CIVIL PARTNERSHIP

Since forming in 2017, CIVIL PARTNERSHIP has played across London’s greatest independent venues, including headline shows at: The Brixton Windmill and Paper Dress Vintage. Their first sold-out show was at the sadly now defunct Sister Midnight Records [Save The Ravensbourne Arms]. After a long break during the COVID-19 pandemic, CIVIL PARTNERSHIP returned to live performance in autumn 2021, starting with support slots for trailblazing contemporary bands Saloon Dion, Butch Kassidy and Slagheap. By January 2022 CIVIL PARTNERSHIP had headlined Paper Dress Vintage to sold-out crowds, receiving support from Gag Salon and The Moral High Ground. The band currently consists of multi-instrumentalists Jack George Smith, William Lovell, Jake Thomas, Josh Matheson and Jaime Torres-Bravo; and visual artist Julia Kobak. The CIVIL PARTNERSHIP live lineup is currently in rotation.

CIVIL PARTNERSHIP is a musical collective devoted to prolific output, DIY methods and minimalist live arrangements. Their sound draws on approaches seen in the more adventurous guitar music and trip-hop of the late 20th century. After five years of live performance, in winter 2022 CIVIL PARTNERSHIP will begin releasing its extensive back catalogue of as-yet unheard recordings, starting with debut single ‘Good Morning Britain’ on 22/2/22. Good Morning Britain was written in Lambeth around NYE 2019-20 and recorded / mixed by CIVIL PARTNERSHIP in Woolwich in winter 2021. The track is notable for its glassy bass chords, gothic guitar lines and hard-grooving, bass-heavy drums and synths. With lyrics inhabiting absurd worldviews presented in Internet comment sections and - increasingly - overheard on South London streets, ‘Good Morning Britain’ could be considered a comment on the heightened alienation, fragmentation and discord seen in British culture, politics and society. ‘Good Morning Britain’ will be released digitally with experimental, lo-fi B-Side ‘NW1//NR1’. Held in comparison with ‘Good Morning Britain’, the two tracks could be considered two sides of the same coin: ‘NW1//NR1’ explores the warped contentedness which affluence, consumerism and hierarchical worldviews might offer some individuals in an increasingly unequal and divided Britain. Both tracks are also being released in a limited run of tapes from Just Step Sideways Records [Beige Banquet]. This limited run of tapes also includes exclusive live recordings of CIVIL PARTNERSHIP crowd favourites ‘Vienna Circle’, ‘Adrian’ and ‘Submarine’. ‘Good Morning Britain’ will be released with an experimental film shot by Jack George Smith on analogue videotape, drawing on the formalist filmmaking of the early 20th century and recontextualising on the streets of an increasingly digital, fragmentary and [almost] post-pandemic Britain.