Blood Red Shoes

Blood Red Shoes
Background information
Origin	Brighton, England
Genres	Alternative rock, indie rock, garage rock, noise pop
Years active	2004–present
Labels	V2 Cooperative Music, Jazz Life
Associated acts	Shit Girlfriend, Pulled Apart By Horses, Drenge, DZ Deathrays, The Wytches, Slaves, Wallace Vanborn, 1984, Rolo Tomassi, Maximo Park, Biffy Clyro, The Gaslight Anthem, Foals
Members	Laura-Mary Carter Steven Ansell

Blood Red Shoes are an alternative rock duo from Brighton, England consisting of Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell. They have released four full-length albums, Box of Secrets (2008), Fire Like This (2010), In Time to Voices (2012), and Blood Red Shoes (2014) as well as several EPs and a number of singles.^[1] In 2014, they founded their own label, Jazz Life.^[2][3]

Overview

Formation

Blood Red Shoes formed in late 2004, after Steven Ansell and Laura-Mary Carter's previous bands (Cat on Form and Lady Muck respectively) broke up and they decided to "have a jam".^[4] In an interview in Berlin, Carter explained that the band's name was taken from a Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire musical, in which Ginger Rogers had turned a pair of white dancing shoes red with blood due to the amount of dancing she had done practicing for the role.^[5]

The band openly support anti-fascist campaigns such as Love Music Hate Racism,^[6] contributing on the second CD of the 2007 LMHR compilation album with the track "Can't Find the Door",^[7] and have also played the feminist festival Ladyfest in the past.^[8]

Early singles

They released their debut single "Victory for the Magpie" on 18 July 2005, followed by the double A-side "Stitch Me Back / Meet Me at Eight" then "A.D.H.D", both released on Try Harder, and "You Bring Me Down" on Drowned in Sound / Abeano/XL in 2006. After playing over 300 live shows around the UK,^[4] they were signed to V2 in April 2007 with whom they released the singles "It's Getting Boring by the Sea" (11 June 2007) and "I Wish I Was Someone Better" (29 October 2007), as well as the singles compilation album I'll Be Your Eyes on 25 June 2007.

The band featured on both days of the 2007 Camden Crawl,^[9] playing the Purple Turtle and the Earl of Camden respectively, and were one of four bands to play the NME New Music Tour 2007, with The Little Ones, Pull Tiger Tail and The Rumble Strips.^[10] The summer of 2007 saw the band playing several festival spots, including T in the Park, the inaugural Underage Festival,^[11] and the Electric Gardens festival. They also supported a wide range of bands, such as Biffy Clyro, Maxïmo Park,^[12] Panic! at the Disco, Lightning Bolt, The Gossip, Siouxsie Sioux and Rage Against the Machine.

Box of Secrets

Following the sale of V2 to Universal Music Group, the band's début album Box of Secrets was released on Mercury Records on 14 April 2008.^[13] It was leaked to private torrent trackers in November 2007, several months before its retail release date. The band have commented that although they have no issue with file sharing and downloading free music, having their début album become available outside of their control and without the intended artwork and lyric booklet was a disappointment. Laura-Mary Carter from the band has designed the record sleeve for every release by the band.

They played a nine-date tour of the UK,^[14] in support of the album, followed by dates across mainland Europe and Japan. They played major international festivals including Reading and Leeds, Summer Sonic, Pukkelpop, Lowlands and Melt!.

Fire Like This

After their autumn-winter tour of 2008, which covered over 12 countries, the band took a performance stop in the first months of 2009 to write songs for their next record. They began touring again in March 2009,^[15] introducing new songs at every gig, sometimes including unfinished songs or those without lyrics. They opened for Foals in Brighton in 2009 to road-test some new material by playing all new songs except for "It's Getting Boring by the Sea" and "This Is Not For You". On 17 May 2009, the band played All Tomorrow's Parties (ATP festival), having been invited to play by The Breeders.^[16] The band recorded their second album with Mike Crossey at the Motor Museum studio in Liverpool. They also contributed an instrumental track called "Carry Knots" on a compilation CD for Audioscope, in aid of the homeless charity Shelter, which was released in October 2009.^[17]

On 25 November 2009, the band made a new track, "Colours Fade", available to download from their website.^[18] Independent music webzine The Music Magazine commented that the band's sound had been boosted. Author Jamie Smith wrote: "It takes the tried and tested BRS formula and as they say, turns it up to eleven. It’s seven minutes long. It pretty much defines epic. It sounds HUGE."^[19]

The album's first single "Light It Up" premiered on 5 January 2010 on Radio 1 by Huw Stephens filling in for Zane Lowe. The single was released on 22 February, one week before the release of their second album Fire Like This on 1 March 2010. Further singles "Don't Ask" and "Heartsink" were released in May and August respectively, which was followed by a European and North American tour in October. In September 2010, the band recorded a few new songs which they hope to release as an EP.

In 2010, the band's song "It's Getting Boring by the Sea" featured in the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. It is included on the film's official soundtrack and the band also attended the film's UK premiere in London. Director Edgar Wright is a fan of the band and decided to include it after seeing them live. The same song was also featured in an episode of Misfits, plus later in 2010 the song "When We Wake" was used in the TV show Huge and "Colours Fade" was used in CSI: NY in Season 8.

In Time To Voices

The band spent most of 2011 writing new songs. After spending the summer playing various festivals, they played their last show of 2011 on 17 September and began recording the album a few weeks later at The Motor Museum studio in Liverpool, again with Mike Crossey, who also produced Box of Secrets and Fire Like This. Recording started on 18 October 2011.^[20] On 12 December 2011, the band revealed the first teaser from the album on their website, with a video from the studio, with 3 more videos to be revealed before the album's release. During early January 2012, the band recorded b-sides, bonus tracks and alternate versions of songs for the album's release.^[21]

On 24 January 2012, the band's new single, "Cold" was premiered on BBC Radio 1 by Zane Lowe and their third album, In Time to Voices, was officially announced with a release date of 26 March 2012.^[22] The album's first single, "Cold", is due to be released on 19 March.^[23]

In a press release, Carter described the album: ”With this album we totally threw out the rulebook of how we write and record. We decided we wanted to make a really ambitious record, not something which reflects our live show but something which is only limited by our imaginations and not by how many instruments we use onstage. We figured the best way to push ourselves forward was to write the best possible songs and melodies we could – once you have that as your foundation, you have the freedom to go anywhere with the sounds you use. We feel like a totally different band now.”^[24]

The band toured worldwide in support of the album and released it via Downtown Records in North America in July 2012.

An EP of new songs, entitled Water, was released on 21 January 2013 as a follow up to In Time to Voices.^[25] It was released on limited edition red 10" vinyl and download and was recorded and produced by John Congleton during the band's USA leg of the tour.

Blood Red Shoes (self-titled album)

They released a new single from the album, "The Perfect Mess" on 1 December 2013. After 10 QR codes were found in different cities across the world, the song was released on their website. Two days later, the band released the details of their fourth, self-titled album. Recorded over a 6-month period in Berlin, the album was entirely self-produced and engineered by the band themselves. The album was released on 3 March 2014 on CD and vinyl. The special edition includes a live album entitled 14 Photographs, with recordings taken from the band's European tour in late 2012.

Tied at the Wrist and fifth studio album

After an extensive touring schedule to support their fourth album, the band began writing new songs during Summer 2015. The band released a digital-only album of rarities called Tied at the Wrist on 27 November 2015. The compilation features ten songs from the first three years of the band, remixed and remastered from the original analogue tapes. This is intended as a lowkey stopgap release between the self-titled album and the band's fifth studio album, which is being written and recorded in Los Angeles during Winter 2015/16. ^[26]

The band continued working on their fifth album during the remainder of 2016, while maintaining their label Jazz Life, releasing music by Tigercub, Raketkanon, MarthaGunn, Abbatoir Blues and Our Girl. Carter started a side-project called Shit Girlfriend with Natalie Chahal and performed a series of solo shows. Shit Girlfriend released their debut single "Mummy's Boy" on Jazz Life in February 2017. In April 2017, the band announced that their first single in over two years "Eye To Eye" would be premiered on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 radio show. The song was released as a single immediately thereafter. On May 19, they released a second single from their forthcoming album, "Bangsar", a day before their headline set at The Great Escape festival. The set was played in chronological order, with the new songs placed at the end, and was livestreamed on the band's Facebook page.^[27] For the new songs, the longtime duo were accompanied by members of Tigercub and Clarence Clarity, as the songs are too complicated for only two people to play.

Musical style

Blood Red Shoes are labelled under genres such as alternative rock,^[28][29][30] indie rock,^[31][32] garage rock,^[33][34] and noise pop.^[15][35] According to their AllMusic biography, the band includes influences from punk rock and shoegazing.^[36]

The band cite a large swathe of US-based underground punk and rock music as their primary influence, drawing inspiration from Babes in Toyland, Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, Q and not U, Pixies, Fugazi and Sonic Youth, although they also regularly highlight English artists Blur and PJ Harvey as music heroes. The band frequently distance themselves from current English guitar music and consider themselves to be a punk band, in ethos and attitude, if not in their immediate musical style. Blood Red Shoes deal with themes of frustration, anger, alienation, boredom, doubt, psychosis, confusion, escape and ultimately the hope of freedom or change, in their lyrics.

Discography

Studio albums

Extended plays

• Water (21 January 2013)

Singles

Compilations

• I'll Be Your Eyes – (V2 Records) 25 June 2007
• Tied at the Wrist - (Jazz Life) 26 November 2015

Other appearances

• The Gaslight Anthem - Halloween (fan-only 7") - Laura-Mary Carter sings guest vocals
• 1984, "Influenza" (album) - January 2013 - produced by Steven Ansell and Laura-Mary Carter
• Us Baby Bear Bones, "Usari" EP - May 2014 - produced by Steven Ansell
• Thumpers "Together" EP - 9 November 2014 - Laura-Mary Carter sings guest vocals on Parachute

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Blood Red Shoes.

• Official Website
• Interview, February 2010
• Interview At Rock City (Nottingham) By Scorpio Review – March 2010