It’s a great pleasure to finally welcome back The Wave Pictures after five long years!
Undeniably one of the greatest live bands on the planet, having packed out RMH more than almost anyone else. Reliably prolific on record and on the road. Psychedelic garage rockers one moment, autumnal country numbers the next – an evening with the Wavies is not to be passed up.
“This band is a one-off, a marvellous unique English gem, that deserves elevation to national treasure status” – The Line of Best Fit
Inspired by the tongue-in-cheek confessionalism of the Smiths, solo Morrissey, and the scrappy D.I.Y. aesthetic of the C-86 school, the Wave Pictures began in 1998 in the tiny rural village of Wymeswold in northern Leicestershire, in Great Britain’s East Midlands. Heavily influenced by their parents’ classic rock record collections and John Peel‘s indie-centric radio show, lead singer and guitarist David Tattersall, bassist Franic Rozycki, and drummer Hugh J. Noble were first called Blind Summit, then changed to the Wave Pictures when Noble left the band for university.
With the addition of drummer Jonny “Huddersfield” Helm, the Wave Pictures took their final form. While the three members attended different universities for the first eight years of their career, the band was a part-time affair that stuck to the D.I.Y. circuit, recording albums that were self-released in tiny CD-R pressings sold at gigs and traded with like-minded artists like Herman Düne, the Mountain Goats, Jeffrey Lewis, and Darren Hayman, all of whom the Wave Pictures collaborated with live and on record.
In 2006, with Tattersall, Rozycki, and Helm all out of school, the Wave Pictures moved to London and signed with the indie label Moshi Moshi Records, which released the trio’s first proper album, Sophie, the same year. The Wave Pictures‘ second album, Instant Coffee Baby, arrived in 2008 and began the band’s remarkably prolific release schedule.
Fast forward to 2016, which proved to be a characteristically prolific year for the group, as they released A Season in Hull and Bamboo Diner in the Rain. The former was an acoustic record made in basic circumstances with no mixing, and was released exclusively on vinyl. The latter was the band’s reaction to ‘machine music’ and was steeped in garage rock and blues traditions. In keeping with their tradition of minimal recording setups, the band returned in 2018 with their 17th effort, Brushes with Happiness. The album was recorded to tape in one evening with the instrumentation written immediately prior to recording. The band kept busy and returned the following year with 18th LP Look Inside Your Heart — a more surf rock-esque effort with reflective lyrics.
“Dreamlike, bluesy and unique” – The Guardian
“If being musically proficient is somehow vulgar, then The Wave Pictures are positively obscene, and to these ears, all the better for it” – DIY
