pencil
pencil is Kamran Khan (vocals, acoustic guitar), Dom Potts (bass), Thomas Fiquet (drums), Cai Burns (lead guitar), and Coco Inman (violin). New bands rarely form later down the line; but as a circle of working musicians, pencil have been drawn to create and explore together.
With an eclectic range of influences, the five-piece have already established their self-professed “dusty” sound: percussive brushwork in dialogue with cushioned bass, the present bloom of airy vocals, sprawling guitars and violin trading airs in expressive swells and flurries. pencil fill space thoughtfully, with each member meshing timbres to create an emotional and textural gestalt.
pencil is part of a wave of exciting London bands bringing a sense of romance and melodicism back to the indie scene after recent years of post-punk revivalism. Gracing festivals and venues across the UK and Europe with their ensemble synergy, pencil have built a reputation as an enthralling and unmissable live act. The band played packed-out shows at Green Man and The Great Escape before releasing music.
In October 2023, the quintet went big with their arresting début single, 'The Giant,’ spotlit by a billowing violin arpeggio and the bare grace of its vocals: Clash called it ‘bold, uncompromising artistry.’ The success of their first Moshi Moshi release whisked pencil out on the road to tour with The Japanese House. Following up with the melancholic groove of ‘The Window,’ pencil won even more appeal and support at the start of 2024. Shortly after So Young praised the ‘understated majesty’ of the second single, the band also secured a showcase 6 Music Session with Marc Riley.
Now pencil is ready to unveil a brand-new, six-track EP, Bohemian Clutter. With its oneiric sensibilities, the band’s latest offering takes inspiration from Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf (a line from which gives the EP its title). Like the uncanniness of the novel, Bohemian Clutter explores the gauzy line between reality and fantasy.
This release continues a sense of melodic worldbuilding that is both observational and introspective. The band completed the main tracking for it in a single afternoon with Polly Mackey (Art School Girlfriend), then decorated the live recordings with her before it was mixed by Luciano Rossi (Mui Zyu). Bohemian Clutter opens with an invitation to hold ‘The Pencil:’ an evocative single which flows and surges with the stirring patterns that hallmark the record.
Emerging spontaneously during recent writing sessions at PRAH Studios in Margate, ‘Sparkling Water’ demonstrates the band’s collective songwriting. Its spongy, shuffling rhythm and mellow Rhodes recalls the lounge-like shimmer of Stereolab and provides a foil to the poignant riffs and overtones of ‘Fantasy.’
Bohemian Clutter plays with the phantasmagorical sense that music can be seen – in ‘Silent Corners’ a stringed breeze flutters through the intro before coiling round a feline breakbeat. In the sepia cityscape it conjures, misty vocals coalesce around the glassy interplay of guitars before building up to a swirling, cascade of sound. Elsewhere, ambient interlude ‘The Fork’ – originally conceived as a stage-tuning segue – evolves from the alchemy of pencil’s live show.
Frequently ending sets with ‘Honest Song,’ Bohemian Clutter closes with its swaying, oceanic wistfulness. Tremolo bowing morphs into pizzicato, gasping acoustic arpeggios set off the atmospheric breakup of the lead phrases; the refined thrum of the bassline cementing the breathy entreaties of the lyrics until everything slowly builds to a full crescendo, which falls back to the bridge in perfect bathos.
Pensive, sincere, and lusciously elegiac, Bohemian Clutter encapsulates the interactive density of pencil’s sound. In its atmosphere and songwriting there is something distinctive about this EP; it cracks open the band’s sonic dreams and opens itself up to the dawning future of a statement album.