Local Arrangement

Local Arrangement are a male-female duo with their own distinctive take on country music: Country House Music.

Blending classic country storytelling with polished pop songwriting, warm acoustic production and a distinctly British sense of character, Local Arrangement make songs about people, relationships and the everyday situations that rarely turn out quite as planned. There is romance in their music, but there is humour too — sometimes affectionate, sometimes dry and occasionally at each other’s expense.

Both in their forties, the pair bring a little life experience to the songs. They are not wide-eyed newcomers singing about an imagined world of heartbreak and happy endings. Their characters have made mistakes, stayed too long, left too soon, fallen in love with the wrong person, gone back to them anyway and lived long enough to find the funny side of it.

That chemistry is central to Local Arrangement. Male and female vocals allow the same story to be viewed from two sides, whether they are singing together, answering one another or taking completely opposing positions. Their harmonies can be beautifully sincere one moment and accompanied by a knowing glance the next.

Musically, Country House Music takes the warmth of acoustic guitars, piano, organic percussion and traditional country instrumentation and gives it a sophisticated contemporary finish. There are echoes of classic country duets and singer-songwriter records, but Local Arrangement are not trying to recreate Nashville. Their music belongs just as comfortably in a beautiful old house, a hotel bar, a theatre or around a piano after everybody else has supposedly gone home.

That contrast also defines their visual world. Local Arrangement can appear completely at home in denim, boots and a weathered country setting, then exchange it all for evening dresses, tailored suits, chandeliers and a grand piano. The glamour never overwhelms the personalities behind it; beneath the polished exterior are two people who clearly know each other well enough to know exactly which buttons to press.

The name Local Arrangement captures that spirit perfectly. It sounds respectable enough. Perhaps even sensible.

The songs usually reveal otherwise.

Warm, melodic, grown-up and frequently mischievous, Local Arrangement make country music for people who have accumulated a few stories of their own.

“Local Arrangement. Country House Music — with the good furniture moved out of the way.”