Bristol | Farm Girl and Yosada Records
MYSPACE
Hunting Lodge were formed in 2004, as a poor excuse for founding members Paul Brown and Dan Chandler to indulge their tastes for post punk, The Jesus Lizard, Arab on Radar and attention seeking idiot-theatrics. Now, after 5 years and a series of line-up changes, only the latter remains a recognisable influence.
A year later, having settled into it’s current line-up, of Dan Chandler, Seth Cooke, Clive Henry and Dan Bennett, Hunting Lodge began to tour the UK and europe gaining a reputation as an unpredictable live band dealing in chaos, noise and cheap transcendence. Bored of the tropes of angry-white-man rock and more intent on getting a crowd to react, and ideally dance, the band began to sculpt their noise into rhythmic and melodic hooks, stolen or adapted from anthemic rock, house music, Albert Ayler, and chart R&B. This approach produced the material on their second album, Energy Czar, which saw them make the Radio 1 Peel Memorial festive 50 and rerelease the album in America through Yosada Records.
After Energy Czar however, the difficulty of practicing together while dispersed across the UK meant that the band temporarily split for a year. They finally deciding to reform, only without rehearsals when offered a gig by Bristol’s Illegal Seagull clubnight. The band now plays largely improvised sets, drawing from a stock of elements from album tracks, covers and blind chance. Despite a stint backing Damo Suzuki, as one band in his ever-changing “network”, Jazz Oddyssey indulgence has largely been avoided in favour of hooks and big satisfying rhythms, all tempered by inate contrariness, and a taste for the always hovering threat of collapse.
Hunting Lodge are currently working on new tracks with Bristolian-savant and plague bearer Team Brick.
