OXBOW Debut “The Night The Room Started Burning”

“Lyrically it’s a purposeful take on Johnny Hartman’s ‘The Day the World Stopped Turning’ but instead of the power of love to alter our proximal relationships it’s, in my mind, all about the incendiary nature of suchlike love,” explains Eugene Robinson. “It fulfills specifically because it fills you with that which burns. And that’s something that absolutely no one slow walks.”

Niko Wenner adds: “I began the music for ‘The Night The Room Started Burning’ on my fathers old folk/classical nylon string guitar, a tune to amuse my young son. My mother played clarinet in high school but it was my father who took me to see my first string quartet concert in Seattle when I was a kid, and who inspired my love for classical music. Including, as an influence heard in this song, baroque period music. “What’s not to like about baroque music? You can dance to it, it’s got a beat!”

And you can hear the steady dance rhythm in Room Burning. And a bit of baroque style in the way the guitar line sounds like two voices in a call and response, first higher “bah bah dee bah dee dee,” and the second, lower, answering the first and going down “BAH BAH BAH.” And of course the choir. The elephant in the room here is the guy whose name we should never speak in the same breath as our own, from humility, and respect. I’ll only say that the devine music of baroque composer J.S. Bach would by itself seem to prove the existence of what for lack of a better word, we call God. Q.E.D.? FIIK.”

September 1 Glasgow, UK Broadcast

September 2 Birmingham, UK Supersonic Festival

September 3 Leeds, UK Brudenell Social Club

September 4 Bristol, UK Exchange

September 5 London, UK Studio 9294

September 6 Kortrijk, BE Wilde Western

September 7 Brussels, BE Botanique

September 8 Nijmegen, NL Merleyn

September 9 Tetange, LU Human’s World Festival (free entry)

September 10 Bochum, DE Die Trompete

September 11 Vienna, AT Volkstheatre Rote Bar

September 12 Wroclaw, PL Liverpool

September 13 Warsaw, PL Hydrozagadka

September 14 Berlin, DE Roadrunners Paradise

September 15 Hamburg, DE Hafenklang

September 16 Aalborg, DK Lasher Fest

U.S. Tour Dates:

October 20 Philadelphia, PA PhilaMOCA

October 21 Portland, ME SPACE

October 22 Brooklyn, NY Elsewhere

November 9 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall

November 10 Los Angeles, CA Regent Theatre

November 11 Mesa, AZ Pub Rock

Love’s Holiday cover by Aaron Turner

Photo credit: Phil Sharp

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