The Winchester Club

The Winchester Club

The Winchester Club is an instrumental post-rock group from London, UK. It is founded in 1999 by drummer Tim Spear and begins as a side project for an all-day gig organised by country-rock band Chineseburn, where Spear and Mr Deeney are also members. The group includes bass player Harry Armstrong, known for work with Hangnail and End of Level Boss, and guitarist Jonathan Morgan. It later recruits Elena Jane on second bass for a London show supporting Virginia post-rock band Ostinato.

Early recordings and first releases

The band develops a set of long-form instrumental pieces and records them at Moon Studio in London. These recordings are issued as the demo drown little joys in work and distress. After a run of London gigs, the group returns to writing and rehearsing material for a full-length album in 2000.

Britannia Triumphant

In 2001, the band records the tracks that form the basis of Britannia Triumphant. Work on the album stretches over several years while the members juggle other commitments and jobs, and the recordings are lost twice, forcing the band back to the original material and to re-record sections. The album is completed in 2007 and first appears on Tim Spear’s label, WHI Recordings, in a low-key release. It is later reissued by German label Exile on Mainstream in a deluxe wooden package with bonus tracks.

Touring and live profile

After the album is finished, the group performs at London’s Bar Monsta with Virginia post-rock band Ostinato. It then tours Europe in March 2009, supporting A Whisper in the Noise in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other countries. That tour leads to further headline shows later in the same year, a support slot with Neurosis, and an appearance at Roadburn Festival 2009 in the Netherlands, alongside bands including Mono and Earth. The festival set is broadcast by Dutch broadcaster VPRO, and the group’s audio stream remains in the top 10 listening chart for several weeks.

Negative Liberty

Encouraged by the response to the reissued debut and to touring, the band spends the next two years rehearsing and recording a second album. In June 2010 it records five new tracks at Helicopter Tonstudios in Dresden, with the album later completed by Spear at his home studio and mastered by Stefan Bruggemann at The Mastering Room in Berlin. Released by Exile on Mainstream in March 2011, Negative Liberty develops the band’s epic instrumental style in a heavier direction and draws inspiration from Adam Curtis’s documentary series The Trap, which examines darker aspects of human behaviour.