Song, by Toad

Navigator – Bad Children

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

Navigator – Work is Done

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

Lord Cut Glass – Lord Cut Glass

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

Lord Cut Glass – You Know

MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Chemikal Underground

Auld Lang Syne – Midnight Folly

I’ve been humming and hawing about actually penning this review for some time and the reason is basically this: I thought the single Where My Fortune Lies was a stunning piece of work – beautiful artwork and, most importantly of course, a truly great song.  Midnight Folly, on the other hand, I am finding a less than arresting album, and I thought it would be a bit mean to laud the band in one post, and then insult them in the next.  Still, that’s the nature of reviews I guess, and as a certain Mr. Brown has recently discovered, you can never entirely escape your honest personal opinions of a record, no matter how much you might have wanted to like it to begin with.

Actually, despite my whingeing, Midnight Folly starts very well, with the thumping Long Ago a stirring addition to the very noble tradition of Western-tinged murder ballad with its narrative roots in uncompromisingly merciless storylines of frontier legend, which are themselves coloured by murderous tales common in old folk music.  It’s the kind of song which would sit very well in the generally territory mapped out loosely by the likes of Smog, Calexico,  the Willard Grant Conspiracy and Richmond Fontaine.

This is also pretty much the territory inhabited by the rest of the album in terms of musical style.  Slide guitar, baritone delivery, harmonica, and a little bit of brass backing make this album pretty firmly ‘of a type’ with a great deal of other music released in the last five to ten years.  For the most part this is hardly a problem of course, because it’s a style I absolutely love, so provided the songwriting delivers it with some elan then this isn’t an issue.  What I struggle with, unfortunately, is that for the most part the melodies of the album don’t grab my attention, no matter how many dozens of times I have now listened to this record.

Bob Dylan often doesn’t really deal in ‘choruses’, so to speak, but he has a rolling musical signature in his delivery most of the time, even when singing long, verbose, narrative songs.  Long Ago barely has a chorus, but it too is punctuated by a repeated musical signature.  When Smog were at their most hushed and plain, say in the likes of A River Ain’t Too Much to Love, there may not have been much obvious structure to the songs but there was a always a rolling, repeated refrain, even when its cycle was unusually long for a pop song.

What there seems to be lacking in these songs, for all their excellent style and lyrical strength, is something as seemingly superficial as a hook.  So far, and this is of course an entirely subjective thing, I have failed to find anything in most of these tracks to stick in my head; the music often seems to lack a distinctively individual personality from one track to the next.  I often find myself wondering if I was listening to the crescendo of the previous song, or if this was a new one with a bit more guitar.  Consequently, even after dozens of listens, large parts of the middle of this album simply failed to separate themselves out to me, and I still couldn’t identify the specific song I was listening to a lot of the time.

The genius of things like Where My Fortune Lies is that as well as everything else, it works as a joyous pop song, pure and simple.  For me, a lot of this album does not actually achieve that, rendering all the other good things about it somewhat redundant.  I find myself loving songs like Long Ago, My First Soul, Where My Fortune… and to an extent Four Rivers and that is just about it, sadly, because I really wanted to love this album.

Auld Lang Syne – Where My Fortune Lies

Auld Lang Syne – My First Soul

MySpace | More mp3s | Buy the album from Viper Bite Records

Gobble Gobble – Neon Graveyard

Gobble Gobble come out of Edmonton in Canada, part of a small but apparently quite determined experimental music community down there under the Hydeaway umbrealla who seem to be doing some very good things.  I was sent a CD sampler by this group a while ago, and it was interesting – it certainly showed that there seems to be a good bit of collective energy forming in that part of the world.

Cecil Frena, who sent me this, has assembled an eclectic and fascinating album of scratchy electronica which casts its blanket of crackling subversion over a few different genres.  This makes Neon Graveyard, for me, rather more than just another collection of indie pop songs smothered in electronic clicks and whizzes and a constant hiss of artificially created background noise.  Yes, admittedly, there is a lot of that particular technique to be found on this album, but it is never treated as the raison d’etre of the whole piece, as can happen in this particular part of the musical landscape.

What defines Neon Graveyard in my eyes is actually more the undercurrents than the surface eddies.  Songs like O Sacred Dandruff and Piles of Salt seem to actually take a lot of cues from contemporary R’n'B, particularly in the style of the vocal delivery.  They sound almost like R’n'B songs which have been put through a rather severe cycle in your dishwasher and this, you will probably not be surprised to hear, I like.  At other times a form of Gameboy pop swirls into focus, then this same approach fixes itself to an interlude of piano (Ash Fountain, for example) which sounds superfically far more like classical than anything you’d happen across in an indie pop landscape.

This flitting from one underpinning genre to another, all held together by a more uniform style at the surface, gives the album both a really solid coherence and a happy variety. The style, in fact, fits the title very well indeed. I like.

Gobble Gobble – Meteor Eschat

Gobble Gobble – Eggs in Carrion

MySpace | More mp3s |I have no idea where you can buy this, incidentally, but try getting in touch via MySpace

Jocky Venkataraman – Can’t Go There, An Introduction to Jocky Venkataraman

Jocky Venkataraman is an intriguing proposition.  I have been informed that he is one of Frightened Rabbit’s favourite artists, having recently appeared as a support act at their sold out acoustic show at the Captain’s Rest.  Well, having digested this album a couple of times, which you can download for free here, it’s safe to say that he’s found a pretty fond spot with me as well.  I’ve never seen him live, though I am now eager to do so, and this is indeed my first exposure to his music but there’s something of the Daniel Johnston’s about his music and that really can never be a bad thing.  Perhaps it’s the genius lyrical content which makes him stand out from the crowd?  Perhaps it’s the almost child like delivery of the vocals?  Or perhaps it that there are a lot of really catchy tunes on this record, which make it instantly appealing.  This record is quirky and diverse to say the least.  It’s challenging for sure.  ButI think it’s a gem.  He releases his second LP ‘Motorways Died Young/This is Not Food, This Isn’t Even Food’ through Glasgow label Wiseblood Industries this year. You’re either going to love this or hate it.  Either way,  enjoy.

Parcel People (Xmas Eve)

Airport Marches – Jocky Venkataraman

Never Gets Dark In June – Jocky Venkataraman

Long Long Walk Home – Wroclaw

I’ve been trying to think of how to introduce this, but I think some things work better the less information you have about them. (Though before you all start ranting about song structure, please note this is more of a visual art project than a musical one.) This is just beautiful: understated, intimate, and emotional. It shouldn’t really need more explanation than that. A perfect example of how ideas are more important than budget. Enjoy.

Finn – The Best Low-Priced Heartbreakers You Can Own

Well now, I’ve already written about this album over at The Steinberg Principle but my readership is not anywhere near that of Mr Toad and I love this record, so I want to share it with you all.  This has been an interesting 2 weeks for me because I don’t really feel that the music I am writing about will necessarily appeal to the wider readership of songbytoad.  When Matthew first asked me to do this, I must admit that I was a little apprehensive.  This site doesn’t really cater for the majority of music that I love.  Nothing highlights this more than Matthew’s lack of knowledge of Elliott Smith.  So yes, I was apprehensive but I decided that perhaps I was being silly.  I love all sorts of music, so why wouldn’t the wider readership of songbytoad?  So it was with this mindset that I decided to proceed and hopefully the music I’ve been posting isn’t all miserable crap that nobody likes!

Anyways,  Finn is a German singer songwriter, please stay with me despite this, called Patrick Zimmer and is signed to Erased Tapes – home of the sublime Olafur Arnalds.   ‘The Best Low-Priced Heartbreakers You Can Own’ is his third album but is the first thing by him that I came across, mostly thanks to him being support to Olafur Arnalds on his last tour of the UK, and it’s a gem of an album.  There are 16 tracks on this album, which is a lot.  Or it seems a lot, but many of the tracks are short interludes and many of the songs themselves register under 3 and a half minutes in length.  The delicate beauty of this record is hard to describe.   But what really makes the record come to life are the lovely arrangements and intelligent intrumentation.  The handclaps at the end of ‘Julius Caesar’ are just the perfect end to a wonderful song though completely unexpected – perhaps why they make such an impact.  Finn’s voice is also something special and his use of 2 vocals on many songs, one an octave higher than the other, is a lovely touch which adds beautifully to the dynamics.  The name of this record could not be more prefect.  Go out and buy it and let Finn touch your heart.

Dew – Finn

Julius Caesar – Finn

Beerjacket – Animosity

Beerjacket.  Wow, what a name.  Imagine if we had such things. Would they be jackets with a beer in every pocket?  Or would it be a jacket made of the same material as arm bands but instead of being inflated by air they would inflate when filled with beer?  This would obviously come with a handy straw for regular refreshment purposes.  We’d then need filling stations though, similar to those catering for automobiles, but instead of petrol pumps we’d have beer pumps.  What a glorious world it would be!  Unfortunately there are no such things.  However, on the flip side this beerjacket is equally as glorious.  This is like Elliott Smith never died.   This is lo-fi pop music at its very, very best.   This is a glorious end to a tiring Wednesday.

Beerjacket is the pseudonym of Glasgow singer songwriter Peter Kelly.  He’s no stranger to big gigs having opened shows for the likes of The National, Bat For Lashes, Guillemots and Rilo Kiley.  And yet, this is the first time I’ve stumbled across him with the release of his album ‘Anomosity’.  He evokes memories of early Elliott Smith and of Bright Eyes at his best, with this collection of 3 minute pop gems.  In fact, no track on the album is over 3 and a half minutes in length and if anything this emphasises the links to early Smith albums.  But that’s not a criticism by any means as this is a great listen and there is a space in my heart for somebody stepping up to the plate and delivering the quality of heart wrenching music attributed to the late, great Elliott Smith.  From the sounds of this, Beerjacket seems up for the challenge and I look forward to hearing more from this artist.  The album can be downloaded from all the usual places, though I believe the album launch is happening in Glasgow as I write with the physical release being available as of tomorrow.  Anyways, in the meantime, I’ve chosen a selection of tunes from the album for your listening pleasure and hope you enjoy this as much as I am.

Drum – Beerjacket

Screaming Hallelujah – Beerjacket

And here’s one of my all time favourite Elliott Smith songs cause I’m in that mood now.

Between the Bars – Elliott Smith

We Sink Ships – The Ghost You Left Behind

Ok, so We Sink Ships are not a band and The Ghost You Left Behind is not the name of an album or EP.  We Sink Ships are 2 wonderfully talented photographers in the shape of Heidi Kuisma and Neil Milton and The Ghost You Left Behind is the name of their latest online exhibition that can be viewed here.  I have known Heidi for sometime now and am a big fan of her photographs regularly visiting We Sink Ships and her own photo page on Flickr to check out her latest work.  The latest online exhibition, I think you will agree, is simply stunning.  And even better knews is that the pair of them are having their first “real world” exhibition at the 13th Note in Glasgow.  And if it can get even better, they are holding a launch night at the 13th Note on Monday 6th July with live music in the form of Hindle Wakes, Call To Mind and the wonderful, wonderful Debutant.   Anyways, I thought it would be nice to let you guys explore out some quality photography over at their site.  But before you do enjoy the wonderful sounds of Debutant.

Means to an end – Debutant

There Will Be Fireworks

I recently mentioned on one of the many threads on this blog that Sparrow and the Workshop fuck me up in so many positive ways.  Well here’s another bunch from Glasgow that fuck me up in so many wonderful ways.  I cannot actually describe how much I am loving the 2 tunes that they sent me this evening.  I had heard one of the tracks on Glasgowpodcart, a wonderful little pod cast based in Glasgow and run by an exceptionally lovely bunch of people.  The first moment I heard this tune I knew this band were for me.  I am quite frankly surprised not to have read about them on these pages before now – I have checked and see no record of any reviews of the band either on record or live to date.  Anyways, they are releasing their eponymous debut album on 1st July.   Neither of the tunes I am about to post are on the album.  In fact, the guys told me themselves that they think everything on the album is better than these 2 tracks – which is pretty impressive if you ask me!    And they are making waves.  Already being touted as the next big guitar band to come out of Glasgow they have drawn the obvious comparisons to the Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit.  Personally, bar a strong Glasgow accent, I don’t hear it.  There is something more intricate about this band.  Just something more melodic, atmospheric.  I am excited.  I get excited about a lot of Scottish bands, but this album is going to be bought the day it comes out, it’s going to be played until my ears can’t take anymore and I am going to get them at Trampoline as soon as I can - as long as they want to play of course!  Great stuff from a band with the potential to do great things in the second half of 2009.  Lets hope they do.

Foreign Thoughts – There Will Be Fireworks

White Noise – There Will Be Fireworks