Fifth Daughter

The sax player for Brighton proggers Diagonal, Nick Whittaker is also half of thrilling new psych duo Fifth Daughter. They’re named after an alien in the Monica Hughes sci-fi novel ‘Space Trap’, and the idea for their debut record came to Whittaker over lockdown.

“A rather lovely thing about that era was that, with nothing else to do, you’d go for a walk down by the sea on a cold, stormy night. I’d always been a summer obsessive, but came to genuinely appreciate the different seasons. The rhythm of the seasons is one of the beautiful things about living where we do, and that’s where the concept came from.”

‘Stellar Season’ is a full-on, spaced-out journey. Broaching prog, acid-folk and raga rock, its story concerns an intergalactic society that creates its own endless summer, which develops into a kind of hell. Joining Whittaker for the trip is friend, co-writer and fellow Brighton musician, James Howarth. He broke through a decade ago as the bassist for garage rockers Running Dogs, managed by those agit-pop situationists, the KLF.

“Our musical specialties are in different areas,” says Howarth, “but Nick and I like a lot of the same things. We used to chat for hours in the pub about The Beatles’ late era. It just seemed silly that we weren’t doing music together.”

Other mutual touchstones were Chilean space-rockers Föllakzoid and ‘No Other’, the 1974 slice of cosmic Americana by late Byrds founder, Gene Clark. Diagonal drummer Luke Foster and guitarist David Wileman contribute, and on moments like jam-out closer ‘Even Winter’, that band’s spirit seeps through. But above all Fifth Season is the sound of two mates really mucking in, and about. Multi-instrumentalist Howarth learned the sitar for the record’s opener ‘The Eternal Dance’ (“But I can only play it in C!” he qualifies, modestly). Along with vocals and sax, Whittaker’s palette includes kalimba, synth, clarinet, recorder and Hulusi, a Chinese flute.

The production’s deep, but there’s a looseness that Whittaker (a Doctor of International Relations by day) attributes to his penchant for The Incredible String Band. Indeed, he’s by far the proggier half here. His sax hero’s VdGG’s David Jackson, and he recently introduced Howarth to the wonder of Yes’ ‘Starship Trooper’. “When you’re immersed in the prog world writing can become a bit, ‘Well, is this prog ‘enough’? Is this ‘too’ prog?’. With James there’s none of that, because he just doesn’t care. It just is what it is.”

“For me,” Howarth adds, “if it sounds good then let’s keep it. If it’s shit, then let’s not. I don’t care about the genre so much. We weren’t planning on this going much further than the pair of us having a great time and maybe getting a small deal, which is exactly what’s happened.”

They’ll be recording the follow-up later this year, and while both profess to be jaded with the gigging life, they can’t help themselves. “The next one will be more balls-out,” says Howarth, “more direct and groove-oriented so we can play it live. We’d love to fill up a couple of music halls and just have fun.

– Grant Moon

PROG FILE – FIFTH DAUGHTER

LINE-UP: Nick Whittaker (vocals, sax, synth, much else), James Howarth (bass, vocals, guitar, sitar, percussion)

SOUNDS LIKE: Jade Warrior and Diagonal, under marmalade skies…

CURRENT RELEASE: ‘Stellar Season’, out now.

WEBSITE: fruitsdemerrecords.com/stellar.html