Extended Review Lines of Flight – More Than Human EP

Welcome to the first of my new style music reviews. In these posts I will review tracks or EPs in much more depth than Twitter allows and then get to know the artists I enjoy listening to by asking 5 questions inspired by their career and music. I will also answer any questions they may ask me. A huge thank you to Lines of Flight for agreeing to be the guinea pigs and entering into the spirit of things so wholeheartedly.

Extended Review Part 1

Lines of Flight – More Than Human EP

I have been a fan of Lines of Flight, a duo comprising Matthew Henderson and Helen Whale, since their very first release, Birthing Bell, which was two years ago now. When they asked me to review the lead single from their forthcoming EP, called Becoming Bear I enjoyed it so much I instantly wanted to listen to the whole lot. Having listened to all five tracks, I can say that my initial excitement was not misplaced.

Becoming Bear

This is a very strong opening track with seemingly opaque lyrics that, counter-intuitively, make their meaning very clear. We are increasingly confused and increasingly displaced in the world as it is, partly, perhaps, as a hangover from the pandemic, but partly as a result of our inherent hunter gatherer natures that are being brought into conflict with the way we now live. Musically, the synth took me right back to Some Great Reward era Depeche Mode with the early doomier style of the Pet Shop Boys on tracks like Surburbia. It suited the track perfectly and showed the confidence to reflect the greats of the synth movement and the ability to move the instrument forward in different and intriguing ways.

Left to Find

This is an incredibly unsettling track lyrically. It seems to hark back to the pandemic which ended up creating the group, then reflects on where we are as human beings. Returning to the imagery of wildlife looking in on us with increasing unease, the track talks about a dwindling floe, perhaps reflecting the famous picture of the lonely polar bear precariously perched on one tiny piece of ice, which became a visual motif for what we are doing to the planet. That is, as the song indicates, our probable fate as the question is, ‘How did my world get so small?’ and the realisation is that ‘There are no hiding places left to find.’ Once again, the synth is sombre, with elements of The Tubeway Army and Kraftwerk at the start before settling into a Depeche Mode style tune that superbly sets off Helen’s haunting vocals which reminded me of Annie Haslam of Renaissance.

Last Transmission

The third song on the EP reminds me of an updated version of Message in a Bottle, one of my favourite tracks as a teenager. It is someone trying to get in touch with someone, anyone who might be able to show that there is still someone listening in a world where we seem to be increasingly shouting into a void – my blog often, though not always, seeming to be a case in point! Instead of a bottle being thrown into the sea, you have disconnected, dislocated voices on the internet. ‘The silence broke my heart, tore our together apart.’ This could seem like a personal cry, but taken in the context of the EP itself, Lines of Flight are reflecting much more on our collective lack of communication. The OMD style riff immediately made me think of Enola Gay, which is appropriate given the theme of technology and its misuse. Musically, it is my favourite song on the EP and one I think could become the most popular.

House of Bears

We return to the ursine theme that was explicitly referenced in Becoming Bear, and hinted at in Left to Find, with the fourth track. In a sense there is a positive message, namely that the planet will survive long after we have gone, and that the safety for a number of species lies in being thought to be extinct. The flipside of that is, as the song acknowledges, that ‘The human condition is not built to last’. I have a sweatshirt that reads ‘People Ruin Everything’ and this song is the musical counterpoint to that! The Kraftwerk style opening reflects the fact that perhaps we would be better to acknowledge that we are becoming more dependent on the machine part of our civilisation, fatally disrupting society and life as we know it. Once again, there is an OMD nod here, especially in Matthew Henderson’s Andy McCluskey style vocals.

Breaking the Line

The opening lines to this final track on the EP, ‘You weren’t listening to understand, more to monitor.’ Is just a brilliant encapsulation of our current condition. We can be talking about something, and it will appear on Facebook or Instagram, we can see something that someone else posts, nod and move on, not really trying to go deeper into what is behind the post. Even with our friends, we often take the more superficial approach that we used to take with acquaintances. Deep reflections and deep connections – that sounds a bit like a Lines of Flight lyric right there which they are welcome to use! 😉 – seem like a thing of the past in our increasingly superficial lives. ‘We have been globally blind’ is a reflection perhaps on the increasing globalisation foisted upon us by technology. We have access to so much information, but like magpies we simply take the shiniest pieces and fly off with them rather than investigating further. We need to retrain ourselves to look and care more deeply in order to save ourselves, or possibly, make ourselves worth saving. It is a suitably reflective ending to a marvellous EP which is very dark when considering where we have led ourselves in recent years but holds out the smallest piece of hope for humanity in the future. It is that hope we must hold on to and use to somehow become better.

Extended Review Part 2

David’s Questions for Lines of Flight

1. Can you tell people how the group came about?

Matthew Henderson – Yeah, it was the beginning of COVID, we all received unsettling news about lockdown. It gave me a huge need to write something new and that, because of lockdown, we had to do it differently to regular bands. I sent Helen a text, out of the blue, because I knew she sang in a choir and asked her, if I could get some music over to her from my phone to hers, would she like to sing some of the songs. She said yes and we began a really creative process that led to Signs of Life.

It’s strange to think back now – we didn’t meet or talk for months, just file sharing and Whatsapp messages. 

Helen Whale – It is incredible, looking back now, to think how much time we had to give to the music, given how busy life feels now. Covid was obviously horrendous but we were both lucky to be able to use lockdown to pour energy and focus into the project. We’d each go for walks alone and listen to the updated music files; it was a brilliant thing to have, a way of feeling connected.

2. What were your main musical influences growing up and how have these fed into your music?

MH – I think The Cure would have to take top spot for me – I don’t love every track they’ve ever done but I love how they have done it all. Other music across a range of genres have all impacted me, there’s pretty much something in every decade from the 50’s to today that I have been influenced by. I grew up loving the melodrama of The Smashing Pumpkins and Depeche Mode and everything in between. I love it when a song is so well made (and I don’t mean complicated), that I don’t think about its constituent parts, I just get swept up in it – and for me that’s more important than genre, really. 

HW – It’s similar for me, really, in that genre was never really the thing that defined my music taste, but I guess both as a child and in more recent years, folk music has had quite an influence; before Lines of Flight started, I always imagined that if I did get involved in writing and performing again it would go in that direction, and in fact the first lyrics/tune I shared with Matthew was what eventually became Birthing Bell (our first single). It might feel quite far away from it now but it started life as an acapella folk tune! The natural starting point for my lyric writing still feels rooted in folk narratives of people and places. Through the process of writing together, with each of us bringing our own influences to the table, I’m constantly discovering new things and new influences – I don’t think that will stop any time soon and it’s one of the great things about there being two of us and having otherwise quite separate lives – we share stuff with each other regularly and it means Lines of Flight will continue to change too, as we find new things we both love. 

3. What is your new EP about?

MH – The initial trigger for this EP was a collection of photos by Dmitry Koch – he found polar bears inhabiting an abandoned weather station, north west of the Bering Straits. It prompted us to ask a lot of questions of humans, about our nature; ‘the human condition’; our impact upon nature. Coming out of covid, where so much change had happened, it was so strange to see life returning to the normal we all said at the time, we didn’t want. 

HW – I think for me, the photos of the bears got me thinking about all the complex ways that human lives are bound up with these creatures, the blurring of lines between humans and nature and the inextricable ways in which our fates align and interweave. We are creatures – trying to survive, make homes and live our lives – just like them. I often feel uneasy at the way in which nature and ‘culture’ are seen as so binary. When we were first working on these tracks, in early 2022, a lot was also happening in the world – new kinds of global unease and disruption were emerging, and I think that probably influenced things too. 

4. Where do Lines of Flight go next?

MH – Two things really – we are pressing the EP on to 12” vinyl, with the b-side being remixes. We’re working with Fairsound who help bands crowdsource and press vinyl – they are great, as is Press on Vinyl. We are aiming to release that in the autumn.

The other is that we are working on new material – As a way of adding something to the climate emergency discourse, we are looking at the world through non-human eyes and trying to write about what that destruction, loss of life, habitat and species must be like. We used a book called Mourning Nature as a starting point for this and we have 5 tracks in the bag.

Oh, and lastly, we are playing the Otley Music Festival on the 9th of July – and we are hoping to do it as a band!

HW – Writing was solace for me during Covid, and I guess it’s now my way of dealing with the personal grief of climate change. The book provides a way to see that through the eyes and word of others, but even though that’s our jumping off point, it’s still very much a personal way of channeling emotion, for both of us, I think. On a more upbeat note, as Matthew says, we’re looking to build our live act and this is really exciting!

5. What is the best and worst thing about making your way in the music industry of today?

MH – I think there are some great elements to making music (tech and social media etc, have really changed the traditional methods), but for each and every one of them, there are con-artists trying to make money from peoples’ hopes and dreams. Promising quick results for cash is the worst – take your time, let things grow organically, build and work with your audience. It doesn’t have to happen overnight, it’s probably best if it doesn’t. Also, success can be so many things to so many people – define your own terms. Don’t give up, making music, being creative is as much about a war of attrition as it is about making a huge sudden impact. 

HW – I’d absolutely agree with all of that. Tech made our project possible in the first place, and despite not even being able to be in the same room together, and with no possibility of playing live on the horizon, we were able to build an audience through Twitter – that’s amazing, really, and it was heartwarming and really affirming getting so much support for the music from that community. On the other hand, of course, you do need to work at it to make it work for you; I’m always feeling like there’s more we could do but you have to take a break from being online too – and that’s especially the case when you need to carve out time for songwriting and recording, and just letting your thoughts mill around without all the noise that social media can bring.

Lines of Flight’s Questions for David

When was the last time you cried?

Interesting starting question! 🤔 I think it’s more common for me as I get older to be emotionally moved by songs, films and TV programmes. I can definitely say that I get moist eyed more than I used to, but I have the hangover from my 70s childhood that seems to add as a break to the more outright expression of emotion, happy or sad. So, from that point of view, I would be hard pressed to remember the last time I cried.

What’s the hardest thing about blogging?

Definitely getting hung up on my very small readership! I try my best to get people reading this blog because I feel that what I write is good and interesting, and I live for the dopamine hits of a view or a like! Shallow, aren’t I? 🤣 Suffice to say, I love the writing, and I really should ignore the other stuff!

What musical instruments can you play?

Sadly, none! I have tried to play the guitar, but I just couldn’t co-ordinate my movements. Although many would say its never too late, I can’t see myself ever learning one now. I will content myself with listening to and supporting those artists who have a talent I can only dream of.

What did you learn about yourself during COVID?

That I’m more flexible than I realise and that I still love challenging myself. I set up my Twitter account during lockdown, I restarted this blog and I opened myself up to a huge range of music. I did the one million steps challenge for Diabetes from July to September in 2020 and raised a reasonable amount, discovering more about my local area in three months than I thought possible just by taking roads I had never walked along before. Sounds like a metaphor but every step was real! Professionally, three decades after I started teaching with chalk and talk (!) I became comfortable with teaching online and even ended up enjoying it.