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What do you do when your infamous underground post-metal band breaks up? Well, for Mike McKnight, formerly of Manchester's cult experimental rockers Cyril Snear, the answer is that you sell all of your equipment, and form an electronic-acoustic project with one of your oldest friends. Then, you grab your acoustic, and go out to play to the same post-rock, progressive metal and experimental rock audiences as the old band;
"For us what qualifies as a good show is when we manage to silence crowds, just from our guitar playing and harmonies. There's nothing more satisfying than hearing all the chatter at the beginning of the gig, and then complete silence."
Those hushed crowds speak volumes of the musical power that Sphelm boast. If at all possible, the same post-rock and math-rock feel remains despite the acoustic guitar and electronic instruments; music written as if for a modern progressive rock band re-imagined as electronica. If that sounds brilliant, that's because it is.
Some background; Mike formed Sphelm ("a term picked up from our home town of Mold in North Wales... it doesn’t really mean anything; we chose it because it reminds us of where we are from," he says) in 2013 as a creative outlet to explore a completely different side of his musical personality; "I started on the acoustic and that's what has always felt natural to me," Mike muses. As his main band wound down, Sphelm continued to take shape, with electronics and acoustic guitar taking the fore in a reaction to "all the pedals and loud amps" becoming "a bit of chore, [that] all felt too much." Tim Powell joined on guitar and keyboards after Mike's initial shows, and quickly became key to defining their sound.
"Our first release was written and recorded over a very short space of time," explains Mike, of 2014's 'Orenda' EP, released on Manchester label This City is Ours, "since, we've refined our sound, matured as musicians, and this time we've paid a lot more attention to the technical side of the recording in order to really bring out the sound and feel we were looking for."
Now, with debut LP 'These Roots Know No Boundaries' in the bag, 2016 is looking busy for the duo as they plot its release and touring to support it.

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