Rare Birds, Moon Dust and Masked Alter Egos: Welcome To The Wonderful World Of The Bug Club
Wednesday, 18 October 2023
Written by Tom Morgan
Is there an ideal album length? How about short, sharp and to the point? What about grand, unspooling and fit-to-burst with ideas? Maybe somewhere in between? There’s no objectively correct answer. The album concept is loose and ill-defined. However, like a recipe with many ingredients, too much or too little of something can spoil the end result. Finding an elegant balance when arranging a record poses a challenge for musicians; a process of killing your darlings in order to find a perfect aesthetic balance.
The latest full-length from Welsh indie trio The Bug Club casually bulldozes this conventional wisdom. ‘Rare Birds: Hour Of Song’ is carefully curated and cohesive, but also a titanic 47 tracks long. “We’ve been gigging a lot, so by the end of that we were keen to make some new stuff,” laughs vocalist and guitarist Sam Willmett.
The trio (rounded out by vocalist/bassist Tilly Harris and drummer Dan Matthew) assembled the album during an extended period of time at home, following a year of relentless touring. “We just wrote every day, out in the garden because it was nice out there,” Sam continues.
Its scale may appear daunting, but closer inspection of ‘Rare Birds: Hour Of Song’ reveals some delightful through-lines. More than 20 of its tracks are spoken word interludes that function as a (very) loose storyline, as told by an avian narrator. Many are extremely brief. Burds Wurds - the Key is the shortest: three seconds of Sam and Tilly’s voices (in bird character) proclaiming that “saturation is the key to a happy mirage”. These interludes are wholly nonsensical, but endless absurdist fun.
The remaining non-spoken word tracks are equally madcap, split between bouncy garage-rock numbers, delicate acoustic loveliness and the occasional blend of the two (put to stellar use on album highlight Rare Birds). It’s an explosion of ideas, sketched out in raw, immediate form without fuss or deliberation. “We write pretty quickly,” Sam explains. “These tracks were literally written in the order they are on the album. There’s not many parts, so it’s easy to tell what works and what doesn’t.”
The trio’s grasp of musical economy is impressive, particularly when their output is taken into account. ‘Rare Birds: Hour Of Song’ is the fifth full-length (including a live album by masked alter egos Mr Anyway’s Holey Ghosts) that The Bug Club have released in just three years, a feat they’ve managed while touring extensively across the UK. These travels are rarely brief. The band’s expeditions hit all the usual UK music hubs, but also consistently visit smaller towns and cities. Their current tour, for example, takes them to Carlisle, Stirling and Kendal.
“We want to support as many independent venues as we can,” explains Tilly. “We just want more venues to open everywhere.” Sam chips in: “I’m always surprised how many great venues there are. During Independent Venue Week we went all round Scotland and down to Cardigan in Wales and they were all great, full of people having a nice time.” Sam and Tilly’s sweet and optimistic disposition shines especially bright when discussing touring. “We want to go everywhere we can,” Sam adds. “There doesn’t seem to be any dead spots, people always want to come out and have fun.”
Bug Club-land is certainly a fun place to be. Their gleeful music, colourful aesthetic and sense of humour have helped build a cult fan base; from casual indie-rock fans to 6 Music, where they’ve had a track playlisted and recorded a studio session for Mark Riley. An endearing sense of effort and attention to detail courses through their work, exemplified this time around by the inclusion of a fully-illustrated, 32-page book that accompanies the vinyl release of ‘Rare Birds: Hour Of Song’.
An innate and seemingly-effortless ability to pull random ideas together defines The Bug Club. Their oeuvre is delightfully absurdist, packed with surreal imagery, strange humour and gentle chaos. Do the band see themselves as absurdists? “I just think we’re weird,” answers Tilly. “We’re weird people.” Sam adds: “Whatever comes naturally and feels fun goes in. There’s not a lot of thinking that goes along with it.”
Despite their modesty, their artistic antennas are finely-tuned. This has imbued The Bug Club with a unique and unpredictable personality that's often missing in today’s music culture. Be it their eccentric music, extensive touring and DIY quirks, they feel like an indie band from another time. “The label [Bingo] have been super supportive with all that stuff,” Sam elaborates. “On ‘Pure Particles’ we made a board game, and on the first one we included little packets of ‘moon dust’. There’s little download codes in them and we can see that only four people have opened them!”
The Bug Club’s adventures have taken them a long way in a brief period of time. However, there are plenty more lands yet to be swept up in their oddball wake. They’ve recently begun making steps towards building a profile in North America. “We went out to New York in June and played a show,” explains Tilly. “It was great and it sold out. We also recorded a radio session there.” Sam then interjects: “The radio people were great, they gave us nice T-shirts.”
The show rolls on. In November, they’re heading out to North America for a run of 12 gigs, from Montreal down to Atlanta. Then they return to the UK for some more, soon-to-be-announced shows. “We have a big spooky one lined up in London, at Village Underground on 1st March,” Sam adds. “Spooky in terms of nerve-racking,” Tilly clarifies. “Also ghosts and stuff.”
‘Rare Birds: Hour Of Song’ is out October 20 through Bingo.
The Bug Club Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Tue October 17 2023 - BATH Moles
Wed October 18 2023 - MANCHESTER Band on the Wall
Thu October 19 2023 - NEWCASTLE Gosforth Civic Theatre
Fri October 20 2023 - CARLISLE Brickyard
Sat October 21 2023 - HALIFAX Arden Road Social Club
Sun October 22 2023 - NOTTINGHAM Rescue Rooms
Tue October 24 2023 - LONDON 100 Club
Wed October 25 2023 - READING Face Bar
Thu October 26 2023 - BRIGHTON Concorde 2
Fri October 27 2023 - IPSWICH Baths
Mon October 30 2023 - NORWICH Norwich Arts Centre
Wed November 01 2023 - YORK Crescent
Thu November 02 2023 - EDINBURGH Dissection Room
Fri November 03 2023 - STIRLING Tolbooth
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