The High Span is a UK post-pop band based in Medway, Kent. Formed by songwriter Kevin Younger in late 2019, the band’s sound is possibly best described as a pop-inflected mix of sprightly guitar jangle and suburban angst. Releasing their first EP, Quirky Miniboss Squad, in 2020 on the Spinout Nuggets label, they tapped into a vein of English bloodiness and absurdity which was followed up in their first, self titled, album in 2023. The band comprises Kevin Younger (guitar, vocal, keys), Mark Aitken (bass), Canadian expat Jimmy Moore (drums), and Sarah Post (vocals). A history of the players’ previous bands includes Subway Sect, The Speed of Sound, Ye Ascoyne d’Ascoynes, Baby Birkin, London Dirthole Company, and Canadian grunge heroes Rusty among many others. Their latest album, Blithering is out now on Spinout Nuggets.

What They Say: “This song is inspired by some reading I did around the Europe-wide Anarchist scares of the late 19th century, particularly in Paris. It looks at this phenomenon from the point of view of a slightly perplexed imaginary policeman. It’s a slightly odd thing to write a little jangle-pop song about, I suppose, but it was interesting to me that this era of advances in science and art also had some very progressive ideas on government and freedom. Although there’s no such person as Supt. Baeker, there was a real Félix Fénéon and a real bombing in the Cafe de Foyot. The flavour of the backing vocal came from listening to 60s library music, particularly the Paris Studio Group and other tracks on the Sylvester Library label” (Kevin Younger).

“I don’t know if this phrase translates well into other languages, but in English it refers to the medical condition in which a part of the body can still be vividly felt by the patient after it has been amputated, often very painfully. Because the limb is no longer physically there, it can’t be treated – the pain is entirely an invention of the nervous system – perhaps all pain is. In any case, this seemed like a good analogy for a painful break-up. I was a bit hesitant to start the album with this one as it’s got a somewhat high-pitched vocal from me, and I didn’t want to frighten the horses!” (Kevin Younger).

Their Mixtape:

THE WILDWEEDS – I’m Dreaming

One of my first big music enthusiasms was ’60s psych and garage punk, which was not as easy to discover back then as it is now. The only way was through the myriad of compilation albums – which gave a tantalising glimpse into this strange forgotten world of adventurous, weird, and intense teen rock. The Wildweeds were a band I came to like a little later, and this track has most of the things I love about this stuff, clumsily poetic lyrics, ambitious arrangements, plus shades, cloaks, beards, organ and fuzz guitar. 

  

ORANGE JUICE – Falling and Laughing

I played for quite a few years in Vic Godard’s band Subway Sect and got the chance to make a record with him at the studio in London of one of my heroes, Edwyn Collins. This was after Edwyn’s stroke but he was so amazingly tuned in to the production role that the album (1979 Now) emerged as a minor classic with a bunch of unreleased Vic’s songs from his early days. Orange Juice were influenced by Subway Sect’s cooly diffident performances on the Clash’s White Riot tour, and I always loved their blend of groovy bass lines and Sect-like trebly guitars. And of course, Edwyn’s trademark vibrato vocals.

THE PENROSE WEB – Still Time

The Medway towns where I grew up were a unique hotbed of punk-meets-50s/60s sounds in the early 80s. Local combos included The Milkshakes and The Prisoners. Many of these folks are still actively making records. Billy Childish has certainly never stopped and neither have Graham Day, Bruce Brand, James Taylor, Micky Hampshire, and many others. One such is Allan Crockford (Prisoners, Galileo 7, + countless others) whose latest project is The Penrose Web, a collaboration with the endlessly creative Ian Button (Thrashing Doves, Death in Vegas, Heavenly, + countless others). I’d like to consider The High Span as fellow travellers with these guys. They combine the whimsical tendrils of late 60s British psych-baroque with a more modern, urgent sensibility. Check out their debut album The Least of Our Concerns on Spinout Nuggets.

STEREOLAB – Wow and Flutter

I am a huge fan. I know some people baulk at the eccentric grooviness and somehow see it as a bit antiseptic, but for me they’re a quintessentially heavy, political punk band in the best sense of the word. Resolutely pursuing that disconcerting juncture of familiar easy-listening harmonies, vintage synths and arrangements, motorik grooves and deadpan dialectic. I also enjoyed Tim Gane’s Cavern of Anti-Matter project which leaned in to the heavier guitars, but that seems to have gone a bit quiet. And capes!

FLOH DE COLOGNE – Die Luft Gehört Denen Die Sie Atmen

Wilfully odd 70s proto-krautrock. I guess this links with the Stereolab, but again we get the fantastic ‘no rules’ eccentricity to the music, the anti-fashion Open University vibe, shouty anarcho-syndicalist politics, a Vox organ and yes, another cape! Ich!!!

ROXY MUSIC – Editions of You

‘This way ..!!.’ This is a great performance! Roxy Music at their peak in my opinion. The proper lineup with sweaty coked up Bryan, and Eno’s Moog and feather boa ensemble. I think of this as an object lesson in getting a gang of wildly different personalities and talents on to a stage and united in a single goal to absolutely wring the best out of a song. The German audience seems strangely uninterested, but I would have loved to be in that TV studio that day.     

Blithering is out now via Spinout Nuggets. Look HERE for more information on The High Span.