Elliot Grimmie meets one of Kent’s hardest-working musicians Charlie Hannah as he releases his new record Thames Estuary Blue and talks about ‘information overwhelm’ and ‘rock n scroll’

If you’ve spent any time exploring Thanet’s music scene, chances are you’ve come across Charlie Hannah at some point or another. A man of multi-instrumental competence, Charlie has been a part of various musical ventures over the years.

It could be as part of his band Itchy Teeth, or part of an ever-evolving live act recently renamed from The Hausplants to The Industry Plants, or just helping out another musician’s project.

But more recently the Margate busybody has been working on his latest solo record Thames Estuary Blue, which he will be launching with a live gig at Elsewhere in Margate on July 15th.

“The actual title is a reference to a Dennis Wilson album from 1977 called Pacific Ocean Blue –it’s really emotional, very sad and grand in scope, and I wanted to do a piece that was emotional and melancholic as a response to that one,” says Charlie. “I feel like the Pacific Ocean, America and Dennis Wilson is a big sounding theme and I wanted to do, like, a British response to it, smaller, more humorous and closer to my own style”.

The tone of Thames Estuary Blue carries a weighty, more downtrodden vibe than Charlie’s previous endeavors: “Normally within my albums they’re quite scattergun in vibe, I tend to just write lots of different styles, whack ’em all on and don’t really put lots of thought into the running order of it, and how it’ll sound as a whole product. But this time I wanted to be more considered with the overarching tone of the album – I wanted it to have one feeling so that sonically all the songs felt together.”

Technology and ‘information overwhelm’ has been a theme that’s run through a lot of Charlie’s music. Tracks like Blue Light, Give Me An Overview and How I Divide My Time are about that very subject.

“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.“It’s music for people to listen to on their own, scrolling through their phone, to decompress and digest how frenetic normal life is. I’m calling it ‘rock n scroll’, and that’s why it has to be so tender and intimate”

— Charlie Hannah

“It’s kind of a melancholic response to the frenetic Zoomer world we live in right now. It’s music for people to listen to on their own, scrolling through their phone, to decompress and digest how frenetic normal life is. I’m calling it ‘rock n scroll’, and that’s why it has to be so tender and intimate.”

Given Charlie’s multi-instrumental capabilities, it was imperative to delve into arrangements of the tracks and how he decided on which instruments and compositions to use.

“There’s a lot of piano and I’ve worked in some samples. I got a new sample pack from native instruments and I was enjoying a couple of new MIDI pianos, particularly this Nils Frahm one called Noire. It’s very soft and you can really hear all the pads on it – it’s gorgeous and I wanted to make something that was tender on the ears, so sometimes there’s a lot going on, but I never wanted it to be invasive. Some of the tracks were quite easy to arrange, like Are You Dreaming All Your Life – I just put down some nice piano and harmonies.

“But some of the tracks, like Special Treatment or Blue Light, they took a long time to work out because there’s a lot going on in them, there’s a lot of weird sounds and I did quite a lot of sampling of, say, instead of using a bass guitar, I would just strum…” Charlie picks up an acoustic guitar and strums a singular note “… and just sample that, manipulate the sound a bit and try to be experimental with it. I also never let myself use an actual drum kit – whenever I needed to make a beat, it was either tapping on my desk or using my voice and sampling that to make it more intimate and personal sounding.”

Thames Estuary Blue will be Charlie’s fifth record as a solo artist, not to mention the four albums he’s put out as part of his The-Beatles-meets-Tame-Impala-sounding group, Itchy Teeth. And yet Charlie is already thinking three steps ahead; before he’s even released TEB, he tells us of his upcoming projects with Fixers frontman and now Margate-based producer/songwriter Jack Goldstein, as well as revealing that there’s new Itchy Teeth music in the pipeline and two other ventures: a hyperpop/rap project and his experimental Ambient Tofu project.

“So for the next album, me and Jack have started working together. I’m gonna write all of the songs and then I’m gonna put a lot of the production over to him and be, like, what do you think? What can you do with me? I’ve also got an upcoming project with Jack and Xav [Charlie’s Itchy Teeth bandmate] called Hannah, Clarke & Goldstein – we’re calling it adult contemporary, so it’s gonna be this Hall & Oates, Fleetwood Mac, very polished, nicely produced, mature-sounding pop, and we’re gonna make that sound as musically satisfying and good as we can, and though we’re being comedic in our presentation of it, it’s supposed to just be really serious, luscious pop songs with three part male voice harmonies.

“We’ve only had one rehearsal so far, although we’ve done a lot of Instagram posts about it [@hannahclarkandgoldstein]. We’ve got a few songs down, we just need to rehearse them more.”

Charlie hasn’t always been based down on the shores of the Kent coast, however, and he reminisces about his days growing up in Southend and how moving to Margate has had a positive effect on his pursuits of musical exploration.

“I didn’t do any solo music until I came to Margate. It was always Itchy Teeth, that was the only project I had, it’s been the Kent music scene that’s given me the boost I needed to want to do all these projects, and the amount of local musicians that are up for playing in my live projects and how fun that’s made it. I love the Kent coast.

“I swam in the Walpole Bay tidal pool for the whole first year of the pandemic, which has been one of the biggest inspirations for me in terms of daily meditations, helping me keep sane and keep fit in both mind and body, and there’s definitely a sea and watery theme going through it.”

In keeping with how much of a motivator living on the Kent coast has been for Charlie and his various works, even the album art for Thames Estuary Blue comes from local (though internationally renowned, Charlie points out) artist David Shillinglaw.

“He’s brilliant, he’s a force of nature, you’d probably recognise a lot of his work on the shopfronts in Margate. I think he really captured the vibe I was going for.”

INSTA: @charlie.hannah