Sian Alice Group - Biography
Sian Alice Group is a genre-spanning post-rock experimental music collective from England, centered on vocalist Sian Ahern. Often as eclectic as they are adventuresome, the group’s debut album 59.59 (2008 Social Registry) contained avant-garde elements ranging from ambient rock to blues to folk leanings and club beats, using a multitude of instruments such as piano and keyboards, zither, harmonica and violin. Ahern has said that she prefers the band not to fall into any particular boundaries or genres.
The project began in 2006 when Ahern joined up with multi-instrumentalists and experimentalists Rupert Clervaux (producer/engineer) and Ben Crook (video/guitars) to lay down vocals on a couple of tracks. Ahern’s fragile, coffeehouse delivery fit well over the various soundscapes and the trio began to call themselves Sian Alice Group. Soon thereafter, they added violinist/pianist Sasha Vine, guitarist Andy Ingle and bassist Douglas Hart (of The Jesus and Mary Chain) and began touring around Europe and the United Kingdom. The British label Social Registry released a limited 7” in 2007.
The following year, Sian Alice Group released its debut album on Social Registry, 59.59—so-called because the running time is exactly one second short of an hour in length, at 59 minutes and 59 seconds. The album was recorded at Grays Inn Road, Clervaux’s studio, and features guest appearances by John Coxon (Spring Heel Jack) and Brian DeGraw (Gang Gang Dance). Interspersing Ahern’s dreamy vocals with richly textured jazz, rock and ethereal forms of blues, lounge and folk forays, the album contains instrumental interludes between tracks.—theatrical and classical sounding breaks, either opening chapters or closing them. Ahern has said that the band didn’t go into the recording session with any one idea in mind, but just to experiment and see what they could form. Some of the standout tracks were the progressive rock song “Way Down to Heaven” and elegiac piano number, “Days of Grace III.” 59.59 was critically lauded by publications such as NME, which called it a “stunning debut album.”
The London-based group followed the success with a four-song EP of piano ballads entitled The Dusk Line, which contained tracks from the 59.59 sessions. In 2008 they embarked on a tour of the United States, opening for A Place to Bury Strangers, followed by the release of a 12” called Remix.
For their sophomore album, Trouble, Shaken Etc (2009 Social Registry), the group’s music became slightly more directional and focused. Recorded toward the end of 2008 at Grays Inn Road, Clervaux’s production and mixing is pristine on all 13 tracks. Notably, the seven-minute song “Close to the Ground” is an artisan song full of insinuations and subtle instrumentations, and “Through Air Over Water,” with Ahern’s lithe vocals carrying the tune, shares genetic roots to the Brit-folk artists of yore. On songs like the improvised end track, the haunting “Salt Water,” the intuitiveness of the group clues you in to the Alice’s realm. The hints of vibraphone, glockenspiel and marimbas show up as swift-passing cameos, only adding to the esoteric far-off-ness of the album. There’s a head of momentum in the percussion-fueled “Longstrakt,” and “Vanished” gets into some a space-jazz odyssey.
Sian Alice Group continued to tour in 2009 in both the United States and the UK, notably with Vetiver and Deerhunter. As part of the oscillating roster of musicians that joins the core of Clervaux, Ahern and Crook on stage are Eben Bull (trumpet, trombone), Graham Barton (bass), Mike Bones (guitar), Stephen Warrington (electric piano) and Sasha Vine (violin).