There’s a saying that you learn something new every day. When starting from a limited knowledge base, like I do, you can actually learn something new every five minutes or so. This was definitely the case when the CD by Swedish band Clay Allison arrived on my doormat.
I am embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know who they were named after. So my list of things that I have learned today includes the fact that Clay Allison was a US gunslinger. Within another five minutes I learned that the band Clay Allison have a highly enjoyable CD out called Tonight There Will Be No TV.
It’s a great title for an album. How I wish there were more nights where there was, in fact, no TV. The void could be filled with music of course. Sweden’s Clay Allison are in fact singer and guitarist Viktor Sanberg, drummer Eric Krona, keyboard player Kim Bergdahl, and bass player Jorgen Warnstrom. Their sound is enhanced by Niklas Larsson’s trombone.
Clay Allison reveal the story behind the album on their MySpace page. "Between two farms on the French countryside outside the little village of Laval the realization come to all five of us at the same time. It’s only in the countryside where we can learn how to sing about people in the cities. At one of the River Mayenne's many playful turns we set up long tables under the poplars and sat down, and ate, drank and sung."
Carrying on with the creative vibe of isolation they booked themselves into a remote studio, away from the madness of the city, to record the songs they had written. What they have come up with is an album that really grows on you.
Tonight There Will Be No TV is in fact Clay Allison’s second album. Their debut Love On Depression Street came out in Sweden in 2004. By 2007 it had reached most of Europe and faraway Japan.
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