Unsigned Music Awards: August and After on their nomination for Best Country/Folk act

The Independent caught up with indie-folk band August and After to talk Counting Crows, coups and human connections.

Ida Hollis Photography (Press image)

London-based indie-folk group August and After have been slowly but steadily gaining a foothold on the overcrowded scene this year, following the launch of their debut EP Cascades.

Following a stint at this summer’s Secret Garden Party, they toured across Europe and returned to their Paris studio for recording.

It was there, mid-vocal take, that they received the news: out of almost 3,000 applicants, they’d been nominated for an Unsigned Music Award [UMA], in the ‘Best Country / Folk category’.

“I love country music, and it’s the closest I’ll ever get to a country career," Jordan Bergmans told The Independent.

The French violist is effusive and unassuming, yet has already performed with the likes of Rod Stewart, Frank Turner and Pixie Lott.

Along with vocalist/guitarists Ned Mortimer and Vedantha Kumar, the trio effortlessly weave vocal harmonies with textured instrumentation, and credit French producer Jonathan Lefèvre-Reich for helping to create their distinct multi-layered sound.

The band name pays homage to Counting Crow’s 1993 debut August and Everything After. “Counting Crows are one of our favourite bands ever,” Mortimer explains, often leading the band in a rousing cover of the first song on the album, ‘Round Here’.

While you can see the similarity in lyrical storytelling and passionate crescendos, the band take much of their musical lead from Bon Iver, by whom they are all “absolutely enchanted”: a stripped back yet romantic cover of ‘Holocene’ often opens their live shows.

And although their folk spirit is evident in their poetic nature-based imagery, what consistently underpins their work is the idea of human relationships.

The trio are best friends - Mortimer and Kumar have known each other since university; moving to London together to work on Embers, a series of bedroom recordings, where they met Bergmans.

"We’re like family," Kumar says. "It’s so comfortable that it’s effortless.”

Their closeness and enjoyment of one another's presence on stage is clear to see. They're so cosy that an August and After show is like an installation of Danish hygge.

But there’s an distinct tension between their onstage smiles and the darker elements of their music: tropes of mortality, loss, loneliness; the often yearning melancholia of their lyrics.

Their lead single, 'Wolves', describes a desire to bridge the isolating distance between humans, and form a true connection.

It’s ironic that a song about the difficulty of inter-personal communications is performed by such a personable group, and has no difficulty reaching listeners - with nearly half a million plays on Spotify's Your Coffee Break playlist.

“I thought it was something that absolutely everybody could relate to,” Bergmans explains.

She and Mortimer had their own experience of difficulty this summer, when they were caught up in the recent coup in Turkey.

Mortimer remembers: “It was extremely surreal. We travelled back to the European side by boat, unaware that just down the river, tanks were mobilising on the Bosphorus Bridge.

"Helicopters began circling low above our heads, and we started seeing reports on the news. So we headed back to our hotel and sat up on the roof terrace watching it all unfold."

Mortimer says he is struggling to write a song about the experience: “I don’t want to write anything trite about the coup because it devalues it, but it was such an intense moment in my life.”

Because that’s what they’re doing with their music: connecting with their audience by describing pivotal points in their own past.

“We love talking about moments in our past, like snapshots,” Mortimer adds. "Nostalgia definitely feeds into everything we do: the need to hold onto a moment."

But it’s nostalgia with a twist: despite isolation, saudades and struggles to communicate, the music manages to remain forward thinking, even uplifting. There’s a tentative hopefulness and refusal to despair that's hard to resist.

The Unsigned Music Awards take place on 27 October