How the hell do you follow up an EP as absolutely stellar as Mumford & Sons’ debut? The answer, inevitably, is with something almost as good but which feels like something a disappoinment in the wake of its predecessor.
This is monumentally unfair, but then it’s virtually impossible for me to guess what I might think of this if I had never heard Lend Me Your Eyes. Nevertheless, there’s no escaping the fact that where the first was brilliant this is merely very good. For most other bands this would still represent a triumph, and I have certainly gushed over far lesser songs, so I actually think it would be possible for this to be a slight let-down. The reason is that not only was the first EP uncommonly superb, but added to that there was the flush of excitement at discovering something new, which amplifies everything.
Listening to this again it’s crimes are trivially small: Feel the Tide is not really that great a song and there is nothing to quite match the giddy heights of White Blank Page or Awake My Soul. Little Lion Man, The Banjolin Song and Hold On to What You Believe are all really bloody good, and it adds to a collection of songs that could make up a superb debut album to knock spots off ninety-eight percent of those hatched this year.
Their four-part harmonies pack as good a vocal punch as anyone I’ve heard, and there’s a rousing, euphoric quality to their songs. The banjo keeps a pretty frenetic pace, and there is a gospel passion to their mixture of bluegrass with a very English sounding sort of indie folk. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: these lads are capable of bloody big things. Keep an eye on ‘em.
Robin is, I suspect, not the only one. I really liked his recent album Only the Missile, and this appears to a rather lovely little inbetweeny EP. There’s a gorgeous atmosphere to Robin’s stuff that I can’t quite put my finger on. He has a deep, reassuring voice and a calming, unhurried delivery which seems to bring a familiar ease to his sound.
Add a splash of female backing vocals and was simply really nice becomes bloody gorgeous. This is EP is patchy, but the title track is a lovely reminiscence on the transience of music taste, and the pleasant self-indulgence of nostalgia. The cover of the superb Kirsty MacColl song There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis is as good as the original, in an odd way. And then there’s Shakes & Shudders. Christ this is lovely. If I’ve heard a more intimate, weary song in ages I couldn’t name it: just fucking gorgeous.
I like the fact that he’s made this available under a Creative Commons license as well. It’s sort of brave, and far from clear-cut – I mean, where does this place blogs with ads? Presumably they can’t post it. I doubt Robin himself would have an issue with it of course, but it does highlight one of the inherent contradictions to which we in the blogosphere often turn a blind eye. So go here to download it, and to explore Jamendo, the Creative Commons-based music download site, which is a highly interesting idea in itself.
Robin Grey – Shakes & Shudders
And just because we all sincerely do love Leonard Cohen:
Leonard Cohen – Last Year’s Man
In advance of the official release dates for Song, by Toad Records things there has been a slow and steady trickle of good news from the media outlets to whom we have submitted our stuff.
We just found out last night that both Stuart Maconie and Gideon Coe have played songs from the Meursault album which is, frankly, fucking brilliant.
Is This Music? have given both Meursault and eaglowl records fantastic reviews, so massive thanks to both Ed and Brian for those.
Apparently the Nightjar record is going to be the Single of the Issue in the next edition of Beatmag – ie at the top of this page – but I don’t want to jinx it by being prematurely delighted. Big thanks to Thomas for his enthusiasm – it’s much appreciated.
We’ve had some really positive blog reviews for the eagleowl stuff from The Next Big Thing, for Nightjar from Landcroft House, and for Rob St. John from Eaten By Monsters, so thanks to Brother Randall, Rob and Tom respectively for those.
I have to point out that the eagleowl and Rob St. John records are not Song, by Toad releases, just friends who we helped with their promo effort, in terms of mailing lists, envelope stuffing, some format advice and things like that. So I really don’t want to give the impression that I am trying to steal their thunder because I haven’t made a particularly big contribution to the success of either record. They’re both just friends, so I’m pleased for them, that’s all.
So, we’re nearly ready for the official release date of the Meursault album (at the Toad Christmas Party on the Friday 5th), complete with new, super minimal art packaging as designed by the band themselves (fucking art students), I reckon we should be a cool couple of million in the black by the end of… oh, stop it, you know what I mean.
Rob St. John – Paper Ships (Live Demo)
Nightjar – Poor Man’s Son
Eagleowl – Know By Now
Meursault – Nothing Broke (Demo)
Yes, it’s that time of the week once more. I am off to do my slot on Fresh Air, the Edinburgh student radio station, who have kindly granted me a slot to blether on about all things musical which exercise my mind. I’ll then swing by the pub on my way home to catch the tail end of their meeting and say hello to everyone, before going back to the house to do some desperately needed cleaning.
Neil from Meursault was round the other night to get all the artwork sorted for the official release of the Meursault record (which will be at the Toad Christmas Party, with any luck) and it honestly looked like the worst student flat you’ve ever been in. Mrs. Toad was tense for about three seconds before looking around and deciding that the situation was hopeless. We need a cleaning lady. Not just for the cleaning, but because it will force us to keep the place in some semblance of sensible order for the week.
What has that to do with radio? Well nothing at all really, just rambling. So yes, go to freshair.org.uk and click on the big ‘listen live’ button on the left hand side to hear what your friendly neighbourhood gin-based life-form sounds like in the absence of the three-quarters of his vocabulary which has been deemed unfit for public consumption. It’ll be fun – I have some great new stuff to play this week which has yet to feature on the site so there’s plenty in it for you. And here are a couple of songs to whet your appetite:
Elvis Perkins – All the Night Without Love
Thos Henley – The Wife
This may just be a free tour EP, a teeny little three-song affair, but it has done its job. I only heard about these guys because Josh from Touch & Go/Quarterstick Records emailed me to let me know that they had signed them up to release their debut album.
As I wait for that to become available all I have in the meantime is a free digital EP that they were selling on their last tour, comprising the a-sides of their previous two single and a gorgeous acoustic song which is the record’s title track. The three songs are all very different, and I would like to post them all there, but that would be mean. All That We Can is nice and shoegazey, and Hejrat, a Googoosh cover, is an odd but good mix of Spaghetti Western soundtrack with just a little dash of Arabic in there somewhere. I’ve never heard of Googoosh, but this is really good, although the Arabic thing could just be me imagining things, but there you go.
It took a fair deal of acclimatisation to the sheer weirdness of the sound of this album for me to get to the point where I could say to like it. Before that I think a sort of bewildered fascination best sums up my relationship with On All Y’All.
It is an amazing combination of hip hop and samples, and reminds me just a little of the Avalanches, except possibly even more lurching and uneven. I feel bad posting a couple of mp3s too, because the album functions as a whole, not as bits, but I still think you should hear some of it. It can be downright epileptic in the way it ducks and dives all over the places, builds up, lurches to a stop, reverses, changes direction again and generally keeps the ground under your feet moving so constantly that there’s rarely a moment to pause and draw breath.
Given this is a long way from being a style of music I understand and can therefore comment on with any semblance of understanding I feel a bit adrift writing this. This is compelling in a fascinating way, but there are still plenty of moments where I really, really am not getting it. Nevertheless, I can’t just put it on and ignore it either. It reminds me in some ways of those crazy, experimental guitar album that mix some surprisingly good riffs into minutes and minutes of barely structured white noise and feedback. There is something really bloody good in there, but it can be some challenge trying to tease it out.
Jib Kidder – Great Thieves
Jib Kidder – Aga Aga (Hiromichi Mix)
For those of you who missed it, Toad favourite Samantha Crain has been making telling us about the progress on her new album, over on this thread about Arizona. She has this excellent news to deliver:
We’ve finished our full length album “songs in the night” and right now it’s gettin’ all nice and pretty (mastered, artwork, pressed, etc)…the official release date for it will be April 28th but i’m sure we’ll be getting to a copy to review before then.
Bloody marvellous is all I have to say about that.
Anyway, this week you friendly neighbourhood Toad ages by the princely sum of a single year, with my thrity-third birthday falling on Wednesday 19th November. And by some remarkable instance of good fortune there happens to be a gig on that night. A very Toad-friendly gig indeed…
But first, I have no idea if I have any readers in Dundee – certainly no-one has ever mentioned it, although one or two of you have confessed to being from there – but there is a show there this Friday that a friend of mine is putting on. Mike from Manic Pop Thrills will be putting on De Rosa, Esperi and The Wildhouse at Hustlers in Dundee this Friday, 21st November 2008. It’s scary enough thing to promote a gig, but the first one is positively terrifying, so I really wish him the best of luck, and it would be great if we could get some Toadlings down there to support.
So, that birthday show:
Wednesday 19th November 2008: Sparrow & the Workshop, Rob St. John & Meursault at Cabaret Voltaire.
My friends Tallah and HP from Fresh Air radio have rather serendipitously chosen to put on three of my favourite Scottish bands on my birthday, and entirely by coincidence too. Tickets will be £4 on the door, and I believe Rob will be taking the opportunity to launch his new EP, although I haven’t actually confirmed that with him. He’s playing an electric guitar these days, and I have to say that it really suits his sound. Neil from Meursault will be playing entirely solo this time, and Sparrow & the Workshop say they have quite a few new tunes to try out. So if you want to know what the alternative folk scene in Scotland is like
outside of the Fence Collective, then this mix of epic melancholy from Meursault, intimate loveliness from Rob and furious Americana from Sparrow & the Workshop gives you about as good a cross-section as you’re likely to find. And there’ll be the added benefit of sniggering at a certain drunken gentleman staggering about and making a tit of himself I should imagine.
Sparrow & the Workshop – Grizzly Bear
Thursday 20th November 2008: Zoey Van Goey, Over the Wall & Callel play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.
Sorry – forgot to add this one. Over the Wall were really good at the End of the Road Festival. It was an exuberant performance swinging between glitchy electronica and full on pop music, and they seem to be shaping up nicely into a very decent band indeed. Zoey Van Goey are basically an indie rock combo as far as I am aware, but I have been told they are good countless times, this will be my first chance to see them and I do not intend to miss it. Also, this is Limbo’s first birthday, following a year in which they have rather incredibly managed to put on three bands every single fucking week, which is a feat that completely amazes me. Congratulations lads, quite an achievement.
Over the Wall – Thurso
Thursday 20th November 2008: Pockets & the Kazookeylele at The Bowery.
I am not going to plug this at all, except to offer the video below if a bizarre gentleman playing The Final Countdown on one of the most peculiar instruments I have ever seen. One for the real connoisseurs, this.
Pockets & the Kazookeylele – The Final Countdown
Christ this has taken me ages. We recorded this in late August after myself and Mrs. Toad came back from the States, but the intervention of the End of the Road Festival and an unspeakable disaster with video tape has delayed this beyond the bounds of pretty much everyone’s patience. I eventually had to give up trying to extricate video from chewed tapes and make do with the video we actually had, which has been bloody frustrating.
As per usual we have the videos all posted either on the Toad Vimeo page (the best quality) and YouTube (more accessible). We also have pictures taken by both my friend Morgan, who is also the official Song, by Toad camerman, and Dylan as well. Dylan has all his pictures, including these, on his own sit Blueback Hotrod, and we’ve also uploaded them to the Song, by Toad Flickr page as well. So, firstly, here is the podcast, with the tracklisting at the bottom of the page:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Here are the session tracks themselves as downloadable, shareable and loveable mp3s:
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Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
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First we have the overall video, and then a couple of videos for individual songs:
Toadcast #46 – Sparrow & the Workshop Toad Session Playlist:
01. Sparrow & the Workshop – Last Chance (Toad Session) (07.21)
02. Scuff – Step a Little Closer (10.14)
03. Skeeter Davis – My Last Date With You (17.50)
04. Micah P. Hinson – Come Home Quickly Darling (21.22)
05. Sparrow & the Workshop – Magic Tricks (Toad Session) (26.19)
06. Rob St. John – Tipping In (30.17)
07. Langhorne Slim – Restless (35.27)
08. Sparrow & the Workshop – The Gun (41.50)
09. The Everley Brothers – Crying in the Rain (46.56)
10. The Skids – Into the Valley (48.51)
11. Sparrow & the Workshop – My Crime (Toad Session) (58.25)
As you read this I will be in a meeting. I will be in a meeting all fucking day. I will tired and cranky in that meeting and trying desperately hard to both stay awake and feign even the tiniest little bit of interest. I’ve been up until three in the morning every night this week working on the Sparrow & the Workshop Toad Session, which will definitely be posted tomorrow, and I am fucking shattered. You know how you get so tired that the day becomes slightly surreal? Well like that.
Nevertheless I am feeling pleased. Despite an almighty disaster in which the fucking bastarding shitty piss arse video camera chewed half the tapes and left me with almost zero footage of two of the songs and the tail end of the interviews, I think it’s turning out very well. The tracks themselves sound fucking amazing, honestly, and given how nervous I was about recording live drums for the first time I am both brimming with pride and enormously relieved.
This weekend, therefore, is one for peace and quiet and not doing anything strenuous. Above all it is one for sleeeeping. I shall sleep the sleep of the recently deceased, I should think.
So, without further ado, here’s some stuff to faff around with and generally to waste Friday by buggering about on the internet. De-lurk, if you haven’t commented before, and participate in this glorious Friday ritual shamelessly pinched from the boards of Guardian Talk. And if you want to suggest the next Friday Five then bung me an email at the usual place.
1. Usual number of hours sleep.
2. Ideal number of hours sleep.
3. At what point on Friday do you usually stop even pretending to work?
4. Meeting etiquette bugbear.
5. Name a record for a sunny Sunday, best played in the early afternoon.
Some oldies this week:
Lambchop – Up With People
Barenaked Ladies – If I Had $1000000
Gomez – Here Comes the Breeze
The Trashcan Sinatras – To Sir, With Love
Supergrass – Shotover Hill
Well this is basically just indie rock. There you go, genre and style defined, and pigeonhole allocated. There’s a touch of Ryan Adamsy Americana in there from time to time and the sound can be just a little old-fashioned at times, like it had been hatched in the late 90s, but basically this is a straight down the line indie rock album. I have to thank Tart for introducing me to this. She’s a regular reader, middle-aged carpet muncher and writer of I Correct Myself, I Mean All the Time and sent a link to this through a good few weeks ago.
You know when you listen to an album and instead of either jumping for joy or puffing out your cheeks in disappointment you just think ‘yes, that’s good, that’s one for the collection’? Well that’s how I reacted to this. I listened to it through, liked it, and that was that. I didn’t need to think about it or to mull, or even to hear it through a hundred times, although I have since played it rather a lot. It just sits neatly in its little Arizona box and, without doing anything too dramatic, is simply a much appreciated addition to the canon of good solid indie records.
Songs like Don’t Have the Body or Balloon crop up here and there which are genuinely a cut above, and it seems that the more downbeat songs are where Arizona really excel. Some of the rockier numbers can be a little stodgy at times, but their slower songs are uniformly excellent.
For the most part this is simply a good straightforward album of enjoyable tunes, some nice riffs and plenty to hum along to.
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