Brian Bilston x The Catenary Wires (The Foundry)

Brian Bilston is one of the UK’s most popular poets. Having started out by sharing his poems online, Brian now has over half a million followers on social media and a raft of bestselling books. After a succession of sell-out live shows, Brian is on tour again in the UK.

The Catenary Wires are a group comprising Amelia Fletcher, Rob Pursey and Ian Button. Their critically acclaimed third album ‘Birling Gap’ was released in 2021. Since then, they have been focusing on their other bands, playing around the world with Heavenly and Swansea Sound.

A couple of years ago, word reached Rob and Amelia that Brian had been spotted wearing a Heavenly t-shirt at one of his shows. Given that they, were fans of Brian’s poetry, introductions were made, and ‘Sounds Made By Humans’ took shape.

The album isn’t a set of readings with musical backdrops; it’s a collection of songs, where words and music have become completely intertwined.  There are verses, and there are choruses. There is no ‘riffing’, no improvisation. In many ways, Brian’s poems are already like pop songs: brief, direct, and witty; sometimes poignant, sometimes biting and political; but always economical, and always accessible.

Rob took thirteen of Brian’s poems and created melodies and arrangements, which are then played by a full band, with Ian Button on drums and Fay Hallam on keyboard. Sometimes the words of the poems are sung by Amelia or Rob. Sometimes they are spoken by Brian, sometimes both these things happen at once. This is a pop record where the poetry and the music are equal partners: sounds made by humans in perfect artistic alignment.