Setting out to be a different kind of raucous live act, Stomptown Brass – a powerful pop act based in a flamboyant love for brass instrumentation – are on the cusp of their debut album. The record, entitled ‘It Did Went Down’, is both an exploration of variety and texture, and a summary of what’s been a raucous and memorable career so far.
With the band particularly famed for their sometimes manic live shows, the recorded version, songwriter and trombonist James O’Leary tells us, goes out of its way to explore different realms.
“I would say to expect the unexpected,” he says. “The natural limitation of brass bands in recorded long-form is the tendency to sound quite same-y and one-dimensional after a while. We have worked pretty hard against this by packing together a diverse number of textures and styles which means the listener journey is always moving through different moods, tempos, tensions and resolutions.”
“There’s probably a bit more singing on the album than you might expect with this kind of band – a few of us can hold a note so why not throw that in the mix! But there are some underlying musical and lyrical themes which tie the whole thing together so it’s not a complete free-for-all.”
The album represents a major landmark for the band, and the fact that it’s taken so long is perhaps an indicator of where the group’s priorities lie, though it’s clear that having done it, serious effort has been made to have done so properly.
“The album marks ten years of the band’s existence which is, of course, an unusually long wait for a first album,” O’Leary says “It’s probably fair to say we could have released a decent album years ago but there was always a sense that we hadn’t quite made the style our own until not too long ago. It can be a bit tricky to free yourself from the stock perception of what a “brass band” sounds like, so we had to really work at carving out our own corner of that space. That extended gestation has really added some richness to the work that an earlier release would have lacked.”
That richness has included, more recently, the addition of electronic elements. “This is partly a result of a number of us listening to a lot of electronic music, and also an effort to find something which sounds a bit different in the brass band setup.”
“It’s been a balancing act we’ve been working on for a number of years: the raw acoustic vitality of brass bands is so integral to their music but it’s also a natural ceiling in many ways. We’ve done our best to keep what we can of this energy while attempting to capture some slightly more interesting moods and ideas than the acoustic setup would allow. I would like to think the album is a good demonstration of this balance and hopefully listeners will mostly feel we got it about right!”
Meanwhile, the band’s playful side, which has included kids’ shows, a series of chaotic performances in the back of the now-defunct Bernard Shaw, and their own unique add on to the end of St Patrick’s Day way back in 2015, will continue.
“I’ve no idea who came up with this,” O’Leary recalls of the band’s unofficial stroll on the end of the 2015 city centre parade. “We were in a phase of trying all sorts of ideas and pop-up performances back then, and this one just kind of came off. I don’t think there was a huge amount of expectation so the result was definitely a surprise. We finished off trapped on both sides in the middle of Suffolk Street with people almost hanging out of windows above us to see what was happening. Then just as the streets were getting a bit sloppy, we managed to escape!”
