Anglo-American pop group Still Corners – guitarist Greg Hughes and vocalist/keyboardist Tessa Murray – produce cinematic music powered by classic reverb tones that evoke physical and emotional space, travel and distance. “They’re quite full meals,” says Murray of their longer instrumental pieces.
Following the success of last year’s Dream Talk, they’re working on their seventh album, slated for an early 2026 release. Hughes says it has “a sort of melancholic desert vibe.”
He continues: “I have loads of effects out. But every time I go to record something on the guitar, I end up going back to just tape echo and spring reverb. I feel like that’s best for this album.
“I’ve tried things that I’ve used in the past, like a bit of chorus or a touch of micro pitch, which I really like. But that sort of clean tone, a la The Shadows and Hank Marvin, the older I get, the more I just want to do that.”
Past lyrics explored varied topics including dream insights, cosmic fate and restless voyaging – however, the new material marks a change for the duo. “We’ve started incorporating more instrumental passages,” says Hughes.
“We both listen to a lot of instrumental music. As much as I love lyrics and singing, I think sometimes they tell you how to feel. If there are no lyrics you project your own feeling onto the music. We kind of like that.”
Murray says of their working style: “Sometimes it’s a bit like an exchange. I might start off, then pass it to Greg. Maybe I’ll come back in, or maybe he’ll go off for three or four minutes.
“It’s quite fun – you’re not feeling tied to a three-minute pop song where its lots of singing and not much space for other stuff. And we’re not shying away from having meaty songs; there are some quite long ones on there.”
Still Corners’ music draws from the aesthetic of Sergio Leone’s Westerns, along with other classic movies. Asked to be specific about what inspires them, Murray says, “It’s a fusion of the visual and the music.
“When we work on a record, there’s a mood board on the wall with stills from some of the movies. We often screen a movie of the day to make sure it’s front of mind while mixing or writing. So the soundtrack stuff is permeating our sensibilities as songwriters, and the visuals inspire ideas and triggers to keep us thinking about the atmosphere.”
Hughes describes the trademark clean guitar tone of The Shadows and The Ventures as having a very basic appeal. “When I heard Billy Strange’s House of the Rising Sun early on, I admired the clarity of the tone. You can hear every note, and that reinforces the melody.
“It’s the feeling of bending into a spring reverb – it can be drippy, but if you have it dialed in nicely, it gives a lovely arch to the tone. I love the emotional aspect of it.”
Unlike some players and listeners, Hughes doesn’t make a virtue of speed on the fretboard. Instead he’s chasing “Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game, for example; that kind of bending, the slowness. If you have a really fast run it’s just blazing past you. But with a lovely slow melodic line, you just kind of melt into it.”
He likes to keep it simple when it comes to his six-string choices. “I’m sticking to one guitar now: a Fender Heavy Relic ’59 reissue with the Fat ’50s pickups, which are very clean and have a lovely chime.”
The same goes for effect pedals, where he relies on a couple of personal favorites. “Origin came out with this really big compressor pedal called the Cali76-TX-L, with a transformer. It compresses a bit – just a touch.
“I have a Fulltone Tube Tape Echo, which is like a magic machine. Then there’s the reverb on the Fender Princeton amps into a good microphone. I’m not a big tinkerer and I don’t like a lot of menus or buttons. I’m like, ‘Yeah, sounds good!’”
- Dream Talk is on sale now.
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