Tender Trap

Personnel shifts within Amelia Fletcher’s projects have invariably prompted entirely fresh band names. Heavenly essentially continued Talulah Gosh once a replacement keyboardist arrived, and the outfit became Marine Research after DJ Downfall stepped in for the late Mathew Fletcher on drums. Tender Trap itself emerged once further losses hit Marine Research: guitarist Peter Momtchiloff stepped away to serve as philosophy editor at Oxford University Press, and keyboardist Cathy Rogers departed for the United States to host and produce the cable series Junkyard Wars. The remaining lineup consisted of Amelia Fletcher handling vocals and melodica, Rob Pursey on guitar, and DJ Downfall on bass. Downfall also programmed the electronic drum patterns that underpinned Pursey and Fletcher’s earliest material; in live settings the three musicians performed over a CD-R of those rhythms routed through a boombox perched atop Downfall’s bass amplifier. The group’s initial outing arrived as the three-track single Oh Katrina in May 2002, with the debut album Film Molecules appearing two months later. Their follow-up, 6 Billion People, surfaced in 2006 and included guest vocals from the Magnetic Fields’ Claudia Gonson, while Dansette Dansette in 2010 introduced drummer Katrina Dixon alongside Allo Darlin’ singer Elizabeth Morris. Ahead of the 2012 release Ten Songs About Girls, Emily Bennett of Betty and the Werewolves assumed Morris’s guitar and vocal duties.