The Charlatans have reached a higher state of grace. Twenty-seven years since they first bagged a Number One album with ‘Some Friendly’, they’re still achieving fresh career highs, dreaming up new music that redraws their own map, increasingly assured of who they are as a band. Their trajectory has few parallels in British rock, and it’s all set to continue with the release of ‘Different Days’, their brilliant 13th album, which finds them never more forward-looking, yet equally never more self-defining, or relevant. As Tim Burgess pointedly sings on one anthemically optimistic track called ‘There Will Be Chances’, “I laughed when I thought about the past, a place I love, but I can’t go back – the present’s where it’s at”. Just listening to ‘Different Days’ makes you feel like a positive force has entered your life – and this, in a year when, as the title implies, the political outlook has shifted dramatically, bringing unforeseen prejudice, anxiety and division across the world. Explains Tim, “To us, the album represents an upbeat view of a world that might well be falling apart, in a time where you have to work out who your friends are, and gather them around you.” The Charlatans’ own ever-spiralling success has itself been a triumph over adversity. After losing not one but two members (to a car crash, and a brain tumour) in their rollercoaster history, this most resilient outfit have somehow soldiered onto greater heights – a people’s band, whose embattled mortal passage through life also mirrors our own.

FRANKIIE is an independent dream-rock band from Vancouver, BC. They formed in December 2013 for a one-off gig where they had only met a few weeks before. The chemistry between them was undeniable and over the last several years the four members have become amazing friends and adventure seekers, taking their music from Haida Gwaii near Alaska to the southern tip of the Baja in Mexico. ​ Their debut EP ‘Girl of Infinity’ was self-released in July 2015. It hit #34 on the earshot National College Radio charts, and landed them a gig at the Todos Santos Music Festival organize by Peter Buck of R.E.M. After tours throughout Canada and down the coast of California, FRANKIIE tucked away to finish writing an album. ​ In 2018, FRANKIIE will be releasing their debut full-length album produced by Jason Corbett of ACTORS and Jacknife Sound.