Folk Bands and Artists
Nome King
Mitcham
https://soundcloud.com/user-764314641
NOME KING will make his TOTHAS debut all the way from Dublin. Although Nome King are new to us, the man behind them, Ciarán Smith, isn´t... His band Crayonsmith played TOTHAS exactly 4 years ago. You would not have known that the three-piece band had flown over from Dublin earlier that day, were using borrowed instruments and were coping amazingly with yours truly´s soundman (or lack of!) skills. It was hard to believe that this was their first London appearance and it was a real treat to see a band that really deserved to be playing to bigger places than us. In a powerful set that showed off the guys three part vocal arrangements, musical mastery, new material and showcased tracks from most recent album “Milk Teeth“, the highlight for me was “Heaven In An Aeroplane“. Having played in various musical projects from a young age, in early 2004 Ciarán Smith began playing his own 4-track recorded songs live under the name ‘Crayonsmith’, a play on his name. Soon after, he brought a couple of other musicians on board, adding bass, synthesizers, samplers, autoharp and live percussion/drums to the mix resulting in a fuller band sound. After touring the songs for 2 years, in 2006 Crayonsmith self-released the lo-fi debut album, “Stay Loose“ to critical acclaim. The album was primarily written and produced by Ciarán himself. In February 2007, Crayonsmith signed with Out On A Limb Records and the band´s “White Wonder“ album was released in 2008 and featured catchy, punchy songs made up of sampled beats and drum machines combined with live drums, duelling vocals and vintage synthesizers, guitars, bass, autoharp, toy piano, percussion, classic harmonies, found sounds/samplers and headphone interplay. Crayonsmith’s eagerly anticipated third album Milk Teeth, was eventually released in October 2013. The album saw the band change to its current line-up. Recorded between Cork and Dublin, Milk Teeth was written in the band´s practice room with a stripped back palette of bass, drums, guitar and synth, The album was more organic sounding than it´s predecessor with minimal overdubs and a big emphasis on the texture of the vocals and instrumentation. Ciarán went on to record with his electronic-pop duo side project Night Trap and new Crayonsmith releases are in the pipeline. However, Ciarán has started to build the solo project Nome King over the last couple of years. The couple of recordings he has done are great slabs of guitar-pop with percussion, beautiful harmonies and keyboard stabs in there too. Here is a video of a new tune that he has filmed last week...
Genre: Alt Folk,Americana,Folk-Pop,Singer-songwriter
