Xtra Mile returns to the live scene at Lost Evenings IV

Reintroducing you to the Xtra Mile family of artists - including one good friend of the label - who are all back playing live and eager to play their hearts out for you at Lost Evenings IV this week (16-19 Sep 2021)

- 14/09/2021 -

It’s been a while since our family of artists, united by their unforgettable live shows and tight friendship, have been able to do what they do best. So the chance for them to perform this week at the Roundhouse in Camden, London on a bill full of talent and exhilarating live acts must be like reaching the top of a mountain after the last 18 months or so.

We’ve decided to reintroduce all of our artists playing Lost Evenings IV, with a little history and some songs to listen out for live. You can buy records by all of them from our shop using the links down there too. Read on for more on our XMR family - they can’t wait to see you.

Frank Turner

Barely needing an introduction - let alone a reintroduction - Frank Turner has been with Xtra Mile Recordings since the very beginning. After the label released everything by his previous band Million Dead, we were the natural home for his solo recordings, starting with a demo version of ‘The Real Damage’ on our split 7” series in 2006.

Since then, Frank has released eight studio albums (with a ninth on the way in 2022), four rarities compilations, two ‘best-ofs’ and countless EPs, 7”s and one-offs. But where he really imprints his indelible stamp is on the world’s live scene. Whether playing the small local sweatbox or an open-air arena, opening the London 2012 Olympic Games with a full set of musicians or touring the country solo in support of grassroots venues, Frank has done - and continues to do - it all. Naturally, the last 18 months has been a lean period, but the determination and urge to put on the best live shows of his 16+ year career is more intense than ever.

Headlining all four nights of his own festival, Lost Evenings, you’ll get to see Frank in a number of different phases spanning his career - acoustic duo with Matt Nasir, playing songs from his first three albums covering 2006 to 2010, celebrating his breakthrough fourth album ‘England Keep My Bones’ in its entirety, and closing the festival by pulling together all of his greatest hits and most beloved anthems - meaning you will see a man and his band at the peak of their powers after far too long cooped up inside…just like the rest of us. These will be nights to remember.

Jess Guise

From our longest-running artist to one of our newest, Jess Guise joined Xtra Mile in 2020 and released her band’s ‘The Fun Part’ EP. With a love of words, history, stories and gifted with a wry sense of humour, Guise fits perfectly on Xtra Mile with Jess’s acoustic-forward folk, alternately lilting and soaring voice, and lyrical dexterity.

Whether solo or as a full band, Guise has a way of mesmerising the audience with articulate, lush songs that meld the personal and the peculiarities of growing, learning and becoming the adults we’re all meant to be. Mistakes and heartbreaks shouldn’t sound so beautiful, and youth rarely sounds this wise.

  • First year on Xtra Mile: 2020

  • First release on Xtra Mile: ‘The Fun Part‘ EP

  • At Lost Evenings IV: 19 Sep - Main Stage guests

  • Songs to hear live: The Fun Part, Brother in Arms, The Countdown

Find Guise’s records on the Xtra Mile online shop - The Fun Part EP // The Countdown single

Guise on Spotify

Skinny Lister

Image: Sara-Louise Bowrey

Image: Sara-Louise Bowrey

The many-legged folk ruckus that Skinny Lister throws like gallons of rum across the UK, Europe and the rest of the world has been hugely missed by those who know. Playing with abandon and heart, there are few better live propositions across any performing arts in the country. Signing with Xtra Mile in 2014, they quickly settled in as perfect partners to our roster of artists, immediately making friends for life while on tour with the likes of Frank Turner and Beans on Toast.

To date, the Skinnies have released three studio albums on Xtra Mile - with a fourth called ‘A Matter of Life & Love’ out on 22 October 2021 - all showcasing a thrumming blend of sea shanty-style folk and tubthumping tales, alongside a growing spectrum of diverse sounds. Being able to lurch from folk clubs to metal festivals handily, Skinny Lister adapt to and embrace all manner of live situations. Of course, they’ve been quiet recently, but just like the rest of our roster, they’re here to roar once again and you’ll hear it for miles around.

PET NEEDS

As keen on capitalisation as fellow fresh signees BERRIES, the incredible PET NEEDS are yet another band that took our faces by storm on stage before we all got locked indoors. Rather than get bored in lockdown, PET NEEDS instead made their debut album with some mixing and mastering from our very own Frank Turner - a confirmed fan after a riotous Camden Rocks performance by the band - and signed to Xtra Mile. We were more than happy to release ‘Fractured Party Music’.

A synapse-shattering burst of acidic whipcrack-smart lyrics, pummeling scattershot rhythms and guitars with a sense of centrigual force, PET NEEDS are at their best when unleashed. Unwilling to hide their snide remarks about modern life and pop culture, they pile on the humour and the sardonic asides driven by an energy that we wish could be harnessed to power the country.

Having tested very well with focused (read: enraptured) audiences at Frank Turner’s The Gathering and shows dotted across the summer, their real time to shine will be at the Roundhouse. If you want the first feeling of gigs being back to be your body jittering happily to a cathartic pop-laced noise you’d never dreamt could exist, you should absolutely get down the front for these lot.

  • First year on Xtra Mile: 2020

  • First release on Xtra Mile: ‘Fractured Party Music’

  • At Lost Evenings IV: 17 Sep - Main Stage guests // 18 Sep - Xtra Mile’s Lunch at the Lock (acoustic set at the Lock Tavern)

  • Songs to hear live: Overcompensating, Pavlovian, Toothpaste, Tracy Emin’s Bed

Find PET NEEDS’s records on the Xtra Mile online shop

PET NEEDS on Spotify

BERRIES

So new to the label are BERRIES that most of you won’t have had the delightful opportunity to experience their live show yet, unless you’ve kept your ear to the underground for a while. Signing to Xtra Mile at the end of 2020, the trio of Hollie, Lauren and Lucie make the sort of cutting, careening noise that belies the impressive punch of melody that drives it.

You can hear it in this year’s singles ‘Copy’ and ‘The Expert’, and you’ve been given a taster of it on their ‘Live Sessions from Big Smith Studios’ EP during the spring. But it will be even more in your face at Lost Evenings IV. Having re-cut their teeth playing The Grace in London and supported Frank Turner on his set of outdoor festival-like shows, The Gathering, this summer after pandemic-induced downtime, this three-piece are raring to go. They’re set to show you just why they belong at Xtra Mile, and indeed why we are so excited about them.

  • First year on Xtra Mile: 2020

  • First release on Xtra Mile: Copy (single) // Live Sessions from Big Smith Studios EP

  • At Lost Evenings IV: 18 Sept - Xtra Mile’s Lunch at the Lock (acoustic set at the Lock Tavern) // 19 Sep - Nick Alexander stage

  • Songs to hear live: Copy, The Expert, Dance Song' ‘97 (Sleater-Kinney cover), Dangerous

    Find BERRIES’s records on the Xtra Mile online shop - Copy digital single // The Expert flexi disc // Live Sessions from Big Smith Studios EP on Bandcamp

    BERRIES on Spotify

deux furieuses

As if waving a warning flag of an impending societal collapse, deux furieuses had long been sniping at injustice and inequality before signing to Xtra Mile in 2019. Could there have been a more appropriate duo to bring on board a mere nine months before everything went to shit? Ros and Vas brewed for us their incandescent second album ‘My War is Your War’ at a time when Trump, #MeToo, economic disparity climate crisis and Black Lives Matter were either in full force or about to reach their apex. With their ability to switch from disarmingly soothing, chiming guitars and elegance to coruscating rage, deux furieuses are the defiant, polemic arm of Xtra Mile. And we love them.

As with every band on our roster, they caught our attention in the live space and so to have them return post-pandemic pissed off, as we all are, we are gleefully braced to witness sights and sounds to behold when they crash the stage at Lost Evenings IV.

  • First year on Xtra Mile: 2019

  • First release on Xtra Mile: Tracks of Wire (digital album) // My War is Your War (CD and vinyl)

  • At Lost Evenings IV: 19 Sep - Nick Alexander stage

  • Songs to hear live: Can We Talk About This?, Dream For Change, Let Them Burn, My War is Your War, Year of Rage

Find deux furieuses’s records on the Xtra Mile online shop - Tracks of Wire download // My War is Your War on vinyl, CD and download

deux furieuses on Spotify

Johnny Lloyd

Prolific songwriter Johnny Lloyd took a while to reconfigure his sound and direction after leaving hyped indie band Tribes, but Xtra Mile was with him every step of that journey to the prodigious musician he’s become. Signing with Xtra MIle in 2015, he released two EPs - ‘Dreamland’ in 2016 and ‘Eden’ in 2017 - both of which wer respendent in shimmering, skyscraping, reverberating indie-pop. But it wasn’t until 2019 that Johnny Lloyd found his true voice with debut album ‘Next Episode Starts in 15 Seconds’, an acoustic-driven, bare and honest collection that roused emotions and was filtered with his newfound maturity. Since then he hasn’t stopped - releasing an album each year, two 20-track (!) volumes of home recordings called ‘Low Fidelity’, and an OST for independent film ‘Rare Beasts’, as well as scoring television and film away from his solo material.

And that’s without mentioning his live excursions, which are intimate affairs, even in larger venues. With a natural, storytelling manner, Johnny leads the audience through his own life journey, observations on our ways of living and moving through the tough and joyous times ahead. At times like a British Elliott Smith, at others toting a more vibrant Americana sound - always very much himself - a compelling atmosphere is sure to warm you to Johnny’s extensive songography, recently boosted by chill pop-hugging third album, ‘La La La’, released over the summer.

Samantics

Friend of the label, Samantics is a livewire rap-poet and musician whose lyrical maps are a personal stroll around his vision of England and his own life.

Taking us on a multitudinous odyssey of instrumentation - ukele, guitar, piano, beats, bass, electronics and more - all controlled via a sampler and loop station, his live shows are a frantic, funny, and thrilling experience.

Skirting the line between slam poet, social commentator and street busker, Samantics is an unmissable solo artist bound to spike your energy levels.