Louis Warner releases his highly anticipated second album Little African Drama on 17th December via Saints Recording.

 

Little African Drama follows Louis’ debut Hoarse Laughter (2020) and was inspired by a childhood growing up in rural South Africa and witnessing the harsh realities of the daily lives of the majority of South Africans. “I didn’t set out to write an album about Africa,” he says,  “…but over the year as the tunes started to come together, I felt myself thinking about the desperate scenes I witnessed growing up.”

 

The album is centred around Louis’ laid back vocals and the styles range from emotive folk-tinged singer song-writing through indie-rock thumpers and yearning dream-like post-rock, shoegaze and electronica.

 

Little African Drama opens with an ominous sample of an interview with a witchdoctor, layered over abstract guitar and synths which then rolls straight into the fuzz-guitar drenched psychedelic Army of One, a tune inspired by a harrowing read. Louis recalls; “In 2020 I read Lemn Sissay’s  autobiography ‘My Name is Why’; he’s of Ethiopian heritage and grew up in a white and religious foster family, until they sent him into the care system, totally turning their backs on him, partly because they thought there was something ‘witchcraft-y’ going on. Imagine that, your family that you love, surprising you at age 12, by sending you away, alone, never to be contacted by them again.”

 

The folky Dirt Bike Blues, with its plaintive melody, muted acoustic guitar, strings and piano recalls a boyhood of daydreaming and killing time; “As young teenagers, our way out of boredom was our dirt bikes. The days were hot and humid and we spent from morning ‘till night riding our bikes through sugarcane fields and along wild and unspoiled beaches - we lived for that.”

 

Other album highlights include Wild Romance with it’s fast and punky drum beat, chugging bass and guitar punk-pop rhythms and Waiting… a Southern blues electric guitar and Wurlitzer driven stomper, where Matt Monks of London based band Playmaker arranged and played the instruments with real swagger.

 

Neon Boy closes the album and borrows it’s palette from Mezzanine-era Massive Attack, it ponders leaving a small town in search of a better and bigger life. The tune plays out with the same witchdoctor who opened the album, in a redemptive mood.

 

Little African Drama was written, recorded and produced during 2021 at Louis’ home studio in Kent, England, and additional instrumentation and production on the blues stomper Waiting was provided by Matt Monks, of London band Playmaker. Louis will be playing shows in London and the UK through 2022.

 

Tracklisting:

 

1. Witchcraft (intro)

2. Army of One

3. Wild Romance

4. Waiting…

5. Dirt Bike Blues

6. Not Dark Yet

7. Call in the Guns

8. Neon Boy

 

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