CHERRY GHOST – Live at The Trades Club, Hebden Bridge – January 25 2015 – 2LP [RSD2020-AUG29]

CHERRY GHOST Live at The Trades Club, Hebden Bridge January 25 2015 2LP [RSD2020-AUG29]

Limited to 1498 copies

On sale online from 18.00 hours August 29th

As the final act before their hiatus coming after three critically praised albums in a decade Live at the Trades Club Hebden Bridge is Cherry Ghost performing an intimate, starkly arranged set at the 2015 Heavenly Weekender. Released now for the first time on double vinyl this is perhaps the best realised collection of songs from Cherry Ghost, the alias of the Ivor Novello award-winning songwriter Simon Aldred.

The instrumentation Aldred is joined on keyboards and light percussion by Christian Madden and Grenville Harrop brings to the fore Aldreds peerless songwriting, his oak-aged, prematurely wisened baritone. All of human life is here tracking a drizzly Northern gothic of last bus loneliness, late-night Spars, solitary drinkers, factory floors and Gods that betray. And yet, theres more than meets the eye. Theres magnetic renderings of his best known songs 4AM, People Help the People, the soaring Mathematics but surprises reveal themselves. All I Want and Herd Runners candidly examine Aldreds sexuality, whilst the seldom heard b-side Bad Crowd reveals Aldred to be a much funnier songwriter than remembered.

What runs right through Aldreds work, however, is a yearning a much tested faith in romance so no wonder that the album ends on its most optimistic notes, at the darkest point of winter nestled in the West Yorkshire valleys, promising clear skies ever closer.

Format:12″ Double VinylLabel:Heavenly Recordings