VH

"this pair of supremely talented troubadours are Ned and Vedantha..."

August and After are Ned Mortimer and Vedantha Kumar, an acoustic folk guitar duo based in London, with close harmonies and intricate guitar on a layer of piano, strings and brass.

What would you say are your signature traits as a band?

Vedantha: I guess our core sound consist of vocal and guitar harmonies ('guitar-monies' as Ned likes to say...), with cello and violin lines rising and falling on top. But on our upcoming album, 'Embers', we also have brass, piano and all sorts of other instruments! As a band more generally one key trait, and one we are proud of, is that we have a very collaborative approach. We have been fortunate to meet some really talented artists, who have helped with everything from designing our logo and album cover to making animation music videos. We also have an artwork platform accompanying Embers where artists have sent us pieces of art to accompany each song.

Ned: We have had a deceptively easy relationship over the album recording process… I think Vedantha would agree that we’re both very strong minded and have had different musical upbringings – I was more classically trained in my youth, whereas Vedantha just wanted to be Tupac – so we expected some clashes of ideas when arranging and producing the songs. There’s a lot of the usual ‘banter’ going on, and I sometimes feel like I have to mother Vedantha to stop ourselves from missing trains etc, but we have a deep-rooted respect for each other. We also know one another's amusing characteristics so we tend to play them up a bit on stage :)

What would you say to yourselves three years ago when you formed?

Ned: Let the sound and the image/personality of the band develop more organically, rather than trying to force a particular direction or style. We feel like we’ve struck a good balance now between being focussed and serious about our music and being playful and fun in how we put ourselves across to our fans. The music itself should show the former, whilst the latter comes out in our jokey videos and stage personas. In addition, as Vedantha mentioned, we have focussed heavily on collaborating as much as possible, so we’d probably have encouraged ourselves to do that from as early as possible.

What exciting things do you have planned in the near future?

Vedantha: LOTS! We are more excited right now than when Pokemon Red came out…Very soon we will be offering a pre-release of our debut album, Embers (which will be officially released on 1st August 2013). Later this month we will filming a contemporary dance music video for 'Gleam Behind the Ghosts' in conjunction with the UCL Dance Society and Tripos Productions, a Cambridge-University based film team. And we have started rehearsing with some new musicians to help bring the large, orchestral sound on our record into our live shows.

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from August and After, The Orchard

past interviews:

Hunter as a Horse - 03/2013