A Birmingham band with connections to the city’s rock royalty have released a debut single and set up their own record label.
The Chinese Burn Society have released Bubblegum E.P. through their record label Triptych Grooves.
The band were formed in 2010 by members of the critically-acclaimed Delta and NME magazine favourites The Kittenbirds.
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The Chinese Burn Society are David J Beck (guitar, vocals), Mike Nowland (cello), Timothy J Strang (drums), John Westwood (bass) and Louis J Clark (keyboards, guitar, vocals).
Louis J Clark is the son of ELO musician Louis Clark, who played a large part in orchestrating the Birmingham supergroup’s distinctive sound in the mid 1970s.
Clark trained at Birmingham Conservatoire and in addition to performing with The Chinese Burn Society he is a music tutor.
He also worked with Electric Cinema owner Tom Lawes on the composition and orchestration for his documentary The Last Projectionist, which tells the story of the cinema from its silent beginnings in 1909 to its days as a porn cinema in the 1980s.
Clark also created the string arrangements for eight-piece Birmingham band Misty’s Big Adventure on recent albums.
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The Chinese Burn Society’s Bubblegum E.P. is a five-track debut recorded and mixed by the band themselves, featuring the glam-pop title track Bubblegum, the claustrophobic rock of Worm and the Beatles-y Let It Out, together with a Gavin Monaghan mix of Bubblegum. Monaghan produced albums for Editors, Carina Round and The Twang.
The band describe their distinctive, layered sound as difficult to pigeonhole, with a number of influences, including psychedelia, garage rock, indie, pop and progressive rock. They are hoping to release their debut album early next year.
The Chinese Burn Society play one of the four free launch nights at the newly refurbished indie bar in the upstairs room at The Cross, Moseley, this evening, Friday November 1.
Admission is free and the gig starts at 8pm.
Bubblegum E.P. is available now, priced at £3.99 for the CD or at a ‘name your own price’ for the digital download, both from the band’s Bandcamp site at