(Post-Punk/Neo-psychedelia) Neils Children - Dimly Lit - 2013, MP3, 320 kbps

Neils Children formed in 1999 at Harlow College in Harlow, Essex, where John Linger and Brandon Jacobs were studying music with Tom Hawkins. The band's name came from Linger's obsession with 1960s proto-punk band John's Children; 'Neil' was the nickname of Hawkins, the group's original bassist, due to him apparently resembling Men Behaving Badly star Neil Morrissey.
Primarily playing freakbeat-inspired music, the band performed several gigs on the London mod scene, as well as performing in the Harlow Square Rock Contest. In 2000 Hawkins quit the band for unknown reasons, and went on to become a sound engineer for The Subways. Replacement bassist James Hair was recruited in early 2001.
They are seen as forerunners of the mid 2000s 'Southend Scene' which revolved around Junk Club, a club night set up by future Horrors member Rhys Webb, Oliver Abbott, Ciaran O'Shea and John Linger and was considered the most unique and cutting edge alternative club in the town. Adopted as honorary 'Southenders', Neils Children acted as house band for Junk Club, playing handfuls of shows either as one off concerts or dates on longer UK tours. The 'Southend Scene' was written about in the pages of NME magazine, the focus of which went on to spawn such groups as The Horrors and These New Puritans, and it has long been noted that Neils Children acted as a catalyst for the scene and the bands involved.
They played many concerts in London, Southend, Brighton and other cities, notably playing the Insomniacs Ball in London in 2006, and the London Calling Festival in Amsterdam. John was placed Number 30 of 50 in NME's Cool List in 2005. In June 2005, their single "Always the Same" peaked at No. 56 in the UK Singles Chart.[1] The group were much in demand as a support act for upcoming UK bands, personally being invited to support rising British bands such as Razorlight, Bloc Party, The Horrors, Klaxons and Art Brut on tour as well as completing various British headline tours and shows throughout the UK and Europe. In December 2005, Hair left to form Vile Imbeciles with former The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster member Andy Huxley and moved to Brighton, and was replaced by Keith Seymour (formerly of Hope of the States).
Bassist Keith Seymour joined the band in 2005 and in 2007, the band received attention in the wake of the critical and commercial success of close long-term friends The Horrors, with whom they toured in April. This line up recorded and released the most prolific amount of material in the bands catalogue, including the unreleased full-length album Pop/Aural and the bands 2009 album X.Enc. Two Japanese tours were completed alongside the usual European and British dates.
In July 2009, Seymour left the group for personal reasons. On 10 September 2009, Neils Children played their debut live show as a short lived four piece band, composed of Linger and Jacobs, with Charlie Boyer (bass) and Paul Linger (percussion, samples) of Electricity In Our Homes. The set consisted of five tracks taken from the X.Enc album release and "Front on Backwards", a song written by Linger on the band's summer 2008 Japanese tour.
In August 2010, founder members Linger and Jacobs announced the split of the group, planning the band's last show at 2010's Offset Festival. Originally planned as Linger's solo performance, the duo played a couple unique arrangements of Neils Children songs, using the second half of the show to showcase their new group, The Drop Five.[2]
In late 2012 Neils Children founder members John and Brandon announced that the band would return from hiatus to record a new full length album Dimly Lit, their first in over 3 years.

Dimly Lit is an album by British band Neils Children. The album was recorded throughout December 2012 at Studio La Vache in Toulouse, Southern France and was released on vinyl/digital download on Monday 10 June 2013 on the French independent record label Boudoir Moderne. The record represents the bands first release since 2009 and the first ever Neils Children album to be released on vinyl.
After a three year hiatus founder Neils Children members John Linger and Brandon Jacobs played shows with original bassist James Hair, focusing on material from their 2003-2005 period. The shows put the band in touch with French promoter and label owner Damien Louchet, who proposed the group recording an album for his label Boudoir Moderne.[1][2] Once the decision was made to record a new album Linger completed demos for various songs that feature on the album, and once the material was chosen the sessions for the album were booked. Without Hair on board (who decided against further band work in favour of building up his homemade food business) Linger and Jacobs decamped to Toulouse, France to record an albums worth of new material as a two piece, sharing the instrumental duties of drums, bass, guitar, percussion and keyboards between them.
The material differs from the bands previous work and focuses on much more melodic instrumental parts, performed on vintage synthesizers and keyboard sounds such as Roland Juno, harpsichord, mellotron and hammond organ whilst side-lining the importance and prominence of guitar. The song 'The Beat of the Boulevard' also features the unique sounds of the autoharp based iPhone app AutoArp.
The album incorporates elements of Psychedelia, Soundtrack recordings, Jazz and Krautrock. Bands such as Stereolab, Broadcast and Silver Apples have been noted as being an influence on the album, which can be heard in the drum patterns, keyboard lines and vocal melodies, as well as in the production of the songs which feature strong use of spring reverb, valve amplifiers and tape delay. The short, hauntology-esque vignettes between various songs also bare resemblance to releases from the Ghost Box record label, such those by The Focus Group and Belbury Poly. Studio La Vache, the studio at which the album was recorded in rural Toulouse, utilises a mixing desk once belonging to the famous cabaret venue Moulin Rogue.

John Linger - Guitar, Keys, Vocals
David Smith - Keys
Brandon Jacobs - Drums
Syd Kemp - Bass

www.neilschildren.co.uk