Hutchison still shows flashes of his songwriting gift – something which I would never deny – on sad, simple songs like Fun Stuff, but pretty much everything else on the record is so soft around the edges and so smothered in by-the-numbers radio indie arrangement that I really can’t listen to it.

The moment I realised that no matter how much I wanted to like this album, and no matter how much I tried I would always have an allergic reaction to it, comes just over two minutes into the slow build of Skip the Youth, when the chorus of backing vocals comes in for the first time.  Honestly, it’s so horrible I want to set it on fire.

This kind of grand, choral leaning has always been there or thereabouts in Frightened Rabbit’s stuff, but when it was just their voices producing it, it had a note of keenness, of desperation, and it let the emotion really grip you.  Now it just sounds bombastic and over-cooked and throws down a pretty impermeable barrier to me making any emotional connection with this album.

There’s still an energy to a lot of the guitar playing that I can imagine when this material gets off the stereo and into a sweaty venue it really could be great to witness.  A lot of the verses are actually delivered in a style I really enjoy, but so often there is just so much superfluous fluff and air-punching going on by the time the chorus comes around that I just find myself wincing.

You get the picture by now, I am sure, so there’s no point going on about it.  Basically, The Winter of Mixed Drinks and what I personally enjoy listening to are just too far apart to ever really meet in the middle, and I really do feel like an ungracious dick saying so as well.

Frightened Rabbit – Fun Stuff

Frightened Rabbit – Skip the Youth

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It’s hard to really describe this music for some reason, even though what you hear isn’t exactly going to confuse or shock you.  There only seem to be three songs to be found anywhere, all from an EP which is free to download from their Bandcamp page, and whilst they all hold together as a group, they really are all quite different as well.

Alaska starts out as a rolling ramble, pinned down with brief interruptions of guitar, and slapped around by a scuzzy synth headache which could as easily be My Bloody Valentine as it could Grizzly Bear.  Move on and Modern Times is stumbling, stop-start drunkard, all thumped piano keys and discordant guitar.  Then, after all this, Fante’s Last Stand is peculiar falsetto dream, with its plucked refrain and splashes of (presumably digital) glockenspiel bordering on both the twee and the macabre.

It’s short, and there’s not much to go on here, but this is a really fucking excellent little EP and I am really looking forward to where this may go – very, very promising.

King Post Kitsch – Alaska

Bandcamp | Website

Mitchell Museum first grabbed my attention with a couple of quirky demos which I heard on their MySpace page about a year and a half ago, and a couple of those have actually made in onto this EP.  They’ve been given a bit more spit and polish since I first heard them, and that subtle shift is one of the reasons I think I didn’t quite grasp Mitchell Museum the first time around.

Put simply, I seemed to largely think of them as quite an experimental band, with some of a pop egde, whereas in actual fact now I’d probably describe them as a pop band with a somewhat eccentric edge.  That may sound like a silly distinction, and to a degree it is, but I think it left me expecting them to make some very weird music as they added to those early recordings. As it is they made a bunch of mental pop songs, and it took me a while to adjust to the confounding of my (entirely groundless) expectations.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself and end up reviewing an album which isn’t released yet, so I’ll try and stick to this EP for now.  Basically this is a really good showcase for a band who absolutely bristle with energy and whose songs are playful and basically just stare at you from the stereo with manic grins on their faces.  They are looking for a label to release their debut album and this EP should hopefully go a long way towards securing that deal.

Mitchell Museum – Arthur Loves the Shadows

Anyhow, they have a single out already, a double a-side of Love’s Dart and Storm, which I picked up at Pure Groove last week, and a new one out very shortly containing two songs: Wor and Skies Over Cairo, both of which can be previewed at their MySpace page, should you be so inclined.

You can talk about the combitation of electronic beats with something akin to a Spaghetti Western-inspired acoustic feeling, and whilst that does describe the style, it doesn’t really get across what’s good about this stuff, from my perspective anyhow.

Basically, for me, it’s about the rhythm.  Whether it’s the constant thumping of drums, or the skittish clicks of the electronic persussive sounds, all this stuff has a really insistent, infectious rhythm, which purely and simply makes you want to dance (even a wooden-backed, stand-at-the-bar toe-tapper like me).

These lads are playing Homegame in March (sold out, sorry) with a night in Edinburgh at the Wee Red on Friday 12th March – the same weekend.  I am really looking forward to seeing them actually, and finding out what this stuff is like live, because I have a hunch it could be absolutely superb.

It’s funny – for all the talk about indie-folk at the moment, some of the bands which excite me the most for the coming year are actually the heavily rhythmic ones with a really good beat to them – whether than be the eccentricity of Jesus H. Foxx or the Tapeheads, the glitchy electronics in evidence on the new Meursault album or the eminently danceable stuff like this or Findo Gask.

Django Django – Love’s Dart

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New Labels

Last year saw the first steps made by a couple of new labels in Edinburgh, Kilter and Mini50.  With Song, by Toad Records virtually at capacity in terms of labour and money, and 17 Seconds and SL Records also really busy, these two new labels should have a pretty free hand in terms of first dibs on emerging bands this year.

Kilter have already showed the quality of their work with the beatiful eagleowl single in December, so in that sense they’re a slight step ahead.  Mini50 have been negotiating with some of the newer bands to emerge in the last year or so though, and album releases by the likes of Mammoeth should give a really solid foundation to their launch.  Basically, this is great news for the city’s young bands.

Jeffrey Lewis – Don’t Let the Record Label Take you out to Lunch

The New Generation of Bands

Whilst I’m talking about the newer bands to emerge last year, there is a definite gap forming in the local musical ecosystem.  The fact that Broken Records and now Meursault and Withered Hand have graduated to an audience both nationwide and beyond leaves an opportunity for one of the new generation to make a mark locally.

With a single and an EP already to their name, Jesus H. Foxx are slightly further ahead in their development, but with the very promising emergence of bands like the Pineapple Chunks, Conquering Animal Sound and the Last Battle there is the opportunity for a band from the new generation to progress to the stage where they will obviously and easily be able to fill small venues like Sneaky Pete’s and whatever the Roxy management turn the old Bowery space into.

David Bowie – All the Young Dudes

The New Roxy

And while we’re on the subject of the Roxy, Rupert Thomson, former Skinny editor, has been appointed to run the entire building in the new year.  I have a lot of time for Rupert, so I am really hopeful that he can carry on the development of what is pretty clearly the best gig space for small bands and promoters in the city.  In the absence of Ruth and Jane the place will inevitably have a very different atmosphere, but it is still easily the best space of its type around, so I really hope the new team can continue to foster the underground scene in the capital with the same kind of devotion and sympathy which Ruth brought to the place.  And very nice that they now have a one o’clock license, which is very fortuitous timing indeed for the new venture.

Tom Waits – New Coat of Paint (Live)

Descent of the Digital Press Locusts

Last year saw the formation of so many new blogs in Scotland it made my head spin.  In fact it actually made me feel like an established veteran.  With respected indie publications like Bearded and Plan B swinging the axe on their print editions and also retreating to the web, we are getting closer to the American press model every day.

In the States there are basically no music magazines left, so labels and bands take blogs way, way more seriously, because we are pretty much the only people left who are addressing their audience.  In the UK there are still some excellent music magazines – Clash, Word, The Stool Pigeon and so on – but glossies like the NME, Q and Uncut are really becoming embarrassingly bad.  Personally I would be surprised if the year passed without a high profile music press casualty, which means that the playing field is unusually open for blogs and other digital publications.  And with the death of music television beyond the insultingly stupid X-Factor and its diseased ilk, pretty much the only music television which exists in the UK is now online.

This general trend could lead to a fairly considerable shift in how online publications are treated over the next year or so and, instead of being considered amateur or grassroots or DIY, we could end up being as close to mainstream as it actually gets in the indie world.

The Clash – Career Opportunities

That Extra Step

Glasvegas were probably the last really big band to come out of Scotland, in terms of sheer audience size.  Frightened Rabbit, depending on their next album, could follow in their footsteps over the next twelve months.  Do any of the Edinburgh bands, I find myself wondering, have it in them to follow in their footsteps?  Are we likely to ever see the likes of Withered Hand, Meursault or Broken Records get anywhere near a late evening slot on the main stage at a major festival anytime soon?  It would be nice to think so, wouldn’t it.

Aileen Loy & Blue Valentines – Big in Japan

With that in mind, Avalanche Records have managed to pull something spectacular out of the bag with their Alternative Christmas charity album.  It’s a fucking great compilation, really it is – enjoyable and actually quite festive-sounding, without being at all lame.  I don’t use that word very often, but indie Christmas music generally does sound rather lame, and this record really doesn’t.  God knows how they’ve done it.

The proceeds all go to a local charity, and to Avalanche’s own charity in aid of African street children, and the record can be bought here.  If you want an antidote to the sort of cod-classical shite or painful pop garbage which gets liberally shovelled around at Christmas I guarantee you will not do better than this.

Which brings me to the jewel in the crown of this compilation: Withered fucking Hand.  There are some great songs on this – donated songs from eagleowl, Rob St. John, Frightened Rabbit and Broken Records, and a couple of specially recorded ones by Song, by Toad Records bands The Savings and Loan and Meursault – but Dan has written one specially and it’s amazing.

In typical Dan fashion, he manages to batter the shite out of the modern concept of Christmas, whilst still generating a strange sense of optimism.  In his skewering of modern, identikit Christmases you can hear the inverse – the echo of some idealistic Christmas which exists in Dan’s head and to which reality is signally failing to live up, and the picture he manages to paint as some sort of negative of the one he actually depicts manages to give a reassuring warmth to a song which might otherwise be really rather depressing.

It’s not though, it’s heartwarming, maybe because that idealised Christmas which exists in our heads is actually the best thing about the whole bloody festival to begin with.

Withered Hand – It’s a Wonderful Lie

When I played Laughter, the b-side to this single, on the podcast a couple of weeks ago I remember describing eagleowl as having a very similar quality to Withered Hand, in that they just seem to have total integrity – they come across as being the only band they could actually be;  as if they would actually be incapable of sitting down and styling themselves after a certain fashion.

It’s very much as if there is precisely no layer of artifice between them and their audience at all – no fourth wall, as the theatre community might put it.  What that does, of course, is demand that you return the favour.  The emotions are so naked that to engage with the music you tend to have to drop your own guard as well, which makes music like theirs hit home so very much harder than almost any other band I could mention.

The other thing about eagleowl which I love is that to a degree they force you to accept them on their terms, not your own.  It reminds me of reading a book in that sense – you actually have to sit down and clear your mind or you are unlikely to take anything much from the experience.  As such, I find that listening to eagleowl always puts me in the right frame of mind to listen to eagleowl, and so I have never listened to anything they’ve done with less than complete attention.  This gives the carefully assembled details of their work the chance to reveal themselves one at a time in the unhurried way in which this band operate.

Which brings me onto this particular release.  This may not really be a Christmas song per se, but it does embody that envelopment and sanctuary which your own home takes on as the conditions outside become more and more unpleasant.  Even the cover image of the candle in the dark reinforces this feeling.  This song basically expresses everything I love about Winter and Christmas in general: the restlfulness of being home (be it chez Toad, or visiting the folks or in Manchester with my Granddad – they all have their different but equally comforting homely qualities), the deep satisfaction of being curled up on a couch in a warm living room when it’s freezing cold and blustery outside, and that indescribable, incomparable feeling of rightness you get when snuggling up to a loved one late in the evening after a good meal and enjoying the fact that you really have nothing at all to do in the hours between now and bedtime.

I don’t really know how more meaningfully I can evaluate this music.  I could describe the change in how Malcolm is using his violin these days, or the interplay between male and female vocals or any of that stuff, but it’s never what I end up caring about when I listen to eagleowl.   They just sound right; this just sounds right.  And that’s all that really needs saying about any of it.

eagleowl – Laughter

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These singles are released on a pair of clear vinyl 7″s, with the really rather gorgeous artwork having been done by Chris from the band, and frankly I think they look fantastic.

The songs themselves, however, had a slightly more uneasy ride.  The tracks on this release are the album versions of The Dirt & the Roots and A Few Kind Words as double A-sides with new recordings of William Henry Miller Parts One and Two respectively, and the first time I heard those new recordings I was rather taken aback.

Everyone who knows these songs already will know the incredibly sparse acoustic versions from the Nothing Broke EP, but these are a totally different proposition.  Slowed down (in the case of Part 2 almost to a standstill) and incredibly densely layered, they take full advantage of new band memebers Phil Quirie on electric guitar and Pete Harvey on cello.  There are guest vocals provided by Bart from eagleowl and Dan from Withered Hand, and the results may be a shock to the system for fans of the acoustic versions.  As Neil said when he first played them to us: “I thought I’d finally written a song you really didn’t like.”

Give it a few weeks, however and these bloody singles are never off the stereo in Toad Hall.  William Henry Miller Part Two, became a favourite pretty much instantaneously – in fact it’s just about my favourite song of the year.  There’s something about the wailed vocals, rhythmic piano and the truly stunning layers of cello which I just can’t stop listening to.

Part One took a little longer to get used to.  To a degree it sounds like the version from Nothing Broke has had a stroke; the beginning is all thick and slow, a mile from the jaunty handclaps of the acoustic version.  Somehow though I find myself preferring this one these days.  I don’t know why, but I think it’s because there’s just something odd and unsettling about it now.

It’s funny how the two new recordings seem to fit with the songs from Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues as well.  In terms of clearing the decks for the new album and drawing 2009 to a close, these singles seem about perfect.

They can be bought as a pair or individually from the Song, by Toad Records site, recently given a very, very snazzy redesign by Andy from Nonimage.  Preview pretty much all of these on the Meursault MySpace page if you like, and digital versions are available from the likes of iTunes and Amazon mp3 as well.

It doesn’t matter though, because this is still a fucking great EP – one of two they’ve released this year already.  Perhaps inevitably for a band whose lead instrument is pretty close to actually being the drums, the rhythms on this are just a bit weird, really insistent, and completely brilliant.  Between You’ve Got it All and Into the Wild they really don’t give you much room for breath.  And by the time the thumping drums and snarling guitars of the latter come to an end you really do just find yourself thinking ‘fucking hell!’ and wanting to chuckle and toast the band with with a sloppily handled pint.  It’s a fucking great start to a record.

They give you a moment to rest with Crossing Hearts, which I must confess has yet to entirely worm its way into my affections, but which is an important change of pace for the sequencing of the record as a whole.  It doesn’t last long though; Blame it on Me starts with a thunderous bashing and a snarl of guitar, which is almost immediately replaced by a wail of vocals, before settling down to something a little less fearsome.  But fucking hell, point made, they are rocking these days!

I don’t know what it is that they do that feels so different, because in most ways their music is quite familiar.  Nevertheless I find it really tricky to pin down.  It’s not exactly Americana, but although there’s a lot of punk in it at times it’s still not really punk, and it’s not what I’d call rock ‘n’ roll either.  A Horse’s Grin maybe comes back to the more familiar, rolling sound of early Sparrow stuff, but the real message from this EP for me is that Sparrow & the Workshop, having taken a little time to find their feet and settle with their initial sound, have now decided that they are going to come at their audience with all guns blazing.

I have to confess that I found Into the Wild a little disorientating at first, but that’s perhaps no surprise.  I always love it when a band can ride out the early flush of excitement generated by their very first songs, and then come back with more really high quality stuff at just the point when so many bands falter and fail to show any real substance.  This lot, it appears, really are the business and I cannot wait for their debut album, I really can’t.

Sparrow & the Workshop – Into the Wild

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One such project is The Sea is Salt, which is a partnership between Jack and a young lady called Faith, whose voice I found so incredibly beautiful on Jack’s own recording of Lady of the Calico, which I originally knew as a Nightjar song.  She sang backing vocals on that particular song, but with The Sea is Salt her voice is front and centre, and fucking hell she can bloody sing.

The musical backing is so spare as to be barely there half the time.  There is a little acoustic guitar, some piano, a little fiddle, but not much else really.  Jack accompanies on harmonies as well, but again, not all that much.  In general this music takes things out, rather than leaving them in there, to leave Faith’s vocal as by far the dominant feature.

For someone who is as talented a violin player as Jack there is surprisingly little violin on The Sea is Salt stuff, but I always like a band who can resist the temptation to throw the kitchen sink at recordings.  I’ve included Bears below, because it’s really rather different from the rest of the songs on their MySpace.  I’ve heard earlier recordings on there which were also quite abrupt departures from the dramatic vocals of the likes of Deloris and Kennoway and Star, so I thought I’d pop it in here to give you more of an idea of their range.

If I were to look for slight caveats to my enthusiasm, it would be that there are times when they threaten to become just a little too dramatic for my personal taste, but I don’t know enough about their wider repertoire to really say.  It’s not the most significant of quibbles though, because even at their most grandiose I still really like their songs.

Whatever way you look at it, this is a very long way from Nightjar, but it’s really good, and I am somewhat surprised not to see these guys on a few more bills around the capital.  But then, to do that bands often need to be a bit pushy and forward and I don’t know Faith all that well, but Jack is such a quiet, easy-going guy that I can’t see him exactly being a master of self-publicity.  It’s a shame though, because I think a lot of people would like this.

The Sea is Salt – Vinegar Hill

The Sea is Salt – Bears

And for those of you who have forgotten the version of Lady of the Calico mentioned above, it’s here.  And fucking gorgeous it is too:

Jack Richold – Lady of the Calico