Download a free EP from Captain Horizon containing tracks from the Radiostasis sessions.
You can download the EP for FREE from the Captain Horizon Store.
The EP contains the following tracks
- Turn Away
- El Nibre
- Climbing the Waterfall
- Strong Enough
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Captain Horizon news stories, keep you right up to date with the lastest news a gossip.
Happy New Year! 2011 Highlights
We’ve had a hell of a year! With that in mind, we’ve decided to give you a quick rundown of the highlights of 2011 from where we were standing. Enjoy!
New Disorder Music Festival
“It might have been the middle of fucking nowhere, but it was a mighty fucking night!” – Whitty, frontman
“I’d bought along an absolutely stupid pair of union jack trousers. Moments before our set, Whitty insisted that if I was going to wear them then it should be without a shirt. I was already kind of nervous at this point since hardly anybody in the crowd knew us. As I stepped out onto the stage, I raised my Guinness to the audience, knowing that if it fell flat, I’d have looked a total nob-end. Luckily, they went mental.” – Alex Thomson, Bass
We were very excited to be on the bill for this, and what a gig it turned out to be! Reasons we were chuffed with how this went included the wonderful luck-of-the-draw time slot we ended up with, the number of metalheads who prised themselves away from the bar to check us out (we weren’t really expecting this at all), the amazing reception we received, and the very kind reviews written after the event for Nottingham Live and Midlands Rocks.
We were very happy with how our set went, Alex’s devastating trousers notwithstanding – often the energy we try to build up gets interrupted by an equipment malfunction or us being crap at changing between songs, but for this gig it all went off without a hitch. Whitty’s zombie facepaint suited him down to the ground.
Funds raised by the day for Rock Against Child Pornography and Abuse amounted to a total of £1500 – a wonderful achievement we were very proud to be a part of.
Whitty, having forgotten about the previous days’ corpse paint, was discovered in the back of a van the following morning staring in horror at his own reflection and whimpering incoherently that he would never drink again.
Kerrang! Vintage Arts Fair
“Dale End was fucking heaving. I’ve never signed so many shoes and bellies in my life” – Whitty, frontman
We were invited by Heretic Promotions to be their representative at the Kerrang! Radio Vintage Arts Fair. At first we were that heady mixture of excited and worried – wow, Kerrang! Radio! Will anyone want to see a gig in the middle of Dale End? Will all our gear get nicked while we play? Will the weather hold out? Will stuff be thrown at us?!
It was with some trepidation, then, that we hauled our gear up the goods lift of The Square Shopping Centre in Dale End, emerged blinking into the bright sunshine, and … bloody hell, the place was rammed. Our first concern, easily dismissed.
The lovely people who’d turned out for the day hung on in their hundreds to see us. Someone had handed Whitty a radio mic, which enabled him to perform much of the set while running around the square and, at one point, while riding an onlooker’s skateboard. After our set, we were proffered with many, many things to sign – somewhat bizarrely, much of the audience seemed to want our scribblings on their shoes. And arms. And skateboard.
We love you, Birmingham!
Playing Live on BBC WM
“I was so nervous, I thought I would be sick right there in the studio before we went on.” – Joshua Watson, Guitar
The day before the release of Radiostasis, we rolled up to BBC WM with our full complement of equipment. We’d been invited to perform the EP in its entirety, live, for the thousands of listeners to BBC WM’s unsigned show. This was quite unlike anything we’d ever done before, and listening back to it, it shows – not necessarily in our playing of the songs, but we suddenly realised none of us really knew how to be interviewed. We’re pretty sure we talked total rubbish. Hopefully it wasn’t enough to put people off the music itself, which we played OK – but what an experience it was!
Kilburn Festival, London
“That drunk woman dancing around in her one-piece swimsuit had me pissing myself.” – Mez, drums
“Downright lovely.” – Whitty, frontman
We stumbled upon a slot at a free open-air festival in the summer in Kilburn Grange Park which turned out to be absolutely amazing. The weather was hot, the drinks delicious and the people many. We climbed PA stacks which were not strapped down and in so doing unwittingly endangered everyone’s lives. We gave away about 30 CDs, causing a stampede towards the stage, and in so doing unwittingly endangered everyone else’s lives.
It’s a miracle any of us made it out alive.
Sonic Rock Solstice
“Sonic Rock was amazing again this year, apart from the fact I got thrown out on the final night for bringing my own drinks in… but then again, if you play with feathers you’re going to get your arse tickled.” – Whitty, frontman
Our favourite ever full festival, we appeared on the Top Rock Radio stage for the second year and once again enjoyed it immensely. Josh and Alex got so drunk after the CH set that they can’t really remember anything. Having reviewed the evidence, we have to conclude that at some point we hung out with our good friends Dakesis…
Radiostasis & El Nibre EPs
“Our recorded output in 2011 makes me weep. It’s around an 80/20 mix of joy and horror.” – Alex Thomson, Bass
Yes, this year we released two EPs. We’re extremely pleased with how they both came out and it’s fair to say that by recording ourselves, in our own time, in our own lockup, using our own equipment, we’ve hit upon a way of working which really produces the goods. Our guitarist-cum-producer, Josh, has been able to shape our sound the old-fashioned way: by spending countless hours mixing and constructing harmonies and guitar layers during the actual recording process. This simply wouldn’t be possible for us working in a big studio, where time is quite literally money, but it’s been crucial in carving out a sound and identity which is unique to us.
This is continuing through into 2012 as we get ready to release our debut album, of which more news very soon…
Captain Horizon would like to thank all of our fans from the bottom of our hearts for an incredible year!
P, L & B
Captain Horizon
December Gigs and Album Update
As 2011 draws to a close, we’ve got four dates left this before we go away to finish the album.
Upcoming dates are Thursday 8th December at the Roadhouse Birmingham, supporting our very good friends Dakesis. We’re also making a headline appearence at Woodys Music bar on Saturday 10th December.
Followed by Friday 16th December, supporting Frantic Empire and Signify (the last gig with their current line up) at The End in Birmingham.
Our last gig of 2011 will be at The Railway Hotel in Evesham with support from The Vanguard. We hope to see you there!
The album recording has been progressing very well and we’re currently around 60% of the way through the process. We’re extremely happy with the initial feel and sound that has been captured during the sessions – we can’t wait to share it with you all!
Scruffy Murphys, Bristol Pear and Ye Olde Foundry This Weekend!
Captain Horizon’s three gig mayhem starts this evening (Friday 14th October) at Scruffy Murphys, Birmingham.
We’re headlining tonights gig, with support from Half Shot and One Notch Up. Doors are open from 8pm with an admission charge of £2.
Saturday sees Captain Horizon heading over to Selly Oak to perform at the Bristol Pear. We will be playing alongside bands Panacea Dream, Zero Amigo and guests The 7% Solution. The gig is free entry! Doors open at 8pm.
Sunday night we’re heading over to Dudley to play at Ye Old Foundry as part of a John Peel memorial gig. Other bands that are featured include our good friends Martyr De Mona and Synopsis. The first band takes to the stage at 3pm.
Midlands Rocks Review from New Disorder Festival
Midlands Rocks have posted up a review from the New Disorder Festival featuring Captain Horizon:
As the second part of the day kicked off, the room was full of anticipation. I’d say it was a 50/50 split in the room of people who have previously seen Captain Horizon and those that had heard all about them (see MR’s review of their album, Radiostasis here). They didn’t disappoint. Whitty is probably the best front man on the scene at the moment and his on stage (and off a lot of the time!) antics and banter are as much a part of this band as the music is. What about the music? A blend of alt rock, with some proggy influences but all wrapped up in a pop style sums up Captain Horizon nicely. Bouncy infectious tunes have a joyful factor to them, but throw in the occasional moodier song and you grasp the technical brilliance of this band. For me, by far the performance of the day. When is this band going to be signed? Who knows in this day and age, but with a little luck this band could be huge.
You can read the full review by Tony Gaskin and Cath Holland of the day on the Midlands Rocks website.
Live Review – New Disorder Festival
A review featuring Captain Horizon at the New Disorder Festival has been published on nottinghamlive.co.uk. Thank you to Harry Paterson for his extremely kind words!
The unique blend of alt, prog, classic rock, indie and unashamedly glorious pop that constitutes Captain Horizon’s songs is clearly made for enormadomes and for a mesmerising half-hour period, the MFN was transformed into the California Bowl.
You can read the full review of the day here.
Photography by Sue Paterson.
El Nibre EP Released!
Download the free online only ‘El Nibre EP’ from our shop!
The El Nibre EP is a free release of 4 tracks recorded during the Radiostasis sessions. We’re working on an album of new songs, but it felt wrong to abandon these ones. “Turn Away” is a fast paced but sparse rocker that alternates between threadbare verses and mammoth choruses. The title track “El Nibre” is possibly the heaviest and most frantic thing we’ve ever done, telling the story of a mythical monster/force of nature. “Climbing the Waterfall” has been a live favourite over the last year, the end of the song usually finds Whitty at the top of whatever he was able to scale in 4 1/2 minutes.
The final track, Strong Enough, is a song we’ve gone to town on. The original idea came 5 years ago, some songs just take their god damned time. We’ve not played it live much, and it’s a bit different to what we normally do, but put this on headphones late at night and sit back with a beer/ smoke/ herbs/ whisky.
We hope you enjoy this free release, leave your comments below!
Free Online EP Announced!
In light of the fact that we’re now working on our debut album, and also that we recorded ten songs when working on our last EP, Radiostasis, we’ve come to a decision. We’re going to put up a special treat for our fans very soon – a free, online-only EP!
This will consist of four songs we recorded during the Radiostasis sessions, three of which fans of Captain Horizon will hopefully be very familiar with, and one only die-hards and the psychotically devoted will really know, since we’ve hardly ever played it live – in fact we have never played it live in its current form.
As we whispered lovingly into your ears during the course of our last update, we want our first album to hang together as an album rather than just be a sort of browny-greyish song-porridge of stuff that happened to land on a disc. But we thought these four songs, which basically share no theme apart from being played by the same hands, feet and vocal cords, were pretty bloody good. What in hell’s name will we do with them, we thought. We want people to hear them, we thought.
Onto the website with them, we thought.
Track listing:
- Climbing The Waterfall
- El Nibre
- Turn Away
- Strong Enough
These will all be available as a free download as of Monday the 19th September!
What the Hell are We Doing?
Fair question. Well, we came to a startling conclusion a couple of months ago: We’ve been trying to have our cake and eat it. As an unsigned band, you have a very finite amount of time in which to practice the set you’re going to play at your next gig, AND write some new songs which don’t suck turgid bullglans. We’ve probably been guilty in the past of slightly rushing new songs purely because we got excited and wanted to play them live as soon as possible.
This in turn meant that perhaps we weren’t totally happy with every aspect of the songs we’d written before we unleashed it on the public for the first time. There were moments onstage where we’d try something brand new that we were sure would be immense. Sometimes it was immense. Sometimes it fell flat and we took it back to the practice room. Most songs DID get finished… just not until we’d been playing them live for 3 months. Some have been quietly abandoned and put to pasture to be fattened up and eaten by ravenous song ravens.
We thought if we threw them some songs and then hid, they might leave us alone.
So we’ve decided for the next batch of songs, which will one day be an album, we’re not playing any of them live at all until they’re ready.
Yes, “Will one day be an Album”. We’re making an album. Captain Horizon are making an album. Right now.
We could have released the songs we’ve already got as an album. We love them and stand by them, but it doesn’t feel right – one of the things we enjoy about playing in our band is that we don’t think of ourselves as Rock, Metal, Indie, whatever… And the songs we’ve written up ‘til now have gone through different phases as we’ve worked out who we are as a band. We don’t think they’d make sense on the same CD.
So here’s what we’re doing…
The Album:
Josh (guitar/backing vocals) had a few days off work a while back. Some of us, handed a two week stretch without anything firm to do, would complain about the loss of earnings, lie in until past noon and then loop continuously between masturbation, console gaming and the eating of crisps. Perhaps we’d rediscover a level of alcohol intake physically impossible to the gainfully employed. Perhaps we’d start actually taking sides while watching Jeremy Kyle.
No reason for this photo, I just think it's fucking cool.
The J-man steered clear of these occupations, admirable though they may be: he started going through every song idea, riff or fragment of melody he could find among the hundreds he’d recorded on his mobile phones over the past 4 years. By the time he went back to work, he had thirty song ideas. We’ve been working on them for the last couple of months, building band arrangements, deciding which ones have legs, and trying to go somewhere new with our sound.
As I write this, we’ve got something like thirteen songs in the kind of condition where until recently, we’d have played them live. But we’re holding them close to our chest for now.
What are the new songs like? Well, they’re a bit more varied than we’ve done in the past. One or two are heavy enough to sink Kent. Some are pretty enough to move old men to tears. Some are a bit proggy. Some are sweet but simple. We’ll keep you updated on our progress as we go along!
Alex
Captain Horizon
Radiostasis EP – Out Now!
Friday 15th April 2011 – Captain Horizon release the follow up to our debut EP ‘Radiostasis’!
This will be your first chance to get your hands on a copy of Captain Horizon’s new EP, Radiostasis. That’s right; after 6 months of hard work, it’s finally here!
To celebrate, we’re headlining The Temple at the HMV Institute, Digbeth, Birmingham and we’d love to see you there to join in the fun at an absolutely superb venue, with immense sound and a fantastic stage. Arguably the finest venue which still supports unsigned talent, in fact.
Track listing for the new EP as follows:
1. Stop!
2. Bring Back the Sun
3. Anxiety Breaks Us All
4. Radiostasis
At this show we’ll be pulling out all the stops in what promises to be the biggest, most important gig we’ve ever done. It’s going to be an overwhelming display of everything we’ve been working towards for the last year.
Yes, the stakes are high. So come along and help us by catching Whitty when he jumps the barrier! We’ll be taking to the stage at around 9.45pm!
The first 200 copies of the EP will be available in hard copy CD format for £3 each. After the first 200 are gone, the EP will be sold at £5 as we’re getting full litho printed replication carried out! Get your hands on one of the limited edition first pressings and own a piece of history! 
Check out the facebook event. Links for online stores will be out within the next 24/48 hours. You can check out the preview of the EP on last.fm.
You can also check out the peformance of the Radiostasis EP from BBC Radio WM Introducing on the BBC iPlayer.
Also, check out Whitty’s interview in the Birmingham Mail today!
We've yet to read it ourselves. Hopefully he's not said anything too offensive.
Radiostasis to be performed live on BBC Radio WM
Captain Horizon are very excited to be playing live on BBC West Midlands 96.5FM this evening!
We will be playing our new EP, Radiostasis, in its entirety between 10 and 11pm.
Radiostasis is released tomorrow and will be available from all major online retailers. In the meantime, tune in to 95.6 FM or on BBC iPlayer to hear the performance tonight before the release party at the HMV Institute tomorrow!
This is our first ever non-acoustic live radio session and we just can’t wait!
Update:
You can now catch the session on the BBC iPlayer for the next 7 days.