Air Traffic

Air Traffic surfaced among the piano-centered English indie rock groups that rose to prominence in the early years of the twenty-first century. Originating from the quiet coastal settlement of Bournemouth on England’s southern shore—a place lacking any established musical tradition—the quartet took its name from rehearsals held inside a vacant industrial building beside the runway at Bournemouth International Airport, where their gear captured stray air traffic control transmissions.

Frontman, pianist and chief songwriter Chris Wall carries Irish ancestry, his parents both of Celtic background and his uncle Jimmy McCarthy working as a folksinger in Cork. While still at school, Wall met drummer David Jordan and guitarist Tom Pritchard; together they launched Air Traffic as an extracurricular project, only committing seriously to a music career during a gap year spent in Queensland, Australia. Back in London the three twenty-one-year-olds completed the lineup by adding bassist Jim Maddock.

Their opening single paired “Just Abuse Me” with “Charlotte” and appeared in a limited pressing of five hundred copies on the Fandango label, the imprint operated by live-promotion company Club Fandango, in July 2006. Although nominally enrolled in further study, the musicians spent their student loans on rehearsal space instead. Demo recordings soon drew industry interest, a development hastened when David Kosten caught the band at a London show in 2006 and signed them to his Tiny Consumer label within EMI; he then escorted them to Rockfield Studios in Wales to record their debut album.

While those sessions proceeded, an EP containing four tracks was issued, and the group made its first television appearance on Later with Jools Holland in November 2006. In April 2007 the reissued single “Charlotte” reached number thirty-three on the charts. It was followed quickly by “Shooting Star,” another track from the EP, which climbed to number thirty and prepared the ground for the album Fractured Life, released in July and named Capital Radio’s James Cannon album of the week. After the record appeared, Air Traffic announced a series of United Kingdom live dates together with a September tour of eleven universities across the country.