Local lads Silences have been taking China by storm due to their inclusion with UK Music on the Go.
The campaign launched by the British Council aims to offer the Chinese audience 10 fresh, new songs for 10 up and coming UK acts, fresh off the success of previous participants such as The Twilight Sad and Mercury prize winners Young Fathers.
The five-piece indie-folk group have had massive publicity throughout the country with their faces splashed across buses and around major universities.
UK Music on the GO is unique in that it involves using the bands’ lyrics and a QR code which will be promoted across China on 100 buses in Shanghai, 30 buses in Nanjing, Chongqing and Wuhan respectively, as well as in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou university campuses. The QR codes will then direct the Chinese audience to the microsite UK Now where they will be able to listen to the ten chosen tracks.
Silences, made up of Conchúr White, Christopher Harbinson, Brendan White, Jonathan Downing and Michael Keyes produce grand, melodic music that has been compared to Coldplay, Jeff Buckley and Death Cab For Cutie.
Relatively new on the scene, having been together for just under a year and a half, the band cant quite believe their luck. Frontman Conchúr White said:
It hasn’t really sunk in yet, it still seems a bit surreal. We didn’t expect to get such a reaction and we’re hoping to get good exposure both at home and in China. Whatever happens though, it will be a great story to tell!
So far, Silences are proving to be the most popular in the campaign, with their song The Sea, achieving the most attention.
Conchur said:
There’s loads of bands involved that I really admire and look up to — I really like the music of people such as Temples and Hannah Lou Clark, so to even be amongst them is an honour, but to be named the most popular is a real bonus. I guess the Chinese audience like our music as our songs are quite melodic and you don’t necessarily need to understand the lyrics to enjoy them. It would be great now for us to be able to capitalise on this and see the campaign on the ground. We would love to be able to do a small tour of China at some point as we’ve never played that far from home before.
Success has come quickly to the band, which was stated as a solo project by Conchur after he graduated from Leeds University. Speaking recently, Conchúr said:
We’re just back from playing The Great Escape Festival in Brighton, so we would like to build on that and what we’ve got going on in Northern Ireland. The song in this campaign, The Sea, involved Tourism Ireland in the making of the video. Currently we’re in the midst of planning our third EP and we’re hoping to organise a UK tour to coincide with the release. Before that we’ll be playing at Electric Picnic for the 2nd time. We’ve also just signed a deal with the Music Service, Secret Road in LA – which pitches songs to big US shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Pretty Little Liars so it’s all very busy, but exciting.
The future is looking bright for Silences and we can’t wait to see what happens next.
Follow Silences adventure here: http://uknow.org.cn/