut album too. We’ll be performing as a duo for the foreseeable future but hope to add other musicians as and when appropriate. The launch will be somewhere in our hometown of Bristol so keep an eye on our Tour page HERE and our socials for details.

Everyone who attends the launch party will be entitled to a free download of the new EP and will also have the chance to buy a CD and limited edition vinyl of our debut album ‘Painting With An Open Heart’.

Sorrento

As our minds escape to romantic climates and bathe in the sea of impossible dreams we hope our songs provide you with some entertainment, something to think about, and a welcome distraction from the pesky real world!

EP Release Date: TBA

EP Launch Party: Date & Venue TBA

Emerging from the ‘colourful’ darkness of a year spent mostly on lockdown we have finally finished writing and recording the debut album for our new project ‘Hangover Square’. A year ago we had only just heard of ‘lockdown’ and could have no idea what it felt like. We were also between projects having ended our punk-blues duo Husky Tones a few months earlier and were messing about with some new sounds and songwriting ideas not really knowing what shape they would take but these were the beginnings of Hangover Square. We had decided to essentially take 2020 off from live performance to figure out what we’d like to do next so had no gigs together booked, with hindsight we feel very lucky about that.

Lockdown

And then it came, March 23rd 2020, ‘Lockdown’, which would later be called ‘The First Lockdown’. For the first few weeks the anxiety of flailing about in this new darkness took over from creativity as we frantically tried to work out how to continue earning, not catch or pass on the new invisible killer and come to terms with what was happening on a global scale. But then something happened. The peace arrived. The traffic had gone, the sunshine turned up and whilst sitting in the middle of an otherwise bustling city the bustle had stayed home and we could hear nothing but nature. And the music started. It was both an opportunity and an escape.

Prison paradise

We took turns writing lyrics in the garden whilst the other was bashing out nascent chord progressions indoors. Our cat, Osvaldo, displaying a newly discovered love of lockdowns, always had a lap to sleep on. The phrase ‘prison paradise’ appeared in one of the first songs written.

We listened to music and discussed which of our cornucopia of loves would be rounded up to be the influences for this particular project. It started to come together, in lists…song titles, band name possibilities, sound world, instrumentation.

The world at large

But just as we had peace we also had rage. Television and social media, as helpful as they can sometimes be, have a habit of bringing the horrors of the world crashing into our living rooms…

Everyone we knew was fed up…
And everyone we knew was sad…
Plus everyone we knew was angry…
And guess what? Everyone we knew was frustrated too.

So were we. We talked about everything, tried to process what was happening, and drowned our sorrows. Then once our sorrows were drowned, however, we were able to capture them on the page. Songs of isolation, doom, optimism, love, sadness, and inspiration were cajoled from our fevered hands.

Making it happen

We teamed up with a producer who was happy to work remotely and a drummer who could record his parts elsewhere (we still haven’t actually met him face to face yet!) and send them to us. Virtually everything on the album was recorded at home. Hangover Square is essentially a duo but with added backing vocals galore, over dubbed guitars, organs, pianos and synth sounds and with the modern magic of midi to include orchestral instruments we turned this locked down duo into a grand 40 (give or take) piece ensemble.

With no gigs on the horizon reproducing it live has not been a concern for us so we let our creative juices flood forth and multiply. And this has been joyful for us. Utterly joyful. Now that the process is so nearly finished we desperately want to share this joy with all of you. We will soon be announcing a release date, it’ll be available on CD and limited edition vinyl. Plus we added another layer of distraction therapy by undertaking to make a music video for every song, these are also very nearly complete.

The end as beginning

This post has been merely an introduction to the year that we’ve had. From a few disparate thoughts to a fleshed-out creative project via the weirdest 12 months, we’ve known. And whatever the future holds for this pandemic or any other, we remain in pursuit of beauty.

New EP