The parallels to The Wedding Present’s Hit Parade are obvious enough for any indie kid, this being the distillation of a year-long ‘one EP per month’ project by Brooklyn indie chillsters Bishop Allen.  It’s not quite the same, in that I believe there is some new material, but many of these songs can be found on their run of twelve excellent 2006 EPs, which can be bought on their website.

In its laid-back vibe, with a little gentle sadness intermingled, I sometimes think that this is the album I rather hoped Loney, Dear would write.   It’s relaxed, but with a roll-along pace to it which can be almost a little Simon & Garfunkel on occasion. The other thing that I hear every once in a while is the faintest echo of late 80s English shoegaze.  A lot of groups are reviving that particular way with a guitar chord these days, and not all of it is quite so angsty or tense.  Math & Physics Club and The Siddleys use a lot of those tricks but in a much mellower way and, every once in a while, Bishop Allen render them mellower still.

It’s still an album dominated by violin and piano though, this one, with a gentle grounding of acoustic guitar.  Here and there a little plaintive despair creeps into the vocal which adds welcome texture to the overall album.  It may be mellow and suspiciously acceptable for dinner parties, but this is a lovely, rolling record which is one of the few so far this year to be as good as I’d hoped it would.

Bishop Allen – Castanets
Bishop Allen – Corazon

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Bugger me, what fun! How about a podcast! By Me! With mandatory exclamation marks! Lots of them!!

Sorry about this chaps, but in truly characteristic all-or-nothing fashion, instead of getting my miserable arse in gear to record a meagre intro for the splendid Contrast Podcast I have, on my first outing, gone right out and recorded an entire podcast of my own. Bloody typical. I tell you what, if I don’t finally get off my lazy, disorganised and generally fucking useless arse come the next Contrast Podcast time then I deserve to be tarred and feathered, so please hold me to that, I bloody deserve it.

And you’ve got to tell me what you think too, because believe me this is far more personal than blogging – shit, my own actual voice! The shield of a computer screen and four thousand miles’ distance is some insulation believe me, whereas all you lot listening to me talk idiotically to myself in the middle of my own living room, well quite frankly it scares the shit out of me. So let me know – good? bad? indifferent? more? never again? It’s in your hands, people, so make your voices heard.

Fancy a listen? Well click like fiends, Toadlets, like fiends!

Toadcast #1, June 2007

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Here’s the tracklisting:

1. The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic (01.22)
2. Bishop Allen – Like Castanets (07.10)
3. Jet – Lazy Gun (10.21)
4. The Sequins – Patients (17.40)
5. Grandaddy – Broken Household Appliance National Forest (25.53)
6. The Wedding Present – Corduroy (30.25)
7. The Sequins – Nobody Dreams About Me (35.22)
8. The Shaky Hands – Whales Sing (38.30)
9. The Scottish Enlightenment – Eyes (44.02)
10. Sons & Daughters – Johnny Cash (48.55)