Goldheart Assembly

"This London six-piece's life-affirming melodies will remind you why you fell in love with pop." The Guardian

"The way that Goldheart Assembly write a chorus that wouldn't sound out of place at midnight on the Pyramid Stage suggests this is a band with the whole world ahead of them." NME

"Such is the inherent sweetness of Goldheart Assembly’s debut that the listener can’t fail to be touched by its charms." BBC

Formed through a love of harmonic, British pop music and not, as a bizarre internet rumour has it, whilst working as zookeepers at Whipsnade Wild Animal Park, Goldheart Assembly came into being at the tail-end of 2008, where they met as part of a scene of mutually-supporting groups playing nights in and around Covent Garden.

Within a few months of their first shows and the release of their debut 7-inch single So Long St Christopher, the band received widespread radio support, being invited to play a number of live radio sessions on Radio 1 (Lamacq), Radio 2 (Dermott O'Leary), XFM (John Kennedy) and 6 Music (Marc Riley). Following a string of summer festival appearances the band set about recording their applauded debut album, Wolves And Thieves.

Decamping for two weeks to Forncett Industrial Steam Museum in Norfolk, the bands approach to recording their debut was spontaneous and experimental. So much so, they incorporated the sound of vintage steam engines as rhythm tracks and utilised a host of ‘found’ sounds discovered whilst exploring the museum environment around them. With additional recording and mixing with producer Laurie Latham (Echo And The Bunnymen, Ian Dury And The Blockheads) in the more traditional surroundings of Jools Holland’s Helicon Mountain studios in Greenwich, Wolves and Thieves was completed.

Released on Fierce Panda records in March 2010 to much acclaim, the following year saw the band touring extensively, gradually playing to bigger and more appreciative crowds, performing everywhere from huge stages at Glastonbury and Reading to tiny bars in Houston, Texas. It was here, on their first trip to the US, that the band played support slots with The Civil Wars, three shows at South by Southwest Festival in Austin and appeared on nationwide TV as a featured artist on Last Call with Carson Daly. Returning home they toured the UK with The Low Anthem, We Are Scientists and Band of Horses while also playing a string of headline shows, culminating in sold-out shows at London’s Bush Hall and Kings College. In April 2011 the band played another sold-out London show, this time at the 1000 capacity Scala, and made available a new track, Harvest in The Snow as a free download.

A subsequent tour of Europe inspired much of the material for the bands sophomore album, to the extent that the band decided to record their follow up in the idyllic surroundings of Lucerne in Switzerland. Having recorded 25 tracks in the three weeks spent in Switzerland the band were left with the unenviable task of whittling a much discussed double album into a more manageable single record. The resultant album Long Distance Song Effects fuses a disparate array of influences, both ambitiously lush and elegantly understated, to produce a sprawling yet cohesive whole.

The band will embark on a series of low key shows in August and September to road test the new material. The first fruits of their labours should be released this autumn.

Goldheart Assembly are: Jake Bowser (keyboards, vocals), James Dale (lead vocals, bass), Nicky Francis (drums, vocals), Kyle Hall (guitar) and John Herbert (lead vocals, guitar).