Circulus
Encyclopedia
Circulus are a psychedelic folk/progressive rock
band from South London
, England
, founded by vocalist Michael Tyack.
The band uses a mix of modern and medieval instruments, such as the lute
, cittern, crumhorn and rauschpfeife
, along with the moog synthesizer, bass
and electric guitar
s. Tyack claims to believe in fairies and pixies, and they have been known to play their live shows with the audience sitting on the floor.
Circulus were featured in a two-page spread of an NME
issue in 2005, and a two-page interview in Terrorizer in 2006. Their album Clocks are Like People was reviewed in Metal Hammer
magazine in September 2006, receiving 8/10.
The band featured in an SVT (Swedish) music television documentary called This Is Our Music in 2005, and were interviewed on BBC2's The Culture Show
on 3 February 2007 as part of an item on the 'new folk'.
Mojo
magazine chose Circulus to cover "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
" for their 40th anniversary Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
tribute album, Sgt. Pepper...With a Little Help from His Friends, given away with their March 2007 issue.
Albums
Singles
(° on CD version only)
Other releases
Releases with Circulus members
, Mythical Cake, using donations solicited from fans and the public at large. A donation of 50 British pounds or more secured a photograph in the Thought Becomes Reality album liner notes. This alternative appeal is part of a growing trend of bands attempting to create a distribution infrastructure outside the traditional music industry.
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
band from South London
South London
South London is the southern part of London, England, United Kingdom.According to the 2011 official Boundary Commission for England definition, South London includes the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Greenwich, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Southwark, Sutton and...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, founded by vocalist Michael Tyack.
The band uses a mix of modern and medieval instruments, such as the lute
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
, cittern, crumhorn and rauschpfeife
Rauschpfeife
The rauschpfeife is a musical instrument of the woodwind family, originally popular in Europe in the mid-16th Century. In common with the crumhorn and cornamuse, it is a wooden double-reed instrument with the reed enclosed in a windcap...
, along with the moog synthesizer, bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
and electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
s. Tyack claims to believe in fairies and pixies, and they have been known to play their live shows with the audience sitting on the floor.
Circulus were featured in a two-page spread of an NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
issue in 2005, and a two-page interview in Terrorizer in 2006. Their album Clocks are Like People was reviewed in Metal Hammer
Metal Hammer
Metal Hammer is a monthly heavy metal music magazine published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing, and in several other countries by different publishers. Metal Hammer articles feature both mainstream bands and more unusual acts from the whole spectrum of heavy metal music...
magazine in September 2006, receiving 8/10.
The band featured in an SVT (Swedish) music television documentary called This Is Our Music in 2005, and were interviewed on BBC2's The Culture Show
The Culture Show
The Culture Show is a weekly BBC Two Arts magazine programme. It is broadcast in the UK on Thursday nights at 7pm, focusing on the best of the week's arts and culture news, covering books, art, film, architecture, music, visual fashion and the performing arts...
on 3 February 2007 as part of an item on the 'new folk'.
Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
magazine chose Circulus to cover "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is a song written primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney, for The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band...
" for their 40th anniversary Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band The Beatles, released on 1 June 1967 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin...
tribute album, Sgt. Pepper...With a Little Help from His Friends, given away with their March 2007 issue.
Discography
EPs- GiantismGiantism EP-Track listing:# "Little Big Song" - 5:07# "The True Lover's Farewell" - 3:54# "My Lady Carey's Dompe" - 2:55# "Everglade" - 4:39# "Sombrero Fallout" - 3:40# "All You People" - 9:14-External links:* * on MySpace...
(1999, Instant Farma)
Albums
- The Lick on the Tip of an Envelope Yet to Be SentThe Lick on the Tip of an Envelope Yet to Be SentThe Lick on the Tip of an Envelope Yet to Be Sent is the debut full-length album by psychedelic folk band Circulus.-Track listing:# "Miri It Is" - 2:36# "My Body Is Made of Sunlight" - 3:54# "The Scarecrow" - 4:56# "Orpheus" - 3:07...
(2005, Rise Above RecordsRise Above RecordsRise Above Records is a London, England based independent record label owned by Lee Dorrian . It is named after a Napalm Death song from their EP Mentally Murdered. It was formed in the late 1980s and originally made to sell live releases by Napalm Death and S.O.B., but by 1991 had changed to cater...
) - Clocks Are Like PeopleClocks Are Like PeopleClocks Are Like People is the second full-length album by psychedelic folk band Circulus.-Track listing:# "Dragon's Dance" - 3:20# "Song of Our Despair" - 4:57# "Willow Tree" - 4:56# "Wherever She Goes" - 4:18# "Velocity Races" - 4:03...
(2006, Rise Above RecordsRise Above RecordsRise Above Records is a London, England based independent record label owned by Lee Dorrian . It is named after a Napalm Death song from their EP Mentally Murdered. It was formed in the late 1980s and originally made to sell live releases by Napalm Death and S.O.B., but by 1991 had changed to cater...
) - Thought Becomes Reality (2009), Mythical Cake)
Singles
- "Swallow" / "My Body is Made of Sunlight" / "La Rotta°" (2005, Rise Above RecordsRise Above RecordsRise Above Records is a London, England based independent record label owned by Lee Dorrian . It is named after a Napalm Death song from their EP Mentally Murdered. It was formed in the late 1980s and originally made to sell live releases by Napalm Death and S.O.B., but by 1991 had changed to cater...
)) - "Song of Our Despair" / "Honeycomb" / "Tapestry°" (2006, Rise Above RecordsRise Above RecordsRise Above Records is a London, England based independent record label owned by Lee Dorrian . It is named after a Napalm Death song from their EP Mentally Murdered. It was formed in the late 1980s and originally made to sell live releases by Napalm Death and S.O.B., but by 1991 had changed to cater...
)
(° on CD version only)
Other releases
- Music Plays in the Air (on Get Yer Pots Out with the fanzine Ptolemic Telescope, 2001)
- Split 7" - Miri It Is (Moog-up Mix) by Circulus / Chylde of Fire by WitchcraftWitchcraft (band)Witchcraft is a Swedish hard rock band founded in 2000.-History:Magnus Pelander formed Witchcraft in 2000 in order to record a tribute to Pentagram's Bobby Liebling and Roky Erickson. The "No Angel or Demon" single was released in 2002 by Primitive Art Records which caught the ear of Lee Dorrian's...
(2005, Rise Above RecordsRise Above RecordsRise Above Records is a London, England based independent record label owned by Lee Dorrian . It is named after a Napalm Death song from their EP Mentally Murdered. It was formed in the late 1980s and originally made to sell live releases by Napalm Death and S.O.B., but by 1991 had changed to cater...
) - La Rotta (2005) (on The Crow Club compilation, 2008 People Tree Records)
- Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Mojo Presents Sgt. Pepper... With A Little Help From My Friends, 2007, Mojo Magazine)
- The Unquiet Grave (on Old Wine, New Skins compilation, 2007, Market Square Music )
- Till We Merry Meet Again (on A Psychedelic Guide to Monsterism Island compilation, 2009, Lo RecordingsLo RecordingsLo Recordings is a label founded in 1995 by Jon Tye. They are noted for their strong visual style thanks to Non-Format, with whom they work very closely and won a D&AD award for several of their releases sleeves.-Musical style:...
)
Releases with Circulus members
- Lo Polidoro - Lo Polidoro (2005)
- Lo Polidoro - Le Carrousel Des Jours (2009, Marboz Records)
- Marianne SegalJade (UK band)Jade were an English folk rock band founded in 1970 by Dave Waite & Marianne Segal who had been performing as a folk duo since the mid 1960s. In the United States the group was known as Marianne Segal and Silver Jade...
- The Gathering (2007, Snow Beach Records) produced by Michael Tyack and featuring Circulus - ThistletownThistletown (band)Thistletown are a psychedelic folk band from Falmouth, Cornwall.They came to public attention through a Guardian Newspaper column by Will Hodgkinson concerning his year long project to start a record label, after he saw them playing in The Jacobs Ladder pub in Falmouth...
- Rosemarie (2008, Big BerthaBig BerthaBig Bertha is a euphonious term for an unusually large example of a class of object; notable examples include:Military guns:* Big Bertha , a heavy mortar-like howitzer built and used by Germany during World War I...
) produced by Michael Tyack
Former members
- Lo Polidoro - vocals
- Will Summers - flute, recorder, crumhorn, shawm
- Sam Kelly - drums, vocals
- George Parfitt - bass guitar
- Oliver Parfitt - keyboards, synthesizers
- Victor Hugo Llamas - bongos, percussion
- Nick Baxter - percussion
- Nigel Hoyle - bass, vocals
- Eric Anholm - guitar, vocals
- Jason Hobart - bass, vocals
- Emma Steele - vocals, flute
- Robin Cieslak - guitar, vocals, percussion
- Damien Cavanagh - drums
Mythical Cake label
In 2008, the band started its own record labelRecord label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
, Mythical Cake, using donations solicited from fans and the public at large. A donation of 50 British pounds or more secured a photograph in the Thought Becomes Reality album liner notes. This alternative appeal is part of a growing trend of bands attempting to create a distribution infrastructure outside the traditional music industry.
External links
- Circulus official website
- Circulus on MySpaceMySpaceMyspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
- Lo Polidoro official website