Acoustic ambience meets the electronic age.

‘Beautiful Morning for a Bad Day’ is without doubt the standout track on this highly progressive work. Lolloping drum loops and acoustic guitar riffs bounce around the room leaving you with a warming glow inside.

‘14:53′ is not far behind. Its tranquil idylls suggest this is the band that other contemporaries could be if they had the balls to sponge other musical influences.

Merchandise are a band that can not, and probably have no desire too, be labelled under any particular musical bracket other than their own unique one.

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LOCAL lads Brad B Wood and Conrad Astley are plainly a duo of the chalk and cheese variety, one supplying breezy, naïve guitar pop and the other jazzy rhythms and cheesy electronica.

That hi-tech, lo-fi collision is nothing new, but more often than not it is done here with flair, witness the engagingly simplistic 14:53 or the strange Winter with its quirky human percussion.

Only when they strive for more sophisticated results, such as For The Shore, do Merchandise miss the mark.

Otherwise, this is electronic music with evidence of heart and soul.

3/5

Paul Taylor

BADLY Drawn Boy, Peter Kay, Sara Cox, Sam Allardyce… The list of Bolton ’s cultural icons goes on, and low we have yet more claimants to the crown of the town’s next big thing.

Merchandise are Brad B Wood and Conrad Astley, whose forthcoming album Lo-Tech Solutions to Hi-Tech Problems is about to hit the shops.

And very good it is too, although comparisons with the aforementioned Badly Drawn Boy are perhaps inevitable.

That’s largely down to the nice use of acoustic guitar patterns allied to intelligent drum loops sometimes sampled from vocals and the fact that Brad sounds not unlike Damon Gough. He’s not a singer in the U2/Coldplay/Keane mould but his laidback approach has a warmth which suits the song fine.

There is some lovely craftsmanship at work here. Haunting melodies; stellar landscapes; scratchy samples from outer space… pick the cliches accordingly, but they aren’t entirely inaccurate.

And accomplice Roger Williams’ intelligent lyrics (Echolalia mourns the breakdown of a relationship over a trans-Atlantic phoneline) are striking and original.

Highlights include Beautiful Morning For A Bad Day, Winter and the blissed-out Morning After, but then the whole album is a seamless pleasure.

Lo-Tech Solutions to Hi-Tech Problems won’t leap out and grab you by the vitals, but it might just creep up from behind and smother you with its fuzzy warmth.

Andy Scoble

Never has an intro been so deceiving, the skiffle-psychedelic-reggae-jazz fest instrumental promises things which don’t happen later. Instead the group opt for a laid-back, collection of lazy summer anthems.

The crossover of acoustics and electronica - it’s a tried and tested formula which hardly gets the excitement pumping, but Merchandise pull it off remarkably well, creating a sound they can distinctively call their own.

‘Lo-Tech..’ teases like a poppier, more chart friendly Simian, full to the brim with early Badly Drawn Boy oddities, and future-folk sensibilities. They combine lush melodies & grand technical capabilities with a refreshingly cute inventiveness.

Armed with a vocalist who is the spit for a young Sam Prekop, not to mention the constant swopping of instruments like they are going out of fashion, the album makes for an incredibly diverse listen.

A collage of sounds, varied genres and a flawless talent for writing brilliant pop songs. Summer is finally here and Merchandise are the soundtrack.

7/10

Made in Manchester: MerchandiseWho: Duo Brad B Wood and Conrad Astley who have shared a love of fusing electronica with acoustica, matching lo-fi vocals, tinkly pianos and jazz riffs with inventive sampling. Bolton born and based Wood takes care of vocals, guitar instruments, bass and production while Manchester based Astley looks after keyboard instruments, sampling and programming.

What to expect: The pair formed a goth band when they first met at York University in 1994, their name is taken from a Fugazi song and their recently released second album, Lo-tech Solutions to Hi-tech Problems, begins with a 1½ minute jazz solo. Safe to say they like a bit of variety. The common thread through their tunes, though, is an idiosyncratic, sunny mix of the stripped-down, plus an exacting use of the variety of instruments, live samples and sounds used. Collaborator Roger Williams’ lyrics give their songs a kind of everyday poetry, and tracks on their album range from joyful to hypnotic to mournful and back again.

The struggle so far: Because the duo use a multitude of instruments, samples and techniques to create their songs, they don’t perform live. “The only way of getting round it would be to change the music completely or play to a backing tape – which neither of us wants to do,” explains Wood. Because they aren’t really part of a scene, the band have received good reviews but “people don’t really know what to do with it. It’s like two strange blokes in a little cottage industry.”

What next: After recent good press, Merchandise have re-released their single ‘Swallowing Curses’, which shows their quirky style and Wood’s simple, worn-velvet vocals off to good effect. Each album has taken four years to make, so it might be a while until the next one. You can see why: “We went to the Isle of Skye to master the CD and I made the guy spend about ten minutes on the silence between the tracks. Then we listened to the album and made him redo practically every one. He used to do all the big EMI stuff – Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Eurythmics… I don’t think he had as much hassle off them.” Album Lo-tech Solutions to Hi-tech Problems and re-released single Swallowing Curses are out now.

Nicola Mostyn