Jem Tayle (Shelleyan Orphan) and Boris Williams (The Cure) have founded a new project, Vamberator.

Jem describes the transition from Shelleyan Orphan to Vamberator as follows: “After Caroline Crawley’s passing, I had been offered the chance to make a solo album. I had been writing on and off without a focus and not having someone to bounce off was new to me. Boris is family, and we have played together with Shelleyan Orphan live and in the studio on and off for years, so it felt very natural for us to work on this together. I am extremely fortunate to have a drummer of his calibre pounding out the rhythms on this album.”

Vamberator’s debut single, “Sleep the Giant of Sleeps” is from the forthcoming album “Age of Loneliness” (Unifaun Productions), and also features regular collaborator Charlie Jones (Goldfrapp, The Cult, Robert Plant et al) on bass.

Asked to describe the themes and inspirations behind the new single, Jem says: “Chasing trains, chasing dogs, chasing dreams, they always get away. Pushing your way through that froth on a daydream, sharing the gloom with ghouls and procrastinating – it’s all part of the daily merry-go-round. But there is always an unseen presence that comes to the rescue, sometimes in dreams, sometimes in the middle of the night as you cool yourself in front of that open fridge. It’s relentless though, and here it comes again, but there’s so much to do, but close your eyes and there she is again.”

“Sleep the Giant of Sleeps” by Vamberator is out now from Bandcamp, Spotify, and all the usual digital music stores worldwide.

Side-Line also covered The Cure’s ‘A Veces 100 Años’.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

“It is with deep sadness and sorrow that my dearest oldest mate in life and music passed away today after a long illness. please play our music very loud today.” That’s how Shelleyan Orphan’s Jemaur Tayle confirmed that his musical partner in crime Caroline Crawley has died after a long battle with an unnamed illness. Crawley gained instant cultstatus when she was invited as a member of the 4AD collective This Mortal Coil. This way a whole generation discovered her great voice on the 1991 This Mortal Coil double album “Blood”, which was the third and final album released by 4AD collective This Mortal Coil. Crawley also appeared in the video for the Syd Barrett cover, “Late Night” (which you can see below).

John Fryer: “She was a wonderful talented person and joy to be around. I was very lucky to know her and have worked with her on This Mortal Coil. Its another great loss this year.”

But before that in 1980, Caroline Crawley and Jemaur Tayle already had joined up to form Shelleyan Orphan after which the pair moved to London to seek out orchestral elements to add to their voices. In June 1984, the band got their first break and landed a session with Richard Skinner for BBC Radio 1. The band signed with Rough Trade Records in 1986 and released the singles, “Cavalry of Cloud” and “Anatomy of Love”. In 1987, the band would release their first of four albums: “Helleborine”.

After the band released “Humroot” in 1992 they disbanded. Tayle formed his own band, Elephantine, and Crawley, along with Williams and Soave, formed Babacar. Soon after, Tayle joined Babacar as a full-time member, though not contributing to the songwriting. In 2000, the band reunited to record a cover of Tim Buckley’s “Buzzin’ Fly” for “Sing a Song for You: A Tribute to Tim Buckley”. A new album, entitled “We Have Everything We Need”, was released in October 2008 on One Little Indian Records.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com