DOWN SILVER STREETS

a tribute to Nikki Sudden, Epic Soundtracks & Dave Kusworth

Down Silver Streets is a collection of songs by Nikki Sudden, Dave Kusworth and Epic recorded by three musicians who played extensively with Nikki and Dave in the 90s and 2000s: Scottish singer-songwriters Mark Mulholland and Joe Armstrong and French drummer Stéphane Doucerain, with guitars that jangle and chime, sublime vocal harmonies, lush organ and keys, melodic and rhythmic bass, held together by supple and inventive drums.

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ABOUT

The seminal post-punk band Swell Maps was founded in the late ’70s by brothers Nikki Sudden and Epic Soundtracks, championed by John Peel, and cited as an influence by the likes of REM, Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. They went on to create The Jacobites with Birmingham guitarist and songwriter Dave Kusworth. All three also had solo careers, and various other bands and projects: Epic with Crime and the City Solution and These Immortal Souls, Dave with The Bounty Hunters and the Dogs D’Amour, while Nikki collaborated with members of REM, The Birthday Party, the Faces, the Stones and the Waterboys.

“In March 2006 I was on my way to London to play a gig opening for Nikki and Dave at the 12 Bar Club when I got a call to say that Nikki had died after a gig in New York. When I met up with Dave at the venue, the question of whether to go ahead with the show had been answered for us by Nikki 9 years before in Berlin, and the evening turned into a very moving tribute concert. By a strange coincidence, which we reflected on over a few drinks, Knox, from the Vibrators, who I had only ever met at that first gig in Berlin, was also on the bill that night.

I kept in touch sporadically with Dave, and we met occasionally at gigs, but I moved away from Europe for most of a decade, so our paths didn’t cross very often. When I heard in 2020 that he had died, Joe, Stéphane and I recorded a version of “Silver Street” in memory of Dave and Nikki. At the end of 2025, it occurred to me that the 20th anniversary of Nikki’s death fell on what would have been Dave’s 66th birthday, March 26th. I never met Epic, but I felt a connection with him through the circumstances of our first gig with Nikki, and through his songs, and Nikki’s stories. I suggested to Joe and Stéphane that we could build on what we started with the cover of “Silver Street”, and put together a collection of songs by Nikki, Dave and Epic.

Over the next couple of months the songs were recorded in various sessions in France, Berlin and Tunisia, with help from Berlin-based engineers Marcus Fister and Chris Lastelle, and we sent tracks back and forth to each other to add elements. As well as Joe, Stéphane and myself, the album features guest performances from various friends, including Rob Angst, who sang the lead vocal on “Kings and Queens”. The mastering was done by John Rivers, who worked with Nikki and Epic since the Swell Maps days, in his studio in Nikki and Epic’s home town of Leamington Spa. Joe drew beautiful portraits of the three songwriters for the cover, which was designed in a style I’m sure they would have approved of by Andy Leuenberger.

The release concert will take place in Gibney’s, in the Friedrichshain area of Berlin. In a previous incarnation, the bar was called Dezibel, which was a bar and concert venue that I was involved in creating with a bunch of friends in 1998. The first gig we put on there was Nikki – I remember him carrying in his gear while we were still screwing in plasterboard above the stage door – and he and Dave were regularly on the bill thereafter, so it seems like a suitable place for a release gig for the tribute album to them.” A chance encounter in a Berlin bar by Mark Mulholland

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