Issue 75 / March 2017

ASTLES
Storytelling and classic
songcraft in perfect harmony.
Dan Astles looks right at home leafing through the
record stacks in Jacaranda Records, giving off the
air of a seasoned musician despite being in the early
stages of his career. We’ve met to discuss the first
fruits of his journey as ASTLES, an EP of bristling, reverb-laden
pop recorded at the Scandinavian Church, which marks the first
chapter of what already looks to be a promising career. We head
downstairs in search of a more forgiving acoustic environment,
and as we hunch over a battered and antiquated table in the
historic Jacaranda basement, Dan attempts to tally the countless
times he’s played within these walls. While only 18, Dan has
been writing since the age of 13, his teenage years spent refining
his sound at open mic nights in places such as The Jac. He’s even
been attempting to create his own music community near his
home in Southport, and the open mic events he’s put on so far
have already taught him the importance of hard work and not
settling for a feeling of comfort.
That reassuring comfort comes with familiarity and repetition,
something that is abundant in his sleepy, predictable, seaside
hometown. His experiences in places like The Jacaranda have
inspired Dan to catalyse a scene within Southport, starting
with his regular open mic nights in The Hideout bar. “[It’s] a
place where people can go to play, and feel like they’re a part of
something, and be around like-minded people,” he explains about
the ethos of his Hideout Acoustic Sessions nights. “That wasn’t
there when I was 15, I always needed to go to Liverpool because
there was nothing going on in Southport.”
The lack of activity in the area drove Dan to run the tracks
into the city in a pursuit of new experiences, people and sounds.
“For me, Liverpool was the centre of the world, I couldn’t get
enough of it. The amount of times I’ve caught the last train
home to spend as much time here as possible, it’s so many.”
Liverpool has been a key inspiration for Astles as an artist too,
expanding his mind both musically and socially. Every other
sentence he utters is infused with a boundless enthusiasm for
the city and its recent knack for harbouring young talent; he
lists Silent Cities, Thom Morecroft, LUMEN and Eleanor Nelly as
key influences who have left their mark on him. After becoming
acquainted with many of the acts currently on the scene, Dan has
not only learned a lot from them, he is now using them as a bar
to measure himself against. “Having these people around you,
who you think are amazing, encourages you to improve.” He also
praises the support available to young artists in the form of LIMF
Academy, Merseyrail Sound Station and the nurturing creative
local environment. He credits these as a stimulant for the recent
wave of acts being recognised by the music industry, such as MiC
Lowry, Clean Cut Kid and XamVolo.
Having been involved in the LIMF Academy last year and
having impressed the judges enough at the Merseyrail Sound
Station Festival to be crowned its 2016 winner, Astles is
starting to turn heads of his own. Off the back of this
achievement, he’s set to release his first recorded EP in March
– Live At The Nordic – which comes with a launch show at
Liverpool’s Small Cinema. Featuring only Dan and his guitar, the
EP’s five tracks were recorded in the Gustav Adolf Church on
Park Lane with Michael Johnson of Tankfield Studios, a producer
and engineer who’s worked with the likes of New Order and Joy
Division. The Nordic church proved to be the perfect location
for Dan’s pained vocals, and the oceans of reverb it created
have expanded into thick, atmospheric sonic depths. There are
touches of Amen Dunes’ Damon McMahon in Castles’ evocative
introspection, and even something of Damien Rice’s pained
troubadour on Time Forgot.
The ethereal sound that has become Astles’ trademark is
something Dan has refined over his years of gigging solo. Playing
soft, reverb-honeyed songs, in an attempt to stand out amongst
most acoustic guitar open mic acts, he aims to harbour a fragility
and a pureness. “It just makes everything sound bigger – and
I wanted to play something different and more intriguing,” he
explains. “Jeff Buckley was able to capture that mood of him and
his guitar. It’s so powerful, but people can miss that, because it’s
so simple.”
Creating a strong, colourful and vivid picture is something
that also seems fundamental to Dan’s fascination with music. That
storyteller’s craft of acquainting the listener with the character and
setting is a skill that shows up time and again in Astles’ songs. A
defining memory for Dan is listening to his parents’ records as a
child. “I remember being really little, and being sat in the back of
my dad’s car and hearing Piano Man. The way he describes the
characters, you can feel and see them in your head. I remember
thinking that’s an amazing thing to do within a three or fiveminute
song.” As he grew older he started to search for his own
influences, in the form of Bob Dylan, John Martyn and Elliot Smith,
further feeding his hunger for storytelling in music. He explored
literature as another medium by which to exercise his obsession for
imagery and narrative. Classic novels such as The Catcher In The
Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird inspired him to recreate the impact
of those stories in a shorter, simplified song format. The ability of
encapsulating an array of characters, messages and emotions, and
portraying them in such a simple format, is something he found
overwhelming when listening to artists like Bob Dylan. “The fact
that people can write songs that takes a film three hours, or a book
400 pages, that’s something that’s really inspiring to me, being
able to say something that quickly and that strongly.”
The music making process is as important to Astles as the
presentation of it, whether it be live or recorded. After enrolling
in a Music Technology course in Liverpool, he’s now cultivating
the art of production, tailoring different sounds, and exercising a
new form of experimentation. “Now I’ve got better at production,
some of my ideas come from hours spent at my computer.
Fiddling around with sounds, I can build upon the ideas I have
with just me and my guitar.”
“It’s so powerful,
but people can miss
that, because it’s so
simple”
While only just starting to make his mark upon Liverpool,
pages are being turned towards the next Astles chapter. Already
eyeing up his future, he’d like his next batch of EPs to adopt
individual concepts, more like cinematic entities and short stories.
He also expresses his will to not be restricted by orthodox band
set-ups, with a desire to incorporate grand string sections and
layered percussion high on his agenda. A reference point he
draws on is the latest Bon Iver release, 22, A Million: “It’s stripped
back, but still has all these ideas coming from all over the place.
That sound that is so raw, but still so considered.” In taking notes
from the great novelists and songwriters of the last century and
this, Astles has set his heights high, but his ambition is clear. !
Words: Jonny Winship / @jmwinship
Photography: Nata Moraru / facebook.com/NataMoraruPhoto
soundcloud.com/astlesmusic
The Live At The Nordic EP comes out on 14th March,
with an EP launch show at The Small Cinema on 30th March.
FEATURE 30