Samurai Kip’s Jamie Lindberg
Samurai Kip bassist Jamie Lindberg aims to beat the isolation blues with The Quarantine Collaborative, Getintothis’ Alex Holmes reports.
The sunshine might have tempted us all outside, but the news is filled with images of strangely empty beaches and deserted roads; likewise the nation’s clubs and music venues stand idle, with musicians locked away behind closed doors.
In response, the solo acoustic live-stream may already fast be becoming ubiquitous, but many enterprising musicians are finding more creative new ways to cope with the current ‘lock-down’ conditions; bands like Elbow and District are streaming pre-taped shows, and Radiohead are sharing their acres of archive live footage with fans.
Now into the fray leaps Jamie Lindberg, bassist with Merseyside jazz-funk outfit Samurai Kip.
After ending 2019 on a high note tearing up their hometown’s Outpost (alongside Jamie’s other band, The Floormen), the fourpiece – Jamie, rhythm-section brother Michael, and singer Aiden McGuire’s gruff vocals and soaring, psychedelic jazz-meets-rock-meets-funk guitar capped by Charly Reed’s trombone – had their two most recent single releases postponed by the current Covid-19 lockdown.
Still, refusing to let Corona-induced isolation get him down, Jamie instead launched the interactive Quarantine Collaborative to make new music via Soundcloud.
Jamie says: “The project was an idea I had when I was quarantined at my parents’ house following an operation. I wasn’t around anyone, and only had a limited amount of music gear and recording equipment, but I still really wanted to make music.”
“So I just thought ‘why not create something that everyone can get involved in, and make something positive out of these negative times?’”
“The idea is that I’d get someone to send me a drum track that I’d then cut up and add chords to, to make up a ‘base track’, and that’s then re-uploaded to SoundCloud for people to download and add their parts to, then they email their parts back to me, without knowing what anyone else has done, and I arrange them all and create a song out of it.”
Already one track down, Jamie adds “It turned out way better than I expected! That first tune came out beautifully, with a great mixture of musicians from different backgrounds, including an amazing vocal from Martha from The Hushtones and Jacob, aka Wizold Sage, and a lovely guitar part from Simon Dale and keys from Andrew Wileman, and to be honest all the other parts were great as well.
“The second track had a more hip-hoppy vibe, which got a great lead vocal from Remy Jude; now I’ve got loads more to come. I want to get some more tracks up soon and keep this moving throughout the quarantine. By the end of it, I’d love to mix all the tracks properly and get a full album worth of tunes coming out by the end of it; I wanna hone my production skills as much as possible, and this is a great way to do that because I have a lot of different things to work with, as well as it being a greatly positive creative outlet!”
You can hear the Quarantine Collaborative now here.
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