At my very most cynical I look at all the posh, affable boys and girls making alternative folk music in London these days and I wonder just how absolutely compelled they are to do it.  Is it just a social thing that they happen to do because they have talent and they can afford it, or are they genuinely driven to make music?  I suppose this is a natural speculation of someone who spends a lot of time around musicians with barely a penny to their name and no backup plan, but it really is somewhat spiteful and entirely without basis in any more than suspicion of posh accents.  Oh the hypocrisy.

For someone who made a significant impact with his debut album A Larum I think I half expected Flynn (again, for absolutely no apparent reason) to rest on his laurels, maybe add a bit more orchestration and serve us another helping of broadly the same thing.  You’re going to laugh when I say that every time I’ve seen him on stage he’s come across as a really nice guy – I don’t know where I ended up with this oddly uncharitable opinion of the guy, I promise it wasn’t deliberate, and I do know I’m talking shit, honestly.

Anyhow, this album has ended up being one not so much that I love dearly just yet, but that has triggered a lot of admiration.  There’s all sorts going on here, from borderline calypso* rhythms (no, honestly, come back!) on the likes of Churlish May, to the electric guitar lead of the title track, and all sorts of brass all over the place.

It’s not that Flynn hasn’t thrown everything at the album now he is established enough to demand such things, it’s more that he’s been remarkably disciplined in his use of the ideas he seems to be bursting with.  That guitar makes only one appearance of such prominence, for example, although it is there through most of the album.  I did think he was going to overuse the orchestral stuff too, particularly the brass, but just as the album seems to be getting a bit Carmen Miranda on us, the beautifully empty acoustic duet The Water appears to turn things on their head.

Following tracks Howl and Agnes are rougher and louder, but their arrangements are still remarkably plain for an album which has been extremely elaborate for most of its first two thirds, and then Amazon Love is beautifully downbeat once again. There’s such a lot here that I am still absorbing it, to be honest.  I remember first hearing teaser track Kentucky Pill and finding it all so much that I was initially rather put off, but after repeated listens I find myself really liking it.

I get the impression that the similarly busy parts of the album will be this way as well – that it will take a little time for it all to sink in.  Been Listening is an album absolutely packed full of ideas though, and for all it has been extremely well-managed considering the sheer amount of stuff to be crammed in, I think it’s going to take me a little while longer to entirely absorb this record.  And I like that.

Johnny Flynn – Barnacled Warship

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Johnny Flynn – The Water

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*I’ve pulled this particular ‘style’ out of my arse, sorry, but I don’t really know quite what I’m listening to here.  It seems to cross between English folk and a more laid back Caribbean vibe, and only ever in the vaguest of suggestions too, because it’s far from explicit.  Maybe it’s the percussion which does it.

Even before the alcoholic beating administered by Homegame began to subside, Ruth and I found ourselves in the Fresh Air studio with the exhausted and defeated Love.Stop.Repeat for a live session and a radio show which could barely lift its tired chops to the microphone.

The band have a new album out now, as well as a remix album, which given how gentle and acoustic their sound is sounds rather intriguing.

The session itself was lovely.  In fact, I am rather surprised by the quality of sound we get with no more than two shitty mics pointed vaguely in the direction of the performers.  We have a Loch Lomond one coming out shortly, but the station itself is now on an extended break until we return in the new academic year with a new Grand Vizier, the splendid Richard Vause.  Until then, that will be all the Toadly Fresh Air business there is to be found.

I am thinking about entering Toad and Ruth’s Toad and Ruth show into the Student Radio Awards as best specialist show, but given neither of us are students it seems to be cheating just a little bit.  Anyhow, we have the interview podcast below, all the session tracks as downloadable mp3s and then, at the bottom of the post, two more live session videos.

Love.Stop.Repeat Fresh Air Session

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Love.Stop.Repeat – Song For Mary (Live on FreshAir.org.uk)

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Love.Stop.Repeat – Tail Lights (Live on FreshAir.org.uk)

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Love.Stop.Repeat – Storm Song (Live on FreshAir.org.uk)

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Love.Stop.Repeat – Pillow (Live on FreshAir.org.uk)

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There is only one thing I care about happening in Edinburgh this week, and that is sweet, sweet sleep.  After the Scottish Showcase at the Old Queen’s Head last night (brilliantly put together by Anthony and Alice from God Don’t Like It, God bless their odd-couply socks) we stuffed everyone back in the van and I drove the eight hours back from Lahndan just in time to drop everyone off for a sleep and come straight to work.  So my brain is now in a puddle in the bottom of my shoes, and bollocks to gigs this week.

And you know what?  There’s fuck all happening in Edinburgh this week.  Yes, genuinely fuck all.  Unless I miss my guess which, let’s face it, wouldn’t surprise anyone there really isn’t a single gig that I would personally be heading to this week.  And you know, that might be the first time since I started writing this weekly listings post that this has happened.

Anyhow, in the absence of my anyone else’s shit to pimp, I suppose I should just pimp some of my own shit, because on Thursday night Jesus H. Foxx and Meursault are playing at the Go North music industry booze-a-thon in Inverness, before Meursault head on to play at the Rockness Festival on Sunday.  The Foxx have just released a teaser from their debut album, a track called Jeff & Josephine, which you can find on their blog, here.

As well as musicky things, you’ll find Derick and Olaf from Born to Be Wide up in Inverness, hosting four seminars over two days at the Ramada Jarvis Hotel on the subjects of bands who do everything themselves*, band management, alternative ways to making money out of music and getting your music synched to TV or film.  The full details are on their MySpace page, and I recommend getting along if you can, because these seminars can be very useful.

Even if the chat itself can get a little derailed into amusing anecdotes at times which, whilst highly enjoyable, are not of all that much practical use, you can generally spot the people you want to have an extended chat with later on and then collar them in the bar when they’re vulnerable – so there are several ways to get a bit of extra value out of these things.

And, of course, it will be a monumental piss up.

Jesus H. Foxx – Jeff and Josephine

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*Rather hilariously including our own Neil Pennycook as a representative of a band who, and I quote from the flyer: “book their own tours, organise their own festivals, release their own records, and manage to make money”.   Money?  Money? Where the fuck is my yacht in the fucking Bahamas then?

This is a not entirely accurately-titled podcast, in that the whoring only takes place over a couple of songs at the tail end and does not at all influence any of the rest of the playlist.

What am I talking about, you ask?  Well when I played a few trendy songs a few months back the listership of the podcast doubled over the course of a few weeks.  I noticed this back when I was a bit more rigorous about the blog in the early days: if I reviewed high-profile new releases in the week of release it generated a large spike in readership.

So I’ve dropped a couple of very hype-friendly songs into the end of this podcast to see if that actually has any influence on anything at all.  I found nice ones – ones I actually like, I mean – so don’t worry, your normally glittering listening experience will not be tarnished one bit.  But bear in mind that this week we are all the guineau pigs in a silly internet hit-whoring experiment.  Sorry.

Toadcast #125 – The Whorecast

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01. Burnt Ones – Sunset Hill (03.46)
02. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – The Mercy Seat (09.34)
03. Girls Names – You Should Know by Now (18.32)
04. Pagan Wanderer Lu – Banish Negative Thoughts (20.26)
05. The Cure – Pictures of You (28.01)
06. Echo & the Bunnymen – The Killing Moon (35.37)
07. Taken by Trees – Watch the Waves (42.12)
08. Wild Nothing – Summer Holiday (49.21)
09. The Beets – What Did I Do (53.20)
10. Silver Columns – Warm Welcome (56.17)
11. Velvet Underground – Venus in Furs (62.41)

It’s just a pity I can’t play the bass guitar, or mine too could be a life of not having as cool a beard as Ian, being a bit scared that Andy Keeney actually might be dangerous, wishing I could play as many instruments as Rory or getting that stare from Jamie when I did something wrong.

What the fuck am I talking about, you ask?  Well our dear friends Broken Records are looking for a new bass guitar player.  Gill (the nice man in the picture above)  has departed to set up his own business, and as much as the band are thrilled for him (as am I) and wish him the best of luck, it does mean they need a new bass player.  Here is the classified ad they sent me (I’m starting to feel like a bit of a lonely hearts club):

Broken Records are looking for new full-time member to join us on the bass guitar. We’ve just finished work on our new album scheduled for release in the Autumn on 4AD and will be touring the UK and internationally to coincide with this. If you’re interested then get in touch at brokenrecordsband *at* gmail.com and tell us a bit about yourself (if we don’t know you already!): previous experience, what music you like, contact details, etc. We are looking for someone to primarily play bass, but a good proficiency on the guitar will be useful too, and let us know if you play any other instruments. A love of Hüsker Dü and Peter, Paul and Mary not essential.

So there you go, all joking aside, Broken Records need a new bass players, and if you would like the job, get in touch.

And as for the Friday Fives, well Fridays are always the days for a de-lurking amnesty, so please stick your noses out of the woodwork and say hello.  Stick your noses out of the woodwork?  What the fuck does that even mean?  Ignore me.  Answer the five questions.  Talk pish afterwards.  The usual.

1. Which band would you most like to join?
2. Favourite bass player of all time.
3. If you were quitting a successful rock ‘n’ roll band, what would it be to do?
4. What one spiteful comeback would you direct at press/fans/band mates (careful!)?
5. Which band would you most like to storm off from in a massive flounce?

Broken Records – Lies (Early Demo)

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Broken Records – And They All Fell Into the Sea (Toad Session)

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Broken Records – All So Tired (From Out On the Water acoustic EP)

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Broken Records – Nearly Home (From debut When the Earth Begins to Part)

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Broken Records – Aleko (Live at the Toad New Year’s House Gig)

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I think it’s fair to say that the ‘Scottish Bands’ tag I’ve applied to this post isn’t entirely spurious – just listen to that accent – but I think Sam Taylor may just reside down South these days.

Signed to the everso tiny-looking Dustbowl Records (their whole site appears to be no more than a blog with three posts) they fit nicely in with all the bands mentioned on those three lonely pages: The Miserable Rich, Alessi’s Ark, Johnny Flynn and recently acquired label-mates Takeda.

This is all at the lovely end of the alt-folk spectrum.  In fact, it’s not really all that ‘alt’ I suppose – simply acoustic songwriting, which tends to attract that increasingly vague alt-folk tag these days.  The folkiest song on the EP, in terms of structure and arrangement, is probably the one I have posted: the beautiful Anchored Down.

The rest of this is simply gently rustling acoustic pop, and really nicely done too.  It’s mostly pretty spare as well, although on songs like Rush Hour Wind they show they can add plumpness to the sound when they choose.  Generally though there is little more than acoustic guitar backed by the bare minimum of percussion and some extremely lovely female backing vocals.

It’s funny, in my own head I am kind of lumping Adelaide’s Cape in with the likes of Johnny Flynn and Alessi’s Ark and the rest of that London lot, and was about to claim that despite what they have in common with those acts there is still, to my ears at least, a very distinctively Scottish flavour to this music – something in the turn of phrase or maybe the nature of the hush during the quiet moments.  Then I realised that this was me lumping an unconfirmed suspicion (that they have anything at all to do with the London alt-folkies, or indeed that they live in London in the first place) in with an obvious vested interest (the desire to think that Scottish music is the best) and probably bending my interpretation to fit these two dubious assumptions.

This is the kind of lazy journalistic bollocks which led the Silver Columns to keep their identities secret to stop people writing nonsense like ‘you can really hear the folky leanings’ about their 80s disco pop record, based on no more than Johnny and Adem’s previous work.

Still, despite the Scottish character, there is a definite flavour of something different about this, which separates it from the similar stuff I hear recorded up here.  The choruses are that little more grand and rousing, and the lush parts have more of the sunny day about them than the long, demoralising Winter of sleet and gale which seems to permeate the stuff I hear around these parts.

This is a good thing, however, because you don’t get quite the relentless dourness in which home-grown stuff can be smothered, but that vein, which does still run through this record, brings a touch of authenticity to the often rather emotionally lightweight London stuff.  See  – I’m still harping on about this narrative I may well have just pulled out of my arse.  This is why there’s no such thing as objective music journalism – pre-conceptions and personal slants influence everything far too much.

Whatever, this is a gorgeous EP, and well worth your money.  Buy one!

Adelaide’s Cape – Anchored Down [removed at label's request]

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Horsefeathers don’t really seem to evolve much, although they are steadily becoming more and more orchestral after the gently plucked guitar strings and shuffling banjo of their debut album.  This record is exactly as I would have expected it, there is nary a raised eyebrow to be found never mind a surprise, and yet I still find it an enormous pleasure to listen to.

The funny thing is that when I first put it on I got that wrinkly-nose face I tend to get when bands release records which sound so instantly and comfortably at home in their existing canon.  But then, given I can hardly ever really make out the lyrics of a Horse Feathers album I suppose I tend to listen to the whole thing as if it were some sort  of aural bath – just sinking into the warm, enveloping sound and letting the sins of the day slough away.

Musically they manage to evoke both the uncomfortable folk tales which might have sprung from the murky woodland of Oregon state, and the warm, comforting embrace which might comfort a child woken from sleep with the nightmares such folk tales might seed.

Musically, this is just very, very lovely stuff, for the most part.  It lists gently into the slightly disturbed here and there, but in general the gentle rise and fall of the music is akin to dozing against a loved one’s chest as it rises and falls with the slow breathing of a deep sleep, or of lying in a boat gazing up at the sky as it bobs on a gentle swell.

That may not sound like much of a recommendation – ‘pshaw! lullabye music’, if you’re feeling cynical – but there is a very distinctive character to Horse Feathers’ music.  Justin Ringle’s vocals may not be all that decipherable, but they are very lovely nonetheless, and the way the strings switch from being sawed to being carressed and back is also rather beautiful.  In the end, I think of this album less as a collection of songs, I suppose, more as a place to go from time to time when I need to feel what Thistled Spring makes me feel.  Lovely stuff once again.

Horse Feathers – Belly of June

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Horse Feathers – The Drought

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I don’t know if the band would agree with me (in fact I’d be a little surprised if they did) but it seemed to me that the Wave Picture’s transition from self-releasers of short-run CD-Rs to being signed to one of the UK’s most fashionable record labels was not the smoothest.

Instant Coffee Baby had what I thought were some pretty weak songs, and I wouldn’t have said that the smoother recording style did their music any favours either.  It looked, to me at least, like the more professional processes of Moshi Moshi might just rub the idiosyncratic edges off the band and how they approached music, and in doing so rob them of the character I loved so much.

You don’t get to where Moshi are by being idiots though, and after the inital wobbles, the Wave Pictures have been back to what they do best: releasing lots and lots of things, spraying ideas about like buckshot, putting out CD-Rs, singles, collaborations and God knows what else.  This solo LP (only out on 12″ vinyl as far as I can tell) by lead singer David Tattersall is peppered with collaborative recordings, including appearances by the likes of Stanley Brinks and the beautiful voice of Clemence Freschard.

Tattersall’s recent work has been a lot more acoustic, generally eschewing the growly rock and roll guitar solos which characterised the early Wave Pictures recordings and, in particular, their performances.  It robbed their recent album If You Leave if Alone of a little bit of bite, if you ask me, but I think Tattersall has it nailed now, because this record is bloody brilliant.  With such a slow, quiet album there is always the danger of wandering attention spans, but the duets, the brief introduction of some feisty guitar on The Old Family, and Freschard taking lead vocal duties on I Saw You Hair Between the Trees bring some well-judged shifts in texture to Happy For a While, and ensure it remains completely engaging throughout.

There’s a part of me that would like to see Tattersall dish out a beating to his electric guitar again in the near future, but his more acoustic recordings seem to be reaching their pinnacle here – really, really nice.

David Tattersall – The Typewriter Ribbon

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David Tattersall – The Old Family

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