This is a video of a new song from our gig last night at the Essex International Jamboree. We were playing to 7,000 Scouts and Guides in a field on a massive stage. So much fun!

Here’s the second set of photos from “LFF Presents… Heart Strings”. Featuring Light Falls Forward, Eek N’Grr and Bleeding Heart Narrative. We’d like to say thanks to everyone who came down and made it such a great night. Keep your eyes peeled as we’re going to be announcing our next night soon!

Here are the first set of photos from “LFF Presents…. Heart Strings”. They feature Eek N’Grr, Sea Stacks and Light Falls Forward performing their sets on the night.

Today is the last day of 2011 and what an amazing year it has been - this time last year Light Falls Forward didn’t even exist! It was exactly this time in 2011 that Charlie and I decided to have a go at songwriting together and see if it worked, and it did! We had both been gigging with other bands and writing parts and harmonies for them but we wanted to see if we could write our own songs, so we sat down last Christmas and wrote an EP of 5 songs that we put out on Soundcloud in February called Four Seasons and a Day. One of those songs, Rise Above It, has stood the test of time and made it through to our studio EP that we are releasing next month with the addition of drums.

We started gigging in Spring as a duo called C&Nome (pronounced Sea Anemone) at acoustic nights across London, playing at The Phoenix, 93 Feet East, The Luxe, Notting Hill Arts Club and lots of other lovely venues. We also kept writing and went away on a few songwriting weekends to Whitstable and Dungeness, recording new material at home and putting it up on Soundcloud.

After several gigs of explaining how to pronounce our name to everyone, we decided we should come up with a new name and wrote down a few lists of words that we thought summed up our sound. From that, we came up with Light Falls Forward which we both liked straight away and after running it past a few friends, we went with it.

Our good friend and amazing drummer, Ed Williams, joined us to go into the Fish Factory in September and record our debut EP, Songs and Shadows, which is being mastered at the moment. We also put together a string quartet to play on the album - Greg on cello who gave me a few cello lessons last year, Anais on viola who we had worked with as part of the Minds Ear Orchestra and two violinists (Lily and Peter) recommended to us by Davy Berryman who created Sea Stacks. They hadn’t played together before but after a couple run-throughs, they sounded like they’d been a quartet for years. They all gave up their time for free to record parts on a couple of tracks and it sounded amazing! 

The real highlight of 2011 was our last gig of the year, Light Up The Night - a night that we put together where the bands played in darkness, lit by the light the audience brought, to raise money for Shelter. Light Up The Night was a huge success and we were both overwhelmed by how many people came along to make it such a wonderful night. The Slaughtered Lamb was the perfect venue and Sea Stacks and The Portraits played beautiful sets that captivated the audience. The darkness and candlelight made it even more magical - we couldn’t believe that we had created this experience, it was an incredible feeling! T-Toe finished the night with a great set that got people up and dancing, and we raised over £150 for Shelter on the night too which is amazing! It was the first “LFF presents…” night and we are planning lots more for 2012.

We’re busy songwriting again now to get material together for a second EP and trying to find the right venue for our next live music night which will take place in February. More about that coming soon but first will be our EP release in January… watch this space for news on that! Happy New Year and may 2012 be an exciting year for you all! 

Here are some shots from our recent Old Queens Head Gig with Werewolf Promotions. Shot by our good friend Ken Copsey. He knows how to hold a camera!

We spent 4 days recording our first proper EP in studio and loved every minute! Everyone can record music at home and we do it all the time just to be able to get songs out to the world, but you can’t get close to the sound and feeling you get from a proper studio. A wonderful Italian guy called Antonio built Fish Factory many years ago and hundreds of great bands have recorded there. People keep going back because the place is amazing - a huge and quirky space full of antiques, the best quality equipment and a great sound! We set ourselves an ambitious plan of 6 tracks in 4 days and we nearly managed it. We just need to add on some harmonies and synth sounds at home and get mixing.

My favourite part of the 4 days was recording the live strings! That is something you just can’t recreate with a sample sound through a computer - the sound of a bow hitting strings and the way the sound soars and gives you goose bumps. When the cello played the first few notes on Weather the Storm, I couldn’t stop smiling! With that sound and drums too, the song has taken on a whole new life and I can’t wait to get it finished! Charlie’s favourite moments were conducting the quartet and the very sexy bass amp he got to play bass through (Ampeg B15s for any bass geeks out there) - that has definitely gone on the long list of gear we would love to buy when we find ourselves with lots of spare money!

Another highlight of the whole thing has been being able to work with drummer Ed Williams. He is one of the most musical drummers we know and gave us so much of his time to make sure that the drum parts sounded exactly as we wanted them to be. We looked forward to our weekly rehearsals with him as he was always ready with ideas, suggestions and most importantly good coffee! He made us laugh lots during the session too and gave us an energy boost every time he came in, partly helped by a strong coffee or 2 and an all important croissant! 

It was really hard to leave the studio on Monday night - it felt like a second home and Adam, our engineer, Antonio and Ed felt like new family. It would be amazing to be able to spend every day like that (or at least a few days every week - we might go a bit mad doing it every day!), totally immersed in these songs we’ve created, hearing them come together piece by piece with other musicians bringing the missing parts to life. It’s such a great feeling and no matter how good home equipment is now, there’s nothing like a real studio. We can’t wait to go back in and work on a second EP next year!