The Afternoons

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New Single Out 26th October

The Afternoons are currently recording for a new album to be released in the summer of 2010. Its first single, I Want it Anyway, is released digitally on October 26th. The track is accompanied by new Welsh language song Amser i Reidio and both are available from iTunes

Friends bonded by a love of 60s pop, early Roxy Music and curry, the Afternoons formed in 1999. A Radio 1 session led to their first single, A Change in Season, being chosen as one of the NME’s singles of the week in August 2000 (“A black and white film of a song; it hurts so good.”). The band subsequently released a clutch of singles on Cardiff indie FFVinyl, as well as the 2001 album The Days We Found in the Sun (“The most fully formed low-key debut album since Belle and Sebastian’s Tigermilk” - Metro). Also in 2001, after a Time Out preview of a London show, the Afternoons signed with Tokyo-based Excellent Records, who have subsequently released all their albums in Japan.

In September 2003 the band’s second album, My Lost City, was described in a four star Drowned in Sound review as “a skyward-gazing celebration of love… skewed and insanely catchy.” National monthlies Bang and Uncut also awarded the album four stars.

The following summer saw the release of the Fading Fast e.p., the title track of which was sung by Sub Pop’s Rosie Thomas. In June 2005 the third Afternoons album, Rocket Summer, marked a more direct, poppier direction for the band, its influences including American guitar groups such as the Breeders and the Drop Nineteens as well as the FM pop of Bryan Wilson and Big Star. The album was well received world-wide, particularly so in the USA and in Spain. In 2007 Madrid indie label Rock Indiana released Baby, You Know the Deal; a selection of the Afternoons’ second and third albums.

2008’s Sweet Action (its title cemented by the discovery that it is also the name of a German pornographic magazine for women) was the band’s most successful record yet. Both its singles (Don’t Turn Back and High Summer Lovers) won Single of the Week on Radio 2’s Radcliffe and Maconie show. Nicky Wire (a supporter since Rocket Summer) invited the Afternoons to support the Manic Street Preachers at Newport Centre in August 2008, and James Dean Bradfield, in dedicating Design For Life to the band added, “We think the Afternoons are brilliant. Go and buy their album - it’s f*****g mega!”

Reviews:

A great summer tune... love this record. Stuart Maconie (High Summer Lovers)

Absolutely fantastic - a worthy winner of Single of the Week. Mark Radcliffe (Don’t Turn Back)

Sighing choruses, skyward harmonies and more bounce than a beach ball… irresistibly swoonsome in a Teenage Fanclub vein **** Uncut (My Lost City)

Highly promising sextet from Cardiff who successfully combine the emotional minimalism of the Velvet Underground with Belle and Sebastian’s lovelorn romanticism and Teenage Fanclub’s charmingly scruffy enthusiasm, as evidenced by their lushly sweet, literate debut album. Time Out (The Days We Found in the Sun)

Teaming up the enchanting vocals of Seattle-based singer Rosie Thomas, the Afternoons have come up with an emotionally charged summer gem. It bleeds with 1960s inspired simplicity and although it’s a very slow and sad song, it’ll still put a smile on your face. Sad Instead is the equally brilliant b-side, which is a country, up-beat Gorky’s sounding song. Big Issue (Fading Fast)

Effortlessly epic, colored by Kodak moments from the peak of summer and that moment the leaves start falling… echoing numerous 60s types. **** Bang (My Lost City)

Dreamy, creamy pop with hooks-a-plenty. NME (Rocket Summer)

Packed with tunes galore. NME (Sweet Action)

Member Since:

January 03, 2007

Members:

All albums available from iTunes, Amazon, and our website: www.theafternoons.co.uk

Distributed by Shellshock

Richard Griffiths - vocals, guitars

Sarah Rapi - bass, vocals

Pete Morgan - drums, percussion, vocals

Paul Rapi - keyboards, vocals

Jason Huxley - guitars

Andy Taylor - guitars

Influences:

Roxy Music, Teenage Fanclub, Scritti Politti, the Monkees, the Velvets, the Beach Boys, Kraftwerk, the High Llamas, Super Furry Animals, Macca, the Go-Betweens, the Ronettes, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Sounds Like:

Like Bloc Party never happened.

Record Label:

Saturday(UK)/Rock Indiana(Spain)/Excellent(Japan)