Crate Digging: Luke Barham, Soho Music

Crate Digging is a music discovery platform where contributors take home and discuss two records from across Concord Recorded Music’s active and historical labels.

Luke Barham, music supervisor at Soho Music, discusses his top two finds.

My frontline find has to be Dawes Good Luck With Whatever. I've watched Dawes many times in London over the years. I love Taylor’s lyrics and the bands craft for classic song writing and musicianship. I also enjoyed the record and tour where they were Conor Oberst’s backing band.

Dawes have a knack for classic song writing in the vein of Laurel Canyon stalwarts, The Eagles or Jackson Browne. Over the years their sound has evolved from rootsy Americana through to yacht rock, and even sometimes an air of classic Dire Straits. They are a true musicians band. Technically they’re extremely tight, with plenty of guitar solos to enjoy and in Griff Goldsmith have one of the best drummers out there today. 

I am yet to discover this new Dawes album but expect it to be rich with good storytelling lyrics and great playing. I've always liked that their music transports me to their native California. With this in mind, I imagine Dawes could work well to further tell a story within a TV drama or movie, highlighting the emotion of a scene and also painting a picture of LA or California.

For a catalogue record I went for R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People. I was lucky enough to see R.E.M. at Glastonbury in 1999. To me they are one of the finest rock'n'roll bands of all time. I recently found a new love for them via the R U Talking R.E.M. RE Me podcast and have been revisiting their catalogue. Automatic For The People was the first record of theirs that clicked with me as a child.

I'm not sure the record needs any introduction, or at the least it is hard to best describe this era defining album. After years of graft it was the record that truly made R.E.M. one of the biggest bands on the planet. Taking cues from the history of great rock bands, it is truly a timeless collection of songs.

‘Man on the Moon’ and ‘Nightswimming’ are the stand out tracks for me, along with ‘Find the River’ which was voted by their fans as the number 1 loved song of the entire catalogue. This record transports me back to my youth in the 90s, videotaping the MTV Awards and listening on my Discman during family holidays.

Similarly to Dawes, R.E.M. could work well to tell a story, more specifically within a period drama as the music speaks to a specific time/era. 

If you’d like to know more, or you’re keen to discover more of our repertoire, please contact: tom.frank@concord.com.