In need of a touch of summer madness? From the opening bars of No Brighter Sunrise Leeds based Private Reg (James Vardy) has treated us to a tune with a swing and a huge dollop of confident sassy style. There is something of the feel of Nick Cave in that there is that sense of dramatic, that sense of beat, those wild keys, but it’s like Cave on a speedy pill (Nick was well up for that back in the day).

So we have dramatic, we have a bit mad, and there’s a lot of fun in this tune. Even though I try to analyse a tune or two each week, one thing I’m truly rubbish at is interpreting lyrics (or perhaps I’m really good, as I imagine all sorts). However, when I listen to some of the words to No Brighter Sunrise and that choppy swingy beat, I decide the lyrics are about a wild night where the sunrise coming into the room a couple of hours later can be a no-hiding-place nightmare. Then there’s a bit of me that realises the song is about the urgent naked sense of the sunrise itself. Either/or, there is a real sense of the flickering, darting image of either being totally off your face and that bright panic of the morning, or indeed of the sunlight licking over different parts of the landscape or bedscape as it emerges. There’s a sunlight energy and impatience about the tune which fits the subject perfectly. 186,000 beats per second to be precise.     

Here Private Reg has co-witten and worked on No Brighter Sunshine with brother Jono Vardy and James Cleaver. Dan Mason produced the striking image for the tune.

If you didn’t know, James Vardy is also guitarist for Chesterfield’s finest Alpaca Factory, but during the recent long void pit of nothingness, while at Uni in Leeds he was not going to have his creative juices locked down too (I should probably rephrase that, but I’m not going to). In such circumstances what is a musical boy to do but to experiment; both with music production and with the music itself.

Alpaca Factory gave us a hint of an exciting future with their Bowie Fashion era tinged banger of last year with You’re Obsessed, and they are definitely up for their most massive year yet (not least with a gig at Y Not Festival and gigs in Sheffield and hopefully Leeds).

Private Reg meantime is simultaneously producing fresh music most days and has some significant plans to share just what he has been up to on his solo excursions.

Private Reg tells me the future for his solo project is going definitely experimental where he is going to be flexing out his solo freedom to the max and trying out collabs, while all the time learning and growing his musical and production skills.  You can’t beat that for a plan.  

Chris R

* Images taken from Private Reg’s social media