Tag Archives: Athlete

Athlete at The Bell House, Brooklyn Industries June 5

By Amanda | Published June 7, 2010

On June 5 Athlete played two New York shows – their scheduled headline show at The Bell House in Brooklyn and a short afternoon acoustic set at Brooklyn Industries in Soho.

The set list for the afternoon show was largely a condensed version of what they would play that night. The arrangement naturally differed though, with the acoustic show – played by just Joel Pott (vocals/guitar) and Carey Willetts (bass) – offering a different take on songs.

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Athlete stick together to deliver “Black Swan”

By Amanda | Published June 1, 2010

A while back we ran a post on the upcoming Athlete tour dates, which include two New York shows this week. A couple weeks ago I spoke with Athlete bassist Carey Willetts about the tour, the band’s recent fourth studio album “Black Swan” and the label struggles that surrounded it.

In short, the album I’m now listening to almost didn’t exist. Between an imploding EMI and the band tight on finances, they faced the decision to press on or give up the band.

Luckily, after a meeting to discuss their future, the southeast London quartet decided to stick it out.

“What came out of it was all of us kind of feeling that we ‘you know what, we can’t let go, we can’t just stop, we have to keep going’,” Willetts said. “It’s kind of a good feeling where all your friends together are still in it together – no one went ‘it’s too hard, I’m leaving’.”

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Athlete set for US tour

By Amanda | Published April 19, 2010

British band Athlete has announced dates for a spring US tour in support of recent album ‘Black Swan.’

It’s the fourth studio album for the quartet of Joel Pott (vocals/guitar), Carey Willetts (bass), Tim Wanstall (keyboards) and Stephen Roberts (drums). Following a split with EMI, and their US offshot Astralwerks, the band now has a stateside deal with New York-based Original Signal Recordings.

Athlete’s sound has varied over the years, from the quirky pop of debut ‘Vehicles & Animals’ to the soaring crescendos and big choruses of its follow-up ‘Tourist.’ Their third album, ‘Beyond the Neighbourhood,’ was a mix of the previous two, also showing the first signs of the synths that would later featured on  ‘Superhuman Touch,’ one of the band’s greatest songs to date and the UK lead single of fourth album ‘Black Swan.’ Continue reading »

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