About

New south-east London band Northern Light Exposure have – for the last six months – been working some very special musical magic. Their songs written by Scottish frontman Andrew Glen – manage, with the lightest of brush-strokes, to transport us to a series of other worlds. Lead single ‘Embers’ – recorded this summer with seminal engineer Pat Collier (The House of Love, Primal Scream), just down the road at his studio in Perry Vale – takes us to the dark, echoing city street where a man realises that there’s no turning back. ‘Heading Out for Summer’ (from the bands debut EP 'The Liar's Chair) conjures a love affair set against sunlit parks and hot pavements. ‘Duncansbay Head’ takes us to Scotland’s most northerly coast, where – on a foul night in 1953 – two ships crashed, losing every man on board. This is thoughtful, crafted songwriting in the tradition of Peter Gabriel and David Byrne – two of the key early musical influences on 31-year-old Glen, who grew up in raspberry-picking country, just north of Dundee.  His lyrics map out both the personal and the political, over a richly textured sound that recalls the fuzzed guitar work of Doves, the bass-driven swagger of Editors, and the angular melodies of Echo and the Bunnymen, but draws them all together into something taut, shimmering and intensely involving. Northern Light Exposure have been perfecting their sound slowly  – giving it the time and space to breathe; just, we might say, like a good single malt – and their dedication is already paying dividends. A cover of Doves’ The Cedar Room, set to haunting black-and-white footage of pioneering settlers in American forests, was called “stunning” and “beautiful” by Doves themselves. Their first EP ‘The Liar’s Chair’ – released in March – has been steadily clocking up plays, with Evening Standard theatre critic Fiona Mountford declaring that key track ‘Heading Out for Summer’  “deserves to be the anthem of these summer months”. It’s a sound to get lost in: a sound that takes you by the hand and leads you off to a place that’s a little dark, a little frightening – but always exciting.