Biography
Out Lines draws creative impetus from the lived experiences of inhabitants in Glasgow's Easterhouse district. Comprising Twilight Sad vocalist James Graham, singer/songwriter Kathryn Joseph, and producer Marcus Mackay, the ensemble originated as an idea from Alun Woodward, ex-Delgados member, co-chief of Chemikal Underground Records, and music programmer for Platform, the arts facility housed within The Bridge community center in Easterhouse. Woodward asked Graham to join the 2016 Outskirts Festival, Platform's yearly showcase of cross-disciplinary art. Graham then brought in Joseph, whose 2015 album Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I've Spilled claimed the Scottish Album of the Year prize, and Mackay to work alongside him. Graham and Joseph conducted interviews with Easterhouse residents about daily life in the neighborhood, locally nicknamed Conflat and beset by underemployment, crime, and substance abuse, before converting those exchanges into songs that Out Lines delivered at the Outskirts Festival in April 2016. The three artists found the process so compelling that they tracked the resulting material at Mackay's Diving Bell Lounge studio, producing the album Conflats, which Chemikal Underground released in October 2017.
Albums