Coming back from holidays is traditonally a bit more rough than I had realised.  Apparently post-holiday blues is a common phenomenon, but this is the first time I’ve really experienced it before.  I’ve been really fucking down this week for some reason – probably the hot weather outside and the realisation that I can only take another day and a half of holiday for the rest of the year.  That’s fucking annoying, that is.  I have no damn idea where it’s all gone, honestly.  I’ve taken stray days here and there to go to London to speak to Sony, to interview Jason Lytle and a week or so for Toad Session recording and Homegame. Add that to our two weeks in Italy and that’s pretty much my lot for the year.  That means the entire last half of the year without a single long weekend, a day off or anything at all.  How fucking depressing.  Jesus.

In, um, other news… er, I am preparing the release PR for another half dozen or so Toad Records releases at the moment, and then Mrs. Toad is away for two weeks, during which I intend to finish up and post the Found Toad Session.  So much to do, as usual, and I think two weeks is going to be the longest we’ve been apart since I moved up here four years ago.  I’m not sure I even remember how to properly indulge in coke and whores any more, and the idea of going out and picking up flaky young hussies while I have the chance… well, it doesn’t sound terribly appealing I have to confess.  So it’s gin and tonics with a jar of pickles and tin of anchovies whilst sitting at the computer in my underpants as usual, I suppose.  Maybe I’ll go wild this time, and indulge in some pickled onions.

So, in a dismal funk this Friday, please to stop in and try and cheer me up by saying something fun or entertaining or bizarre or something like that.  Don’t sit out there and lurk like the sulky bastard I have turned into this week, consider it your public service duty to come out of hiding and chip in this week.  You know you’ve got it in you.  You can start with Nigaz.

1. Where was your last holiday?
2. What is your next one?
3. Name something which really cheered you up recently.
4. Favourite accidentally naughty name.  You know, like therapistfinder.com
5. Your worst ever excuse for feeling a bit sulky.

Gummi Bako – I’m Depressed

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Tom Waits – Town With No Cheer

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Oh, alright, I’ll pack it in.
Eels – Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues

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MJ Hibbett & the Validators – Being Happy Doesn’t Make You Stupid

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The Divine Comedy – The Happy Goth

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It’s weird for me to be reviewing a record which is released on my own label, but inasmuch as it feels a little strange, it would in many ways be even stranger for me not to be reviewing Nothing Broke just because it’s on Song, by Toad Records.  So, erm, somewhat vested interests noted, let’s proceed.

For a lot of Meursault fans I think this EP will be most notable for the appearance of live favourite William Henry Miller Pt.1 – on an official release at long last.  For me, this is less the case for this song than it is for the title track itself.  The first four songs I ever heard by Meursault were demo versions of The Furnace, Lament for a Teenage Millionaire, Salt Pt.2 and Nothing Broke on their MySpace page just less than two years ago, roughly.  I specifically requested it when they performed their Toad Session almost a year ago – a sparse, lovely version itself – and I am thrilled to see it finally released into the wild, where it belongs.

Initially, this was supposed to be a mini-album including a lot of acoustic versions of songs from their album, but as it was recorded that concept receded somewhat.  According to the band it just seemed right to keep it all new material, although this does mean that there is a stunning version of Salt Pt.1 out there still waiting to be mixed.

Consequently, Nothing Broke ended up being far shorter than it was strictly intended to be, but this makes it lean as fuck: there is no flab on this whatsoever – not a whiff of filler anywhere.  In fact, although it might lack some of the thunderous noise which is apparently coming our way on the second album, it is an amazingly coherent, whole piece of work.  It works perfectly as a group of songs, some of which are the best I’ve heard in fucking years.

Red Candle Bulb is something of a Bear Scotland effort in that, for all it was largely written by Dan from Withered Hand, Neil from Meursault and Cammy from Enfant Bastard made their own contributions to the tune.  I’ve known of this recording of it – in my eyes the definitive one, although that opinion may be a little controversial – for some time and it’s another one I am glad to finally have see the light of day.  In fact, given how well-known W.H.M. Pt1 is as well, the only really new songs to me on hearing this were Love or Limb and the splendidly morose finale, William Henry Miller Pt.2.

How well these integrate into the better known stuff is impressive.  The emotional trajectory of the EP as a whole seems perfectly judged.  Love or Limb is the centre of the work, and the third in a surprisingly varied opening trio of rather dismal laments.  Nothing Broke, for all the band may insist it is a funny song, is nevertheless musically rather splendidly downbeat.  This mood shifts into the wryly humorous self-deprecation of Red Candle Bulb, and then the flirtation with country which flavours Love or Limb, before the dark cloud is brilliantly exploded by the jaunty clap-along of William Henry Miller Pt.1.  It’s perfectly judged – any more and it could all become a little depressing, but this song brings something of a release, allowing us to really wallow in the most miserable tune of the lot last of all.

Albums are by their nature often more sprawling, and now that there is expectation I would imagine the second record might be difficult to pull off with such ease, so to my mind I doubt there will be a more perfect, self-contained release for some time.  I really do think that this is an astoundingly good piece of work, dubious as that may sound coming from someone with a vested interest in its success.  That’s genuinely what I think, though.

Meursault – Nothing Broke

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Meursault – Nothing Broke (Demo)

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Meursault – Nothing Broke (Toad Session)

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MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Song, by Toad Records

When I first started playing this album around the house Mrs. Toad’s series of reactions were instructive.  ‘What the fuck is this discordant shite?’ was the first.  By the third time around she was asking ‘Who are these guys?’  Then where they were from.  Then she was looking them up on the internet.  The Mrs. Toad Seal of Approval is a rare and elusive thing but Braden J. McKenna, from Bone Valley, Utah, has it.

To be fair to her initial, somewhat horrified reaction, the production values on this record are, deliberately or otherwise, as rough as a bear’s arse.  There are even times when all the crackling of amps and peaking of microphone channels threaten to overwhelm even my own somewhat obsessive taste for this kind of low-fi style.  It was, as a matter of fact, all recorded in bedrooms and living rooms, so the phrase ‘bedroom production’ is quite literal in this case.  Ten songs, half an hour, a simple but excellent album.  McKenna has recorded pretty much all of it himself, bar a very little cello and trumpet, occasional guitar help, and a couple of different drummers helping out.

Good tunes are good tunes, however, and as low-fi indie rock goes, this is really good.  What leads the album, for the most part, is the following: firstly, a fairly constant rhythm, which comes from the guitar playing as well as how the songs themselves are written, not just the drums; secondly, a wailed, emotive vocal rendered somewhat distant and smothered by the production values; and thirdly, a constantly growling electric guitar.

The guitar has just a little country in it at times, especially when picked, but that frequently gives way to impassioned, distorted solos in tandem with crashing drums and mewling keyboards.  The lyrics can be difficult to make out most of the time, but when those crescendos build there is a wounded anger to the noise, albeit muffled and disguised by the recording style.  It gives the strong feeling of an album recorded in the grip of confused, retaliatory hostility born of misunderstandings, miscommunications and relationships that threated click, but never quite did.  That may be nonsense, but that’s the impression I get from the music, and I honestly can’t understand enough of the lyrics to contradict it.

It doesn’t come across entirely as an album of alientation though, despite that impression being very strong in a couple of the tracks.  There are comfortable, happy places to be found, providing a reassuring balance to the less harmonious moments.  As its centrepiece, the truly gorgeous, acoustic Work is Done breaks the wall of fuzz at the perfect time, and with the final two tracks, Jesus Christ and Found a Fox, it winds down with a lovely sigh of acceptance.  A job well done indeed, and an album perfectly executed.

Navigator – Danger Dragon

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Navigator – Work is Done

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MySpace | More mp3s | Download for free from Magic Goats Music (Click the album cover for a rar file)

I’ve been wrong about My Latest Novel in the past, and consequently I am a little wary of pronouncing any sort of definitive judgment on this album, but there’s only so long you can dodge a review, so I might as well inscribe my line in the sand here as anywhere.  The way it worked for me with Wolves was that for all I found the overall record a little unremarkable at first, there were one or two tracks I fell for immediately.  It took months, but I came to genuinely love the whole album.

In the case of their new effort Deaths and Entrances I have certainly found a good fistful of truly excellent songs; the two I’ve linked to below, I Declare a Ceasefire and A Dear Green Place, are truly gorgeous, and the first half contains some stuff I really do think is fantastic.  I am still no more than half there with the rest of the album though, I must confess.

It sounds, in all honestly, an awful lot like the last one in many respects.  Given I love the last one this is no criticism per se, and there has been incremental evolution.  It is not, however, as musically adventurous from one song to the next as Wolves was, and this is not necessarily a good thing.  The Broken Records album has been crticised – and it’s a criticism I agree with to an extent – for bulding to a grand crescendo in every song on the record, and although this doesn’t quite do so in the same style, exactly, the trajectory of each song is nevertheless very similar.

What this does to an album is rob it slightly of an emotional path of its own.  It somehow seems to have the result, despite it all having a very consistent sound, of making this sound more like an accumulation of songs than a single, coherent album, which works well as a collection.  It’s like an anthill – there may be lots of different ants within, all amazing little creatures in their own right, but the anthill itself can be something orders of magnitude more impressive in its own way, which each doing its own job within.  Unfortunately, because these ants all have the same basic design, the album ends up coming across as simply a bunch of ants rather than as an interdependent, unified colony.

I’ll wait though, and give this a few more listens, because as I said right at the beginning, I’ve been wrong about these guys in the past.

My Latest Novel – I Declare a Ceasefire

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My Latest Novel – A Dear Green Place

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Website | More mp3s | Buy from Resonance Music

It’s funny, you really can hear so much of the Delgados in this.  Given that, after Emma Pollock’s solo album last year, this is the product of the other half of that split, that’s no surprise of course, but as a fan of the Delgados it is quite strange to hear so much of their sound in something that is in many ways rather different.

Looking at the respective solo work and then back at the Delgados themselves it seems mean to say, but the removal of Pollock’s earnest piano balladry has done this music no harm at all.  I quite like her solo stuff, but the playfulness spilling out of this record is an absolute fucking joy.  It’s pop, for sure, for those of you who consider that label a slight insult (I can be the same myself, not that I’m all that proud of it), it has some jaunty circus licks, a touch of broadway in a sense, it sprawls about all over the shop, and is generally really rather splendid.

Lyrically it actually reminds me somewhat of Aidan Moffat’s recent album How to Get to Heaven From Scotland.  It’s not quite so up front about its verbal virtuosity, but the combination of dish towel navel-gazing and sly humour is definitely quite similar.  I can’t imagine Moffatt referencing Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree though, although in all honesty it’s far from impossible.

The rhythm drifts from the borderline military thrum, as illustrated on the cover, to the more orchestral pace we know from the Delgados, in particular from their later material.  That’s a broad generalisation though, because in general the overall variety of this album is one of its great strengths.  Orchestral waves do wash across it from time to time, but it’s not unusual for the accordion to be left to get on with things alone.  I like albums which can do this, particularly, as this one does so well, when the lyrical material is able to confidently make you laugh without detracting from the sincerity of the next song.  Songs like Picasso, for example, are musically quite basic despite the swelling arrangements towards the end, whereas other songs have absolutely everything thrown at them, including the kitchen sink.

It doesn’t do me much credit to admit that I had no idea this was coming, honestly, despite its appearing on a label only based about an hour away.  I actually had to be introduced to an album made in Glasgow by a publicity company based in the States, of all things, in the form of Team Clermont.  Still, no matter how I finally got here I’m glad I did, because Lord Cut Glass is an inventive joy of an album.  One of the surprise hits of the year so far, as far as I’m concerned.

Lord Cut Glass – Look After Your Wife

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Lord Cut Glass – You Know

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MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Chemikal Underground

As pretty much all of you know, Mrs. Toad and I have been away on holiday in Italy for the last couple of weeks.  In our absence Euan (from The Steinberg Principle, Trampoline and The Kays Lavelle) very kindly agreed to write Song, by Toad for me (and for you) to make sure things kept ticking over in our absence.  In this he was ably assisted by Bart (from, erm, eagleowl* and pretty much every other band in Scotland), assisted by Dylan (from Blueback Hotrod) and rescued by Tart (from Love Shack, Baby).

Apart from merely thanking them, which I genuinely do, I wanted to say what a fucking great job they did.  I knew Bart would do a fine job of the Monday listings because, before he packed it in, his Magic Marker listings page was always the first page I checked before writing my own.  Dylan’s general oversight was much appreciated as well, particularly as he wrote Toad himself for two weeks last year, so it was really nice of him to supervise generally, and provide training and the Friday Fives.  And Tart, thanks for stepping in and sorting out the filehosting issue, it really is much appreciated.

Most of all, though, it really has to be said and said again what a fantastic job I think Euan did with the site.  He and I agree on a lot of music, and disagree on a lot as well, and I think he was a little concerned that he might in some way alienate my readers by posting slightly off-message stuff.  Honestly, I think that was actually the strength of his choices.  From my perspective, and hopefully from yours, it felt a little like a fresh breeze in a dusty room – I actually thought it was brilliant that he posted slightly different stuff and gave everyone a change.

I also appreciate how much of a community we seem to have, that people are willing to donate their time for no real benefit to themselves and help out, and that really the whole site didn’t skip a beat in my absence.  I’ve been trying to think of ways to broaden the participation a little on this site, but have always been a little nervous of loosening the reins, and this was a really good sign that this wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

So thanks so much guys, Euan in particular, it really was appreciated and I thought you did a superb job.  And for those of you who want to read a little more, please go and check out Euan’s blog, because it really is worth reading.

And while we’re at it, congratulations are in order to Dylan, who has parlayed what began as ‘helping out with some pictures for the Toad Sessions’ into a first paid photography gig.  Go here to have a look.  They aren’t all his, just “most of the good ones” to quote the man himself.

Maximilian Hecker – Sunburnt Days

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And just to show you that things really are back to normal:

* Bart, you should know that it pains me every single time I have to respectfully decline to capitalise the name of your bloody band.  Every damn time.