The Leeds Gig Guide

Band Biography for the horn the hunt:

The Horn The Hunt are a pop band from Leeds, England, comprising of Clare Carter & Joseph Osborne. On stage, they are joined by Conor Lawrence on the drums. They débuted with the eponymous "The Horn The Hunt" album (independently released, Aug 2009), followed a second album, "Depressur Jolie" (23 May 2011, White Label Music).

“The Horn The Hunt make their music atmospheric, but not in the same way that the current wave of witch house are. Instead of slowing down & distorting samples, there’s a building presence that runs through their tracks, nuanced arrangements that serve to engulf rather than overawe.” - Pigeon Post

“Depressur Jolie is the first pre-conceived album we’ve written together. After releasing our 2009 début and establishing ourselves as a band, we knew exactly what we wanted our next album to be about. It would be colourful and bouncy with lots of different forms and textures, but have this dark underbelly throughout. We wanted to make a big pop album – our ideal pop album – full of bold, aggressive songs that have no loyalty to any particular sound or style. To us the album is like a colonial voyage, all steeped in British ambition and guilt. It starts with this ship sailing out over huge waves in the opening track, then land is sighted, we go ashore on this tropical volcanic island and bump into predators and carnivorous plants - the usual adventure story. There are a few battles, lava’s flowing into the sea, coconuts are running out, you start to question why you left your home, homesickness descends.” explains visual artist Clare.

"Raptor", the first single from "Depressur Jolie", includes two remixes from producer Dean Honer (I Monster / Human League).

The Horn The Hunt first began writing and recording songs in a flat in Sandnes, Norway in early 2008. Their music has taken them on a journey – literally. During their travels the duo have been inspired by and written songs in places ranging from the frozen tundra of Greenland to a room carved into the side of a canyon in the middle of Spain, before finally settling into the bedroom studio in Leeds, where they are now based.

“When we returned to England after traveling for three years it felt like a huge adjustment going back to a regular job and domestic life. Like being sat in a cage made of pound coins, with loads of TVs and newspapers surrounding it. You can watch everything going on and educate yourself about things but you can’t move from your designated place,” says Clare. “I made the decision to take singing and song-writing seriously, and to start performing. It was a big scary deal to me, like a ‘coming-out’ process of being exposed, thrown into the deep end.”

The Horn The Hunt’s influences run the gamut, from the shadowy drama of Kate Bush and David Lynch, to the jagged snarl of Rammstein / The Fall / Babes In Toyland and the pastoral elegance of The Knife and 19th-century Russian landscape painters Melanie and Goya. The Horn The Hunt’s songs are equally magical and accessible, reminiscent of long forgotten folk stories, embellished with futuristic sounds and contemporary beats. They are continuing in a long tradition of analogue synth mastery – their record label, White Label Music is co-headed by Ann Shenton, of Mute Records electronic pioneers, Add N To (X).

In November 2011, they parted ways with their record label and are currently writing new material for their third album, to be released in 2012.

Sites: SoundCloud, Twitter & theHornTheHunt.com (official).

User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.