Playlist: Peterlee psalms

Fawns – November

The upcoming Life Just Bounces show in Peterlee is another great effort to show that this County Durham New Town, celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, has a future as well as a past. And the event brings together three great bands as well as exhibitions and spoken word performances.

Among the musicians, Fawns are making a welcome return to gigging after something of a hiatus. This Durham-based indie-folk acoustic duo has a bewitching way with close harmony and manages to subtly evoke a mood with some swirling electronics.

2022’s “November” is the most recent release. Catching up with it again on a sultry summer’s evening (yep, even in Durham we get one of them each year) was a refreshing waft of autumnal air. It’s a delicate, gentle, lovely thing, entirely befitting of a duo that relishes a sad song. And somehow it takes flight at the end, floating into the ether with a sense of unfinished business.

Vice Killer – Keep On Fighting On

Peterlee’s own Vice Killer first came onto my radar thanks to the excellent “Dark Side of the Railway”, which featured in playlist #9. But that’s just part of an impressive catalogue of top tracks that promise to make for a storming set at Life Just Bounces.

Dark Side of the Railway, in some respects, is an outlier. Much of Vice Killer’s work is more overtly political, with “Keep On Fighting On” banging the drum for a region gutted by industrial decline. At a time when a change of government and the 40th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike places a renewed focus on the future direction of provincial England, this track is a timely reflection on where we are, how we got here, and how unity remains the way forward. That sense of unity and identity resonates through the latest tracks, all of which are firmly rooted in Peterlee.

If that all sounds a bit heavy, you’ll be reassured to learn that these guys know how to spin a tune as well. Songwriter and frontman Thomas Low Gilling likes to reference The Clash and Redskins as influences and there’s no doubt that Vice Killer has impeccable indie-rock props. It’s a more mellow ambience than the raw anger of the hotly-tipped Marginal Gains, also on the Life Just Bounces bill with their hard-edged, no-wave sound. However, as crowd-pleaser “Naples Street”, a seven-minute message from the land that Westminster forgot, carries a snarl beneath its song.

Life Just Bounces is a one-day festival in Peterlee Central Club. Tickets and more info here. Vice Killer’s “Keep On Fighting On” EP is available to buy here.

Shannon Pearl - Offering

Witch pop might sound like the kind of made-up genre aimed at people who fancy a bit of goth fashion but find the music a bit too scary. Mercifully, it turns out to be much better than that. Sunderland’s Shannon Pearl, an impressively versatile musician, combines neo-folk sensibilities with a yen for the spiritual links between woman and nature. And there’s not a pentagram in sight.

Given Sunderland’s reputation as a hard-scrabble city, the kind of place where a supposed fancy dan exists purely as the recipient of a crunching Kevin Ball tackle, this might seem incongruous. But, as Shannon herself points out, it’s also a town intimately connected to the elements – most obviously the North Sea and its wild, often overlooked coastline. That relationship, and the spirit of the coast, was the inspiration behind her 2022 Sonic Art project, Ghosts. Other work includes an a cappella collection performed in caves to explore the natural resonance.

“Offering”, her most recent single, has echoes of old-school folk rock. But this isn’t mere nostalgia. Blessed with Shannon’s soaring vocals , it’s a siren song for a different future. And couldn’t we all use a bit of that?

Shannon plays Sunderland’s Carnival House with a full live band on Sep. 28. More details and tickets here.

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Previous playlists: Folksy flavours / Politics / Stockton Calling / Russia / Aelius / #6 / Border Crossings / #8 / Safe hands throwing stones / More Than a Stone’s Throw / Fusion / Pigs, parties and Portuguese / From Bronte to Black Metal / Punk Princesses / Mackem magic and a mystical remix / Narc.Fest / Fringe Benefits