BIG EYES / BIG EYES FAMILY PLAYERS BIOGRAPHY

 In 1999, James Green finally plucked up the courage (after much procrastinating) to commit two songs to tape that had been buzzing round his head for a few years. ‘Big Eyes’ and ‘The Boo Girl’ were born and, soon after, James realised that recording was actually quite fun and proceeded to record a few more songs. Word had somehow got around about this project (not that it was particularly a secret) and a live invitation popped through the door. James quickly realised that he needed a band and, thanks to some talented friends, Big Eyes took shape.

 The music emerged from a love of classical forms, probably instigated by seemingly endless car journeys as a child with Elgar on the stereo. James was keen to make his own ‘classical’ music but, with no classical training nor even the ability to read music, the result was not exactly the Enigma Variations. The actual sound was probably closer to Tindersticks’ more intimate instrumental moments or perhaps the Dirty Three in a music box, with violin, harmonium and guitar as the epicentre. A smart reviewer once noted that the group sounded like ‘a blind man conducting the saddest orchestra you can imagine’.

 To boil down the Big Eyes essence you’d perhaps need to focus in on kitchen-sink melancholia of Mike Leigh, the spartan folk of Shirley and Dolly Collins, the puzzling prose of Paul Auster and perhaps the sheer oddness of Czech animator Jan Svankmaker. Not a combination that sits very easily together in writing, granted, but then the music doesn’t really ‘sit’. It fidgits.

 The group played live all over the UK in various forms (most notably with Daniel Johnson at his UK debut) and released four albums on UK label Pickled Egg Records (‘Big Eyes Songs’, ‘Clumsy Music’, ‘Love Is Gone Mad’ and ‘We Have No Need For Voices When Our Hearts Can Sing’). The music spread out past its initial premise and involved more complex string arrangements, guest musicians and the occasional vocal.

 In 2004, James called it a day with Big Eyes. The group had pretty much run its course and a change of direction was needed. So, in its place, James decided to form a collaboration project and called it The Big Eyes Family Players. The group was formed around James and his Big Eyes co-pilot, David Jaycock, and, for the first recordings featured a bunch of gifted individuals they had got to know along the way, including Jeremy Barnes (A Hawk And A Hacksaw), Rachel Grimes (Rachel’s), James Yorkston, James William Hindle and Suzy Mangion. The resulting album ‘Do The Musiking’ (again released on Pickled Egg) was a sprawl of klezmer, chamber music, minimalist lullabies and full-on hoe-downs/rock-outs, as if Big Eyes had been left at the back of the fridge, morphing and mutating into new musical creatures.

 Since then TBEFP have recorded/released two more albums, ‘Donkeysongs’ and ‘Warm Room’, and followed the collaboration branch by creating an album of old folk songs with James Yorkston, appropriately called ‘Folk Songs’, which will be released on Domino in August 2009.

LINKS

Big Eyes/The Big Eyes Family Players official website

Big Eyes/The Big Eyes Family Players on Myspace