The Earlies

With members split evenly between Texas—Brandon Carr and J.M. Lapham—and northern England—Christian Madden and Giles Hatton—the Earlies rely on both digital tools and a common affinity for prog, psychedelia, country, and electronica to stay creatively linked. Their long-distance exchange of ideas began in the late ’90s after Lapham encountered Madden during a sound-recording course in Manchester and crossed paths with Carr inside a Texas record shop. Serving as the central conduit, Lapham circulated DAT tapes among Carr, Hatton, and Madden, allowing the quartet to assemble material that first surfaced on 2002 EPs including Bring It Back Again. In 2004 they issued the U.K.-only compilation These Were the Earlies, drawing together earlier recordings, and that same year the four musicians convened in person for the first time to play a tour that swelled their lineup to eleven. U.S. listeners finally received a domestic version when Secretly Canadian reissued the album in fall 2005. The group resurfaced in winter 2007 with the darker, more expansive The Enemy Chorus, an album that foregrounded their prog leanings while folding in traces of Krautrock.