Six by Seven are a Nottingham, England based rock band who formed in 1996, specialising in a brand of space-rock that fused the drones, propulsiveness and washes of noise of krautrock with the abrasiveness of punk. They have released six albums, along with several compilations of studio offcuts and live performances. Arriving at a time of stagnating but popular Britpop and Britrock, they were unique not only in sound but also in utilising a saxophonist for texture and in Sam Hempton choosing to attack his guitar strings with a drumstick instead of a plectrum.
The band take their name from the research connected with the Hubble telescope. Sam came up with the name, but he’s told the story so many times that he’s not quite sure if he still remembers the theory correctly! Anyway, it goes something like this… “There was a big debate as to whether the millions of other galaxies in the universe were accelerating away from each other or moving away at a constant rate, or whether they were actually coming back in on themselves. The scientists originally thought that everything would eventually come back in on itself and implode, but what’s actually happening is that they are accelerating away at a rate of Six By Seven.”
Six by Seven have a spontaneous approach to their songwriting - some of the songs for the new album weren’t written until the day that they were recorded; another was written briefly using an acoustic guitar and a drum machine. Chris Olley explains: “I’ve always maintained that we’re a band who try to find themselves musically simply by pursuing our ideas. There are too many people in the band to have this thing where ‘it’s gonna be like this’ or ‘it’s gonna be like that’. There are different things that we can do and it’s just however the mood takes us on the day that we go in that direction. We don’t make any rules for ourselves.”
Six by Seven were initially feted by the music press, the UK’s influential NME describing European Me as ‘possibly the greatest début single ever’, but have never found the commercial success their heartfelt, powerful music perhaps deserves. 2008 saw them working on what would have been their seventh full album, but the band split before it’s completion. Demos from these sessions are available on their official website, www.sixbyseven.co.uk. |
