Cavil

Born on 20 June 1970 in Crumpsall, Stockport, Cheshire, England, frontman Gareth Cavill supplies vocals and guitar for Cavil, the project whose name drops the final letter of his surname. The group crafts delicate, atmospheric bedroom ballads shaped by the gritty realism of “kitchen sink” fiction from Stan Barstow, Alan Sillitoe and Keith Waterhouse, while their lyrics offer tributes to early-morning intimacy, Welsh seaside towns and characters from Cluedo. Cavill’s earliest tracks, still solo efforts at that stage, surfaced on the Vespertine label’s two well-received compilations An Evening In The Company Of The Vespertine and A Murder In The Company Of The Vespertine. His first official single, notable for allusions to opiates and the shipping forecast, appeared within a cluster of interrelated 7-inch releases that also featured Gnac and Piano Magic. Laughing In The Morning, the debut album, was tracked in France’s Loire Valley alongside Cedric Baud of the atmospheric miserablists Air Wave. During the two-year interval between those sessions and the record’s eventual release, the French label Acetone observed that the act had evolved from “a fresh and shy solo artist” into a more assertive quartet completed by guitarist Matt Paterson (b. 2 November 1969, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, England), bassist Ged McGurn (b. 5 February 1976, Leeds, Yorkshire, England) and drummer Peter Wankovicz (b. 31 October 1968, Kelvinside, Glasgow, Scotland). Cavill, Paterson and Wankovicz had already worked together as Cupboard, while Wankovicz maintains a parallel identity as the notorious DJ Chilliman, appearing in the hybrid costume of a jalapeño pepper and a Kraftwerk member to spin bass-heavy electro sets.