If you listen to the latest instalment of the New Music Weekly playlist from Breaking More Waves (here), among some of the pop big-hitters and more played artists you’ll find a track from Tenderhost.
The Descent doesn’t really sound like anything else on that playlist. Sliding in like a furtive villain from a black and white cop movie set in smokey New York City at midnight, there are elements of jazz, blues and rock here. It verges on the side of uneasy listening, but is all the better for being such a tensely ambitious piece of work. My only criticism is that it seems to end far too soon. Clocking in at a streaming friendly 3 minutes it feels like a radio edit of something that is ready to go the full hog at 8 or 9 minutes, ending in a cacophony of noise. Maybe that will be reserved for the album?
Who are Tenderhost? Formed last year by songwriter Gabriel Levy he’s joined by Tara Cunningham (guitar), Jonny Wickham (bass), Nat Phillips (saxophone), Nathan Ridley (drums) and Alex Parry (keys) They work from a North London studio / rehearsal space and The Descent is their debut song.
Whilst Tenderhost only formed last year the song was written before the pandemic, in 2019; a difficult year for Gabriel’s mental health where he started to become afraid of leaving the house and stopped getting public transport in order to avoid large groups of people. We can be pretty sure that by April 2020 this was actually common practice for a lot of the population!
The Descent is a fascinating opener from Tenderhost. You can catch them live on March 24th at the Sebright Arms in London for a free show.
Tenderhost - The Descent
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