A six-piece band based on the Dalmatian coast but now regularly gigging at festivals and concerts around Europe, Carl Reuter & the Harpoons offer blues-rooted, exciting, up tempo original music.
The collaboration is unique: Carl Reuter is an English singer and songwriter who is very much the product of four decades of association with the British blues scene. The Harpoons are an experienced and ultra-professional Croatian band who have refined their skills through many years on the road. They have recently come together in a remarkably productive cross-cultural partnership.
Their ‘Blues On’ project aims to bring the blues into the 21st century by developing new, topical and fresh material relevant to the lives of contemporary audiences. You won’t find them performing songs about good ol’ boys pickin’ cotton in Louisiana, but you will find songs about some of the issues faced by young people in modern societies – love, friendship, urban stress, drugs, alcohol, money, societal expectations, the culture of celebrity.
The songs are completely new but somehow still seem familiar. A bit of rock, a bit of jazz, a bit of soul, a bit of something you can’t easily label – but it’s still unmistakably the blues. It’s still powerful. It’s still immediate. It’s still the kind of music that grabs audiences and gets them moving. It’s still the kind of music that you hear once and immediately want to hear again. It’s music which fuses together a wealth of blues tradition and experience with lyrics which you want to go away and quietly read afterwards because they clearly say something important. Some of these songs are, put simply, future blues classics. We’ll be hearing them for the rest of our lives.
The band’s first ‘Blues On’ album of 11 powerful and original tracks has already proved extremely popular with a wide range of listeners in South-East Europe, getting regular radio exposure, rave critical reviews and earning them an enthusiastic, rapidly growing and committed following of fans. ‘Blues On 2’ is already recorded and ready for release.
Carl Reuter & The Harpoons give momentum to any musical event. Audiences love them from their first infectious intro riffs right through to their big finale numbers. This is a unique, stylish, attractive and professional group of musicians – an exciting arrival on the international festival and concert circuit. With new material of this calibre and the ability to deliver it with such power and excitement, this is a band which surely has a huge future. Keep an eye on these guys – there’s a lot more to come from them.
