Quite a thin week by recent standards actually, but that’s no bad thing.  Homegame is approaching and a weekend that is easy on the liver and easy on the wallet will be a very good thing.  Plus we have to spend it all making up copies of the new Meursault EP, Nothing Broke.  Yes,  you heard me right.  Terribly exciting, wot.  It will mark the first offical outing for crowd favourite William Henry Miller Pt.1, albeit an acoustic version of the song, the full version of which will be available along with The Furnace, The Dirt & the Roots and William Henry Miller Pt.2 as part of a set of two 7″ vinyl releases in late Spring.

And the Maxwell Panther album is about done.  And the Inspector Tapehead album is almost there, although that’s not quite a done deal yet, so I’ll keep that under my hat for a little longer.

The reason this post is so late is because I have been galavanting about going to weddings.  It turns out an old friend of mine from uni made that crazy Sony Bravia exploding paint advert.  Who knew what a talented bunch my classmates were.  Maybe if I’d ever turned up myself I’d have known this kind of thing.

Tuesday 7th April 2009: Danananaetc… & Favours For Sailors at Cabaret Voltaire.

Dananandingdong are, in all honesty, a band about whom I am personally no more than lukewarm.  I don’t know them all that well yet though, so that might change, but for now the recommendation is a tentative one.  Favours For Sailors are newly signed to one of my favourite labels, Tough Love Records, and are garnering an awful lot of press at the moment, so I may well wander down for this.
Favours For Sailors – Our Name

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.

Wednesday 8th April 2009: Great Eskimo Hoax, We See Lights & Cancel the Astronauts at Sneaky Pete’s.

Great Eskimo Hoax sound rather interesting at times.  It can veer a little close to a kind of haircut-friendly indie pop at times, but there are definitely plenty of interesting things happening in their songs, so this might well be worth trying out.
Great Eskimo Hoax – Camp Beatbox

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.

Thursday 9th April 2009: Lovers Turn to Monsters & Little Pebble at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

Little Pebble is excellent live and Lovers Turn to Monsters also sound quite promising.  The latter plays a tense kind of awkward indie folk, of the sort that seems to be designed for Edinburgh at the moment.
Lovers Turn to Monsters – The Four O’Clock

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.

Sunday 12th April 2009: State Broadcasters, Benni Hemm Hemm & Jo Foster at the Bowery.

The Gentle Invasion wonderfully (and somewhat inevitably) comes out of retirement to put on some lovely indie folk pop from Glasgow at the Bowery.  Edinburgh’s most prominent Icelandic musician (I, er, think) supports, along with Fence lady Jo Foster.  I hope her arm has sufficiently recovered from the skiing accident which caused her to miss her last gig at the Bowery.
State Broadcasters – Our Favourite Park

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.

Spring makes a fucking colossal difference, doesn’t it.  People have been tripping around Edinburgh with a spring in their step for the last week, when the sun has come out and the air, whilst it may still be a little chilly, is notably warmer.  It’s gentler, I suppose, is the main difference.  There’s something of a release about Spring, as if all the uncomfortable restraint of Winter no longer has to be acknowledged.  Does anyone remember that episode of Northern Exposure when the ice melted?  Everyone went nuts, and the relieved exhalation we all express on the coming of the sunshine does remind me in many ways of a tame version of the exact same mania depicted in that episode of, erm, a serialised drama from the, er, mid ah nineties…  anyone still reading?  Never mind.

In any case, this is a purposeless but musically excellent podcast which is something of a lazy one, if I’m honest.  Frankly though, I think I deserve it after the effort put into the Pictish Session, so fuck you if you have an issue with that.  Tee hee.  There’s a lot of new release stuff on here, a couple of bands reviewed recently on the site, and a couple who are going to be reviewed later this week.  Next week I’ll think of a theme. Promise.

Toadcast #63 – Sprrring is Here!

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.

01. The Soft Pack – Right & Wrong (01.33)
02. Maxwell Panther – A Shade Away (08.24)
03. Phil & the Osophers – They Threw a Shoe at You (11.16)
04. The Felice Brothers – The Big Surprise (15.34)
05. The Empty Set – Alice & Bob (Forlorn Photo Love) (24.01)
06. The Van Allen Belt – The Revolution Will be Merchandised (27.24)
07. Meursault (no, not that Meursault) – Blindfolds (33.31)
08. Outlaw Con Bandana – Rainy Season (37.16)
09. Dame Satan – Ghost Dance (39.25)
10. Peter Doherty – 1939 Returning (49.30)

Oh Christ I’m fucking tired.  The videos from the Broken Records gig at the Bedlam Theatre ended up just kind of  hijacking my attention and I couldn’t bring myself to stop tinkering until some time around four o’clock this morning.  Consequently wit and entertainment will be in very short supply indeed on Toad today, and if you want to be entertained then you will have to do so yourselves.  I will try my best to be funny, but the chances of it working would appear to be slim, to say the least.

We got onto the topic of food snobbery a little while back, so this is what I would like to make the subject of this week’s five – except backwards.  None of your shaved truffles marinaded in larks’ tears this time, me hearties.  It’s all about the shite.  Yup, junk food, shit food, dismal food, boring food, all to be celebrated and enjoyed and written down in lists.  Because for all I can certainly come across as a food snob, in many ways quite rightly, I am also as prone as everyone else to hangover munchies where pretty much anything goes, and sitting around the house watching movies eating a bizarre assortment of supermarket oddities simply because they all for various reasons struck my fancy at the time.

Last week’s five was a superlative success, with all sorts of black belt de-lurking going on and lots of new victims people joining in the fun, so lets see more of that please, that was splendid.  And as soon as I get a picture of a mouse foetus brain spoon there will be a new t-shirt available, that I promise!

1. Most bizarre hangover item/combo you’ve ever enjoyed.
2. Favourite pickled thing (‘me’ – ha ha, yes, very funny).
3. Nastiest junk food for which you just fucking love anyway.
4. Oddest junk food you’ve spotted in exotic parts.
5. Really bland, unimaginative meal you find kind of satisfying.

Sparklehorse – Little Fat Baby

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.

James Yorkston – Midnight Feast

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.

Ben Folds – All U Can Eat

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.

Morcheeba – Women Lose Weight

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.

Rich Amino – Chicken ‘n’ Chips

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.

One of the finest, most perfectly polished pop acts you’re ever… no, actually, this really is fucking rough as hell.  It really is – rougher perhaps than anyone bar the likes of Maxwell Panther and the Wave Pictures (before their Moshi Moshi days).  And do I love it?  Of course I fucking do.  Cast iron proof that really all you need in order to make a great album is a cast-iron knack for an infectious tune, and the ability to write good lyrics.

This has both of these qualities in spades.  The rough recordings seem to be used as an extra instrument, because Phil himself sings in a lazily casual sort of a way, so I get the impression none of this is all that accidental.  There are only two of them as well, and they’ve known each other since school too, so the parallels to the Wave Pictures continue.

They seem to take a perverse pride in not really being able to play things all that well.  The recorder (or whatever it is, I’m not sure) on I Will Reverse It sounds like a primary school music class, and apparently the drummer, Kevin, didn’t learn the drums all that recently and there were one or two teething problems early on.  Honestly, though, it really doesn’t seem to matter.  They clatter and wail their way through their songs and somehow it all just seems to work.

It’s largely upbeat and oddly infectious, with a sort of careless enthusiasm which seems to pervade the album.  Sure, it might be a little inconsistent but I’ve really enjoyed listening to this, and I look forward to raising eyebrows when we invite my parents round for dinner next and it slowly dawns on my Mum that, no, it’s not the fucking Lighthouse Family.

Phil & the Osophers – Third World American

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.

Phil & the Osophers – La Bastille

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.

MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from the band’s website

When was the last time Pete Doherty was stumbling across the front page of the tabloids, jacked up to the tits on smack/horse tranquilizers/coco pops/whatever he gets his kicks from these days?  I ask, not because I particularly care, but because I’ve just realised that I don’t really remember seeing that much of him recently.  Kerry Katona and Amy Winehouse seem to be the self-destruction poster children du jour, and of course Jade Goody has kept everyone more than occupied enough for the last little while.  So I’ve not seen that much of Pete, I think, although I could be wrong.

The only reason I bring that up is because this album just does not have the disjointed chaos about it that you might expect from the kind of lifestyle for which he has recently been most famous.  It’s actually kind of mellow, relaxed and, crucially, really rather warm.  It’s a sad, regretful album in many ways, but there’s none of the wild-eyed undercurrent which has given his previous work both its best and its worst moments.  He sounds, and you may wish to re-read this sentence carefully just to be sure you got it right, but he sounds really rather together.  I’ve no idea if he is, but to listen to this album that is how he sounds.

I’m not sure where the warmth comes from; it could be the unhurried, comfortable vocal delivery.  It could equally be the more considered musical construction, which seems confident enough to trip from bare acoustic guitar laments to richer, lusher textures which bring some songs to the verge of the club croon.  Maybe the cathartic nature of the lyrical content has given him the confidence to tackle the music with a little more abandon.  Maybe it’s the steadying  presence of Blur’s Graham Coxon on guitar.  Maybe he genuinely is in a good place right now, in a personal sense, and this is just the kind of music he is capable of making.

Either way, this album sort of makes me sad.  It’s really good – not exceptional, but really good nevertheless.  I don’t know if I’m sad for the past, for what he’s had to do to himself to get here, or whether I’m sad for the future which could still so easily be his if this little island of calm proves to be temporary, because when he’s this together he’s clearly still got a lot to offer and it would be a shame if he were to rob himself of the chance to do so.  I, for one, hope he does not.

Peter Doherty – Last of the English Roses

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.

Peter Doherty – A Little Death Around the Eyes

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.

Website | More mp3s | Buy from Amazon

I tend to think of Tough Love Records as being at the cutting edge of cool indie pop – think The Sequins & Favours For Sailors – so this kind of release sits really strangely in their general portfolio as far as I am concerned.  This is twee, gentle, lighthearted loveliness – not and angluar guitar chord or rapid-fire drum salvo in sight.

The band includes the superlative violin-playing talents of Little Dan from Honeytrap, coupled with a gentleman by the name of Tom about whom I know… er, nothing at all, actually.  The music they make tends to revolve around a gentle strum on guitar from the latter, what sounds like vocals from Dan for the most part [apparently not - see comments], and embellished by the same gentleman’s politely curious violin wandering.  Just occasionally a little feedbacky guitar or electronics will introduce themselves, along with brief  hints of ukulele and piano, all of which gives this record a lovely, lazy texture to its overall sound.

The album might take a little time to sink in.  The pace varies subtley, from the jaunty pleasures of Alice & Bob, to the more moody, and rather surprising, version of Some Candy Talking.  These ups and downs are quite gentle though, so it would be easy to allow the noise of life around you to overwhelm this album when you play it.  I would be careful not to let that happen though, because it really is worth the attention if you sit down and really listen to it.  It’s a total curve ball from Tough Love, and an absolute corker.

The Empty Set – Portia, I Dreamt You Were Real

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.

The Empty Set – Some Candy Talking

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.

MySpace | More mp3s | Buy From Tough Love Records

There are times when this album sounds like a deranged operetta.  There are times when it sounds like experimental lounge pop.  There are times when it sounds like a straightforward twisted indie.  It crashes about all over the place, is riddled with imperfections when the melody doesn’t quite catch, when a couple of songs get lost in one another and so forth, but in general this is pure mental brilliance.

It does feel incredibly familiar – it’s reminiscent of a great many recent bands, but rarely of the exact same ones for all that long.  The Revolution Will be Merchandised is an example of a pure pop song: Broadway choruses, sharp lyrics and jaunty brass.  There are plenty of these moments in this album, which is a very good thing, because this kind of easy enjoyment anchors the more bizarre moments – it just keeps the record from becoming disorientating, which would certainly be possible.

It’s a fucking smart album as well.  Songs called Baby Boomer Backstroke will tell you about the sense of humour of this band, although the wit of the lyrics can be somewhat obscured by their obliqueness and the swirl of the music around them.  I agree with Kevin, head* of their excellent label Indiecater, that this really is a album for multiple listens.  Great stuff.

The Van Allen Belt – Dr. Layman’s Terms/The Hills Are Alive

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.

The Van Allen Belt – Way Up

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.

MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Indiecater Records

* By head, I mean CEO, head of A&R, cleaning lady, canteen staff and work experience teenager.  Bascially, there’s just him, as far as I’m aware, so whilst he is the head of the label, strictly speaking…  well, you know what I mean.

Broken Records may play bigger, better, sweatier gigs than this in the future – in fact I’d be fucking amazed if they don’t – but I am not sure they’ll play many more special to their grass-roots fans.  There is a real sense of goodwill about the band at the moment – they’ve signed to one of the best indie labels in the world, they’ve just finished their debut album, the hard slog of the festival season is yet to take hold, so it felt to me like band and fans alike were able to take a moment just just enjoy the current circumstances.  Although, as their lead singer and main songwriter Jamie said to me in a brief aftershow interview, the real work is only just beginning.

The sense  of occasion was hugely helped by the amazingly atmospheric surroundings of the Bedlam Theatre, so nice that Broken Records were happy to run the show at a loss, just to make for a special gig.  It worked.  The photos which decorate this review were taken by Nic Rue, one of Edinburgh’s most talented photographers.  I may not be a professional judge, but how she remains an amateur at this is beyond me.  Her set of pictures from this gig can be found on Flickr, here, and is truly exceptional.  But if you look at the rest of her work you’ll see that it’s no one-off.  She really, really is that good. Read the rest of this entry »