SONG: "Blue Sky/Black Death" - The Carter Manoeuvre (S/T demo, 2005)

I’m often asked by newcomers to The Carter Manoeuvre what my relationship is to them. In truth, I’m not a member of the band and I don’t contribute to any aspect of their creative process. That they are named after me is perhaps only half the story. You don’t need to know the intimate details behind the moniker; suffice to say that as time wears on its immediate meaning becomes less relevant and more an intrinsic part of the band’s own enigma. But there is a definite connection, something almost intangible that has persisted throughout their various incarnations over the past three years.


The Carter Manoeuvre are a Leamington-based act who are light-years ahead of the competition by virtue of being one of the only local bands to approach songwriting as a legitimate art-form. They have an organic, almost scientific approach to the process which has resulted in them becoming pioneers of their own genre, ‘brightwave’ - perhaps best described as a summery amalgamation of various leftfield influences: Broken Social Scene’s off-kilter melodic sensibilities, the dynamic, chunky rock of Biffy Clyro and Bloc Party’s experimental subversion of straight-ahead pop. More recently however they have been moving towards the more mellifluous and fully-integrated sound of latter-day Dismemberment Plan, whose masterful final album Change perfectly married the band’s penchant for warped, esoteric friction to their innate feel for melody. When it all comes together for The Carter Manoeuvre – as it has been doing with an impressive strike-rate at recent gigs - the cumulative effect is as blistering as Les Savy Fav, and more refreshing than a slap across the face with a palmful of sunshine.


TCM (or ‘Lecartmanoo’ as they are affectionately known) are one of those rare units where each piece of the puzzle has to lock into place to create the final picture. Frontman James Ellis has an impressive vocal range capable of yelping and wailing as easily as it’s able to scale a piercing falsetto. Ellis’s right-hand man and jack-of-all-trades Tom Grundy augments each song with an array of textural accompaniments from sinewy lead guitar to warm swathes of Hammond organ, while bassist James Turrell weaves a dense melodic foundation for the band to build upon, contributing the kind of towering, octave-traversing funk dynamic that makes his other band (the laid-back groove-rockers Blind Pilots) so delectably elastic. And drummer Stu Knight adds a cold, mathematical precision with his machine-gun delivery and perpetually unmoved stare: to watch him effortlessly fire out rhythm patterns that would make lesser musicians’ heads spin is at times akin to watching a pre-programmed machine. The overall package is topped off by various electronic breaks, triggered samples and three-part harmonies.


The band have any number of noteworthy tracks in their oeuvre, from Oliver’s plaintive melancholy through the concise sonic dart of Someone Who Can and Poison the Lonely’s thunderous polyrhythmic attack (I will refrain from including Endorphins - the band’s pleasantly basic early singalong which is clearly destined to become their Creep). However, it is Blue Sky/Black Death from their original demo which will always be the song that best captures everything I love about the band. A cryptic and elliptical tale of an ill-fated sky-dive, the track is pitched midway between Biffy Clyro’s two greatest achievements, Bodies in Flight and Now the Action is on Fire!, songs which take structural and thematic coherence as their starting-point and gradually build upwards. For the first couple of minutes, it’s nothing much to shout about. The track opens with a dull, waspish drone that soon gives way to a perfunctory stonewall of clattering funk-rock; the first movement hovers around listlessly until fading to an ominous syncopated breakdown. Then, midway through, it suddenly changes course to become something else entirely. It’s almost as if the panic of the initial revelation of a parachute’s failure gives way to a feeling of calm, accepting surrender - we begin watching powerlessly from the ground (“And no-one could survive that height, I’m sure of it”) before being transported directly into the body of the victim. When Grundy’s tumbling lead-guitar motif sneaks in almost unnoticed, it creates the effect of a monotonous lullaby descending note-by-note in chromatic succession while the rest of the band apply cascading torrents of sound that accurately evoke the sensation of plummeting towards the ground at a rapidly-increasing rate. Finally hitting the earth with a furious crash, the final chord feels like nothing short of a liberation; a merciful release that leaves the most indescribably transient afterglow.


The Carter Manoeuvre rarely play this song live anymore, partly from over-exposure and partly as I suspect they feel it unrepresentative of their current direction. However, for me this will always be the track which stands out in their catalogue, perhaps more for personal reasons than its rather clunky rendering on record. Like all the best songwriting, Blue Sky’s ultimate meaning is hermetic and self-contained, locked within the conjunction of the sounds, words and images rather than lurking anywhere on its immediate surface. To me though it always evokes memories of a time in my life where there was nothing but longing and alcohol, of stumbling from bar to bar watching one gig after another and feeling like nothing else in the world would ever matter. The climactic freefall is the perfect evocation of how it felt to be tumbling headlong into oblivion without any thought for my physical or emotional well-being, each chord striking right to the heart of the yearning I found myself feeling on an almost nightly basis. In a weird way it’ll always feel like my song and no-one else’s; the ultimate encapsulation of the inexplicable series of events that led to them taking my name as their own.


One day people will hail James Ellis as a genius, which I suspect I’ll find rather strange as to me he’ll always just be the schmuck on the couch who eats all our food and won’t ever leave. We can but hope though; it really would be a criminal waste if this band’s evident talents were to go unrecognised.