Chartreuse

On their long-awaited debut album Morning Ritual, Chartreuse have found light in the darkness, sifting through the ruins of an anxious age in order to find hope in it. "There's a strange optimism in pulling all your negative traits out, revising & reviewing them, then putting them back, in order," says Mike Wagstaff.

Chartreuse resist easy definition. The Black Country four-piece have been close friends since they were at college. In 2013, Mike & Harriet Wilson started playing folk music together and a year later, they added a rhythm section, with the addition of Mike's brother Rory on drums & Perry Lovering on bass. They're very close friends & the songwriting is an extension of this intimacy. Their songs might find Harriet singing Mike's lyrics, or vice versa.

"It takes a lot of trust, because the songs aren't short of emotion," says Harriet.

The album shows off Chartreuse's spectacular range to full effect & there is a clear sense of figuring it out as Morning Ritual reaches its end, "I get to the end of the record, & love that it leaves me wondering, what's next for this band?" says Harriet.

Hope, certainly, & a sense of possibility, with a defiant refusal to be boxed in.