ON SUNDAY night Brighton band The Cloggz headline The Old Market joined by Northern Irish songwriter Duke Special. Mark Edwards introduces the band the below and talks Love Supreme, film soundtracks and their debut record.

“There are eight of us in the band, hailing from around the UK, who have ended up in Brighton by one life turn or another. 
When I formed The Cloggz, I chose people from Brighton, partly because they are all good friends, and great players of course, but also because I wanted to be able to rehearse a lot. The music has a lot of detail in it. We really care about the music, and we work hard, and are always trying to improve what we do. The Cloggz, is not only the band, but also our friends who give their time in recording, management, visual and technical areas.We started out mostly playing arrangements of tunes by Brad Mehldau, Ennio Morricone, Tom Waits etc and have added more and more of our own compositions. 

“I like to think of our sound as a bunch of jazz musicians, who formed a tango band and ran away with the circus. 
We have been described as genre defying, because we draw on many influences: tango, Klezmer, cinema, folk music, the darker side of circus, Vaudeville, pop and classical. 

“We have done a couple of festivals, like the Love Supreme Festival and have some more this summer; Cheltenham Festival, Scarborough Fair and Brighton Festival for instance. 
Personally though, I must admit my favourite thing is playing small gigs. Over the last couple of years we have presented our shows in some lovely spaces like the Unitarian Church, The Roptackle, and Brighton Emporium. I love intimate venues where the audience are close to the action, and you really make that connection with them. We also love to play as acoustically as possible too. Ideally I’d prefer to play more nights in a smaller venue than one big show. We also like to dress the stage, and we use film projections.

“We have a our debut record Sawdust and Spangles released this month. 
It’s certainly a labour of love, recorded over the last two years, on vintage equipment at The Retreat Recording Studios in Ovingdean. 

“We are at The Old Market, Hove on Sunday night for a very special show to celebrate the release of the record.
For this show, we have added a ten-piece string section to the band, and if that isn’t enough, we are delighted to have a special guest appearance by the wonderful Duke Special who is coming in from Belfast to play some songs with The Cloggz.I have toured as a part of Duke’s band on several occasions. He is a phenomenal singer songwriter.

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