Manchester's Autocamper share "Proper" single .. Debut album due 11th July on Safe Suburban Home and Slumberland Records
Autocamper
Share "Proper", the final single ahead of debut LP
Listen here
Debut album, What Do You Do All Day?
due 11th July on Safe Suburban Home and Slumberland Records (US)
Live dates throughout the summer, inc
tour with Chime School
“Manchester quartet swerve tweeness on endearingly energetic debut”
- Uncut Magazine
“Addictive sunshine pop”
- The Line of Best Fit
"..channelling the best of late ‘80s indie-pop while still sounding like a young band making guitar music in 2025. Properly charming, that is.”
- Shindig! Magazine
“an effervescent, ebullient, pop-leaning sound that just invites the listener to bop ‘til they drop”
- God Is In The TV
Manchester’s Autocamper are the perfect pop antidote to the city’s predictable post-punk machismo. Like a Northern kitchen sink rendering of The Vaselines’ call and response motif, their world-weary reflections on bedroom tiffs and hungover misdemeanors capture the jangle pop spirit of the ‘80s without the C86 revisionism.
With their debut album What Do You Do All Day? coming 11th July on Safe Suburban Home and Slumberland Records (US), the band unveil new single "Proper".
Autocamper's Jack Harkins say of the song: "An exercise in optimism and remembering the good times as honestly as possible with all the uncertainties and vulnerabilities attached. Deliberately (and hopefully delightfully) moronic big chorus a la The Yellow Balloon/Left Banke. Big Aislers bells too. It feels catchy and hooky and like an obvious ‘single off the album choice’. We had only recently written it and wrestling the guitar parts out was the most challenging part of recording the whole album.”
Autocamper - "Proper"
https://lnk.to/autocamper-proper
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Album Preorder:
https://autocamper.bandcamp.com/album/what-do-you-do-all-day
Listen to previous singles "Again" and "Red Flowers"
Live Dates
4/5th July – Manchester Pop Festival
11th July - Manchester, Star & Garter (Album Launch)
13th July - Glasgow, Glad Cafe
21st July - London, Shacklewell Arms*
22nd July - Coventry, Just Dropped In*
23rd July - Leeds, Lending Room*
24th July - Newcastle, Alfie & Fin's*
9th Aug – Preston Pop Festival
14/15th Nov – Malaga Pop Festival
* with Chime School
Autocamper were formed on a crisp, autumnal evening in October 2022; via a combination of mutual friends, anonymous internet ads and chance encounters at an Umbrellas’ gig (future Slumberland Records label mates). Honing their sound across the ever-dwindling practice spaces of the city, much of the album was thrashed out between the backrooms of pubs, half-constructed studio spaces, and a (now demolished) disused commercial kitchen unit. Though a true DIY sensibility permeates the music and ethos of the band, their debut LP sees them step up a level from previous self-recorded releases.
“Some of us hadn’t been in bands before Autocamper, and when you listen to recordings we took from practices early on you can hear that in how we’re playing”, they share. “All the songs on the album were written once we’d become mates and gotten really comfortable playing together, and also played a lot of gigs. I think there’s a nice sense of growth from the first stuff we put out on Bandcamp to the songs on the new record.”
Vocalist and guitarist Jack Harkins adds, “I put on my sunglasses and manifest that I am a decadent millionaire popstar, like Lee Hazlewood meets Bryan Ferry, and the hits come flowing out.”
Recorded at Glasgow's Green Door Studio and produced by Chris McCory of Catholic Action, What Do You Do All Day? sees Autocamper shed their bedroom pop roots, while retaining the candid, bittersweet sincerity of earlier singles. Jack Harkins' casual lilt often resembles a less baritone, Northern English iteration of Calvin Johnson, countering keyboardist Niamh Purtill’s soft, whisper-like timbre. This classic dynamic runs through the album, yielding a tenderness that strikes a perfect balance — never too cloying, and offering a modern twist on the unpretentious earnestness found in '60s sunshine pop of groups like The Millennium.
A good melody is inherently sincere as it originates from an authentic emotional space. In the case of Autocamper, memorable melodies are abundant, shaped by an impressive collective knowledge of music's past, present, and future. Their sound is both nostalgic and fresh, combining the DIY pop sensibilities of Sarah Records with the jangling, melodic impulse of James Kirk-era Orange Juice, while also capturing the heartfelt songwriting of Curt Boetcher and Sandy Salisbury.
Autocamper’s music explores, “that feeling of melancholy in a location, piece of work or interaction with a person” shares Jack. “It's that sick in the stomach optimism. It seems to be an oxymoron of a feeling but makes you feel alive. This comes hand in hand with sincerity. I think people can tell if you're being honest in songs and I think people enjoy it more.”
Autocamper are
Jack Harkins (guitar, vocals), Niamh Purtill (keys, vocals), Harry Williams (bass) and Arthur Robinson (drums)
Preorder:
https://autocamper.bandcamp.com/album/what-do-you-do-all-day
Tracklisting
1. Again
2. Red Flowers
3. Map Like A Leaf
4. Foxes
5. Proper
6. You
7. Dogsitting
8. Somehow
9. Linnean
10. Street View
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