Over a 20-plus year career, Little Barrie, led by guitar ace Barrie Cadogan and bassist Lewis Wharton have proven themselves to be one of the UK’s most respected and resilient bands, cooking up a genre blending sound that touches on the ’60s British blues explosion, deep funk, hip hop and the best rock n’ roll of the last six decades, all leading to their new long player ‘Electric War’, their second collection of recordings in collaboration with master drummer, producer and The Heliocentrics founder Malcolm Catto.

Decades on from his childhood in Nottingham, Barrie is one of the worlds most respected musicians, having worked on music for film and television (as well as his day job of being a guitarist), composing and performing the main title theme for the award winning Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul and composing the soundtrack to the documentary Year Of The Dog. He’s also contributed to music for Hollywood releases including Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, featuring on ‘Cotton Candy Land’ with Stevie Nicks & Chris Issak, and critically acclaimed BBC drama Peaky Blinders.

Along the way he’s been the go-to guitar man for some of the music world’s most successful artists, serving as an integral member of Primal Scream from 2006-2015 and more recently as a member of The The, co-writing two songs with leader Matt Johnson on the band’s critically acclaimed 2024 comeback album ‘Ensoulment’, not to mention his stint as guitarist for Liam Gallagher at his historic sold out Knebworth shows and as bass player for Liam and John Squire’s 2024 world tour. All this along with an impressive CV of session work for the likes of Paul Weller, Morrissey, Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) and Edwyn Collins amongst others.

He’d already started gigging as Little Barrie in the early 2000s when he met Lewis Wharton at mod clothes store Merc on Carnaby Street, where the band’s future bassist was running the record department. Barrie persuaded him to stock copies of his first single, and Little Barrie were away. With Lewis on board alongside drummer Wayne Fullwood, they debuted with 2005’s blue-eyed soul/funk blueprint, ‘We Are Little Barrie’ and after putting in miles across Europe, Japan, Australia and the US, returned with 2007’s rockabilly-tinged ‘Stand Your Ground’. Now with Russell Simins (John Spencer’s Blues Explosion) and subsequently Billy Skinner on percussion, and produced by underground hip hop supremo Dan The Automator and UK reggae hero Mike ‘Prince Fatty’ Pelanconi, The Guardian championed Barrie as “a compelling frontman, pitting street-corner punk vocals against volleys of reverb and twang”.
 
Little Barrie would shore up their ranks with the arrival of Virgil Howe, son of Yes guitar hero, Steve Howe, on drums in 2007, to go with the enduring mentorship/friendship of Edwyn Collins, whose West Heath studio in London became LB HQ. Two further albums diversified the Barrie blueprint, moving into ’60s surf-pop (2011’s ‘King Of The Waves’) and the darker soundtrack-style Krautrock of 2014’s ‘Shadow’, “an effortlessly exciting album, taking rock back to its thrilling basics” as lauded by the NME. Album number five, 2017’s ‘Death Express’, packed a heavy punch, a raw, DIY outburst covering themes of greed and CCTV generationalism. Its spurning of big, expensive studios in favour of a couple of ancient MacBooks and an old tape machine, lead to Louder Than War praising it’s “classic sixties r’nb garage rock with 21st century thrust”.

Following the untimely passing of Virgil Howe in 2017, Little Barrie underwent a healing process where returning to the studio and reconnecting through music, without seeking an end product, became therapy, an opportunity to work on bits and pieces Barrie had written for fun with zero pressure. Aligning with Malcolm Catto, the band slowly but surely emerged from this emotional exile. 

Malcolm Catto has been a legendary leading figure of the UK’s underground funk, jazz and psych scenes for over three decades, working with Jazzman Gerald on his Stark Reality label (who also released Little Barrie’s first single) as well as master drummer for well-respected UK funk outfit The Soul Destroyers before he formed The Heliocentrics along with fellow Soul Destroyer Jake Ferguson, going on to gain global recognition for Malcolm’s production chops and as leading exponents of mind-expanding psych-jazz and funk.

The first album from Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto, ‘Quatermass Seven’, described as “a mesmerising collaboration” by Shindig! Magazine, won plaudits from the music press and the bands fanbase, pulling together the wealth of influences and phenomenal talent of each player to create a deep, funky & expansive psych-rock experience on tracks like the 8-minute ‘After After’ and the deep and hooky fuzz funk of ‘Steel Drum’. Recorded on Catto’s treasure trove of analogue gear, and mastered onto ¼” tape, guitar, bass and drums launched into the sweet spot where genres collide, landing at the feet of maverick hip-hop producer Madlib and his Madlib Invazion label. Following live shows to promote the album the band headed back into the studio to capitalise on becoming a tight-knit musical unit.

New album ‘Electric War’, their first for Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound label sees Barrie, Malcolm & Lewis push the boundaries even further, expanding their rich sonic palette and proving that the chemistry imbedded in the grooves of their debut was no fluke.  “I’ve been fan of Malcolm’s drumming since I first heard him, likewise with Lewis’ bass playing.” Says Barrie. “We go back a long way together and you can’t fast-track that stuff. I wanted see what we could do when we stretched out musically.” 

Progression from their first album was also key for Malcolm in his approach to production
“I didn’t want to repeat ourselves in regards to a sound so tried to strip things back more and get the most we could from just the original studio performances.”

The highlights are many on the new record, from the lysergic, laid back funk of ‘Creaky’ which comes complete with cello courtesy of The Heliocentrics Danny Keane and Barrie’s fluid and tasteful wah-guitar lines, and ‘Spektator’ which sets Barrie’s beautifully understated vocal delivery against a shifting arrangement, which the trio execute with a stylish touch that shows just how much they’re in tune with each other. “We now feel confident that we don’t have to be bound by traditional song structures for this project to work live,” says Lewis. “I think the shows that followed the first record have influenced us to feel free to go with whatever sounds exciting to us without overthinking it.”