BLANKET

so far Blanket is Stephen Burch, Laurence Collyer and Vicky Steer. So far Vicky writes the words and melodies and Laurence and Steve play the instruments, except the keyboard which Vicky plays, a bit, but only when not singing.

Steve and Laurence live in Brighton, Vicky lives in London. Blanket have never had a proper rehearsal, as they can't find the middle ground, though they know this is Gatwick.

Stephen and Laurence converse tonally, picking through patterns and laying their workings bare. They send bits of fabric to Vicky, which she sits on for a very long time before sending back, soiled but mostly the better for it.

Vicky would like a soapbox and a serious audience. Sentences are constructed with words. The words are trip hazards and conduits, padding, feet, faff and fluff, cobbled without artifice into configurations that at the very least stand up and at very best stand up whilst leaning precariously. Often the themes are grand but the attention to detail painful, the collapse of a clothes rail and having to live with the aftermath, the simplest objects are made into mountains.

Blanket have previously released a 7" single on Big Billy Records, a limited CDR EP on Woodland Recordings, a split cassette tape with Shimmy Rivers And Canal And Canal on Undereducated Music and are included in the forthcoming Stolen Recordings compilation II out in June, they have an album due for release this summer on Try Harder records.

Laurence and Stephen are also involved in musical projects; The Diamond Family Archive and The Great Park both on Woodland Recordings.

"While the boys sat huddled together playing simple and very pretty melodies on various acoustic instruments, Vicky stood alone on stage looking slightly nervous and singing with a remarkably beautiful voice, one which had a strangely still and eerie quality to it. Hers is the first British female voice that I have heard in a while that I have really enjoyed.”

Tom Ravenscroft in The Times. Review of performance at Tate Britain.