Toadcast #35 – Meursault Toad Session
It’s been a while since the last Toad Session, but this one is a bit good and thoroughly worth waiting for. Meursault’s debut album is one of my favourite of the year, and their acoustic set is easily as good. This is the first session to be held in our house too, which brought its own challenges and then some. Mrs. Toad’s preposterous cat makes an appearance at one point, and the videos look very, very, erm… green? Blue? Whatever fucking stupid colour it is we’ve painted our living room.
Anyway, the recordings have come out really nicely, and I think the videos are good too. I’ve posted a few here, but the whole lot can be found on the Song, by Toad YouTube page. The photos turned out rather well too, so go to the Flickr page for the ones we liked. And, without further ado, here is the Meursault Toad Session podcast (the track listing is at the bottom of the page):
Toadcast #35 – Meursault Toad Session
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Here are the individual songs:
Meursault – The Furnace (Toad Session)
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Meursault – Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues (Toad Session)
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Meursault – The Dirt & the Roots (Toad Session)
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Meursault – Nothing Broke (Toad Session)
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And here are the videos, first the overall video and then the ones for the individual songs:
Meursault Toad Session
Toadcast #35 – Meursault Toad Session Playlist:
01. Meursault – The Furnace (Toad Session) (06.14)
02. Meursault – A Few Kind Words (09.33)
03. Eef Barzelay – Ballad of Bitter Honey (14.54)
04. Withered Hand – Religious Songs (18.22)
05. Meursault – Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues (Toad Session) (30.11)
06. The Postal Service – Nothing Better (34.29)
07. Meursault – The Dirt & the Roots (Toad Session) (37.52)
08. Tenniscoats – Baibaba Bimba (40.40)
09. The Cave Singers – Seeds of Night (47.11)
10. Samamidon – Wild Bill Jones (55.41)
11. Casiotone For the Painfully Alone – Young Shields (60.56)
12. Meursault – Nothing Broke (Toad Session) (68.49)
Wow. They sound great live, as I suspected they might. Nice acoustics in Toad Hall by the way. What are those, 12-foot ceilings?
And Samamidon is fucking brilliant. While the Felice Brothers’ record is my pick for record of the year so far, All Is Well is right there with it.
for the record, i have since bought ‘bitter honey’ and can confirm that it’s probably my second favourite record that i’ve heard this year.
thanks for that toady.
fucking genius. beautiful. i take my greasy baseball cap off to all concerned!
d
Cheers all, much appreciated. These things are a hell of a lot of work, so it’s always nice to get a little feedback.
Hurray, new Toadcast! I look forward to listening. Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing with Tongues is such an awesome song.
I have a question for you guys: does the beginning of Donde Esta La Playa by the Walkmen sound like a darker version of the beginning of Take Five by Dave Brubeck to anyone else? Or have I been hitting the whisky bottle too hard again?
Matthew’s got an indie beard! Matthew’s got an indie beard! Matthew’s been to Pickathon! Matthew’s got an indie beard!
Sarah, that has never, ever occurred to me.
DC, I’ve always had an indie beard for pity’s sake.
Yay! I’ve been hanging out for this ever since you first mooted you might possibly, perhaps, maybe be getting them in to your lounge room. I’ve now ordered their album off their Myspace link twice, and am still yet to receive so much as a short EP of electro-folk goodness, so I’m getting quite desperate for all new things Meursault.
Don’t suppose they’ve got the budget for a full scale tour of Australia yet do they? No? Damn. I swear I’d get at least 3 of my friends along…
Well I suppose I just wanted to say thank you really. That’s all.
Oh man, you sound fucking great, Meursault! If this speaks for the quality of the album, I’m right there. This is a fantastic toad session, and a fantastic example of why I apriciate all the work you put in to all things Toad. And I already told you how im enjoying Eef’s album alot, Matthew, but yeah. Good one. I’ll mirror C&B in saying Samamidon is awesome.
On the way back around from Australia, stop off in Mexico…they can play a live show in my tiny apartment and sleep on the floor…all to keep costs down of course.
Excellent session.
Meursault are so hot right now.
Bart, stop sniping. They used to be your friends.
Thanks guys – Australia and Mexico come out of the woodwork on one post – excellent work!
woooo
i didnt realise someone picked samamidon for me
you really know me after all….
i might note, i actually saw samamidon just by chance on holiday in sweden… he played this little festival in the stockholm botanic gardens… in a make shift driftwood stage, covered in beautiful lamps
if thats not perfect i dont know what it
C&B is going to hate you forever for that!
I wasny sniping.
Just telling it like it ist.
They’re the shizzle.
And the singer’s a real dreamboat.
Well he doesn’t have an enormous ginger beard at least.
Anyway, handlebar moustaches are where it’s at these days. Where’s yours Bart, eh? eh?
Bart doesn’t follow fashion trends.
Bart sets them.
And sometimes mocks them from afar.
Matthew, you’re just smitten with Gregor from Sparrow’s handlebar moustache. You actually announced that it was the ‘official Song, By Toad moustache’ and insisted I take a close-up photo.
Not to in any way suggest it’s not a fine specimen, though. The man’s a craftsman.
By the way, listening to the Toadcast this morning – the first time I’ve heard it all stitched together – I think the choices made for the ‘complimentary’ tracks were spot on. Well done all concerned!
It is the very pinnacle of face furniture, and no denying it.
The other songs work into it quite nicely, I think. I’ve actually never listened to the whole thing all the way through, believe it or not.
That fellow by the bookcase has got some lovely glasses.
I like these sessions almost as much as I like your living room! Loving “Pissing on Bonfires,” though.
We’re all about real estate porn here, baby! That fellow is Neil Pennycook and he will be blushing with delight and embarrassment at your comments.
A dreamboat with nice glasses ought not to be embarrassed. A name like Pennycook, though? How dapper sounding.
Hey. This isn’t ‘Song, by Toad – Internet Dating Service for Indie Kids’ this is ‘Song, by Toad – Serious Music Blog with Pulitzer Aspirations’.
come on matthew, admit it… he is pretty dreamy.
This is getting weird.
Can we STOP THIS NOW PEOPLE.
If it’s not Neil’s glasses it’s Gregor Sparrow’s moustache.
Exactly. Can’t we take things a bit more fucking seriously around here, for fuck’s sake.
Hang on, DC seemed quite taken with your indie-beard the other day too.
What is going on round here?.. Is there something in the water?
You wait … a year from now and Matthew will have a “Who’s hot and who’s not” column … complete with an “In these shoes !? …” indie footwear featurette. Mrs Toad, lovely though she is, is nothing but a front for a man with a closet so big, you could house every cardigan in Scotland. As is all this testosterone fuelled, hard-living, folk-rock bravado.
But aye, seriously, good job people ! I know how much work is involved … even if I didn’t actually do anything.
This time.
Apart from teaching us how to use the camera and showing me the basics of film editing. So yeah, fucking useless!
Teach a man to fish …
… and he’ll ask you for a bag of chips.
No probs.
My eyes are playing tricks on me today.
When I first read Morgan’s comment, I read the ‘testosterone-fuelled’ bit as ‘Toblerone-fuelled’, and funnily enough didn’t think twice about it.
Brilliant session. Pissing on Bonfires is superb
[...] Song, By Toad for the full Toad Session [...]
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just re-listening to this….fucking awesome….and i actually know the guys! i might actually like them also….fuck me….anyway is Nothing Broke an old song or a new song?
[...] Texturally it’s a markedly different beast to the album. The digital elements have all been replaced by a much sparser, acoustic atmosphere. Mainly because, one assumes, the line-up of the band has changed somewhat since the first record was recorded. I gather PoB/KWT was a studio-based venture, where frontman Neil Pennycook played most of the stuff, but since then Meursault have become a band proper (as you can see from their Toad Session). [...]
[...] Buy the Nothing Broke EP from Song By Toad Records. For more great Edinburgh-based music and madness, check out Matthew’s Song, By Toad blog. For another version of Nothing Broke, and three others from Meursault’s debut, check out their Toad Session. [...]
[...] *Meursault – Noting Broke This one caught me off guard, yes I liked “Kissing with tongues…” from last year, but for me this EP punched me in the face and told me I loved it. Neil Pennycook’s voice over the ethereal banjo folk is stellar. I for one hope Edinburgh knows what it has. Waiting with baited breath for the double A side vinyl of William Henry Miller that appear on this EP which will be released from Song, by Toad Records…that one will be a must as well. ~ Predict-o-meter: Potential best and running away with it Listen: “Nothing Broke” & “Nothing Broke (Toad Session)” <get the whole toad session HERE> [...]
[...] but I never bake. Mrs. Toad does, but only once in a blue moon. She baked brownies when we did the Meursault Toad Session, and they were fucking lovely, so maybe I have her to thank for getting them signed to Song, by [...]