Furrowed Brow: Tracks That Shaped My Sound

Furrowed Brow have just released their second single for 2023: 'OUTDOORS MAN' An off-the-wall paean to the great stones and valleys of England channelling Post-and Proto punk with a healthy dose of glamorous knob-twiddling in between. We spoke to him about the tracks that shaped their sound.

JULIAN COPE – PSYCHEDELIC ODIN

Julian Cope’s released many an epic rustic song in his time and I could have chosen any one of them really; Psychedelic Odin seems apt because it’s from the very first album of his I heard, and listening to his music led to reading his book The Modern Antiquarian, which got me interested in prehistory which ultimately led to me becoming an archaeologist. In fact the main vocal hook of Outdoors Man popped into my head whilst I was on one of my big walks zigzagging between megalithic monuments so it must be all Copey’s fault.

HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT – LORD HEREFORD’S KNOB

Another dose of 80s postpunk blokes teleported to 2008. Half Man Half Biscuit write funny, insightful, sardonic lyrics and this song has an appropriate outdoorsy subject matter. I love how they include lots of real places, little details and local mores and manners in their songs – they remind me of The Kinks in that way and I try to include stuff like that in my lyrics whenever I can.

VERONICA FALLS – FOUND LOVE IN A GRAVEYARD

I used to really love this band when they were around in the early 2010s and I went to see them whenever I could. I like their dark, pining, melancholy lyrics as well as their amazing vocal harmonies and this song sums that all up quite well.

KING CRIMSON – IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING

Outdoors Man has a lot of common with this In The Court Of The Crimson King, from the stop-start structure to the quasi-mystical lyrics to the lovely Mellotron swashed all over it. We tried to infuse the production of our track with the distilled vibe of the mighty Krim, poised as they were on the knife edge between prog and psychedelia, to create something weird, undulating and – dare we suggest it – danceable?!

THE FALL – CARRY BAG MAN

As banal as it is to bring The Fall into things and as much as I’m ashamed to have to do it, it would be remiss not to mention them as they’re probably the first thing anyone thinks of when they hear our new single. I don’t know where that vocal hook came from but it was probably a bit of a piss-take of Mark E Smith, obviously I love The Fall so it must have just filtered through. My friend Mark (not the same one) says Outdoors Man sounds exactly like Carry Bag Man; I can’t hear it myself but they’ve both got ‘Man’ in the title and the song just so happens to be from the first Fall album I ever heard so it’s as good as any to include here. See what you think!

Check out their latest track here: