Well this podcast has been recorded from my sick bed, given my current immobility. Actually, recording the Toadcast from bed was quite pleasant, once I got over the slightly unusual surroundings. Imagine me in my pants and scratching my balls whilst talking to you and you’ll pretty much have the ambience down pat.
I sort of intended this to be a selection of poppy little tunes from my inbox, because all the last podcasts have been so heavily themed, but instead it’s ended up a little bit on the experimental side, through no real intent of my own. Nevertheless, if you’re happy to listen to the growl of Polvo, the monologues of George Pringle and the peculiar electro-experimentalism of Mark Linkous and Fennesz all in one podcast then, fuck it, you’re in the right place.
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01. Langhorne Slim – I Love You But Goodbye (03.11)
02. Cast Spells – Glamorous Glowing (07.39)
03. The Pineapple Chunks – Art Storage (13.02)
04. The Leg – A Rat’s Health (17.04)
05. Polvo – Fractured (Like Chandeliers) (22.40)
06. Vandaveer – A Might Leviathan of Old (29.22)
07. Sparklehorse & Fennesz – If My Heart (from In the Fishtank #13) (40.13)
08. George Pringle – SW10 (45.03)
09. X Lion Tamer – Tugboat (52.40)
10. Kurt Vile – Blackberry Song (59.54)
Another day another slightly idiosyncratic voice catching the ear here at Toad Hall (Toad Hall being a slightly misleading way of referring to my desk here at Proper Job, where I listen to tunes on my headphones whilst doing other things). Cast Spells have produced a very nice, uncluttered EP containing six songs, none of which exceeds three minutes in length. In fact, only a couple even get all that close.
It’s slightly misleading, in a sense, in that it starts with the splendid and insistently catchy pop song Glamorous Glowing, before settling down to a more low key level for the rest of the record. It has a very laid back vibe in general, actually, and one which meant it took a little bit of getting into. That’s the huge problem with starting a record with ‘the catchy one’: I find it can really wrong-foot me when listening to the rest of it. In this case, every time I’ve played this I’ve found it a bit of a sudden shift after that first track, and it has taken a lot of listens to get to the stage where I understand Glamorous Glowing as the exception in an EP of relatively subtle songs.
In general, I think, the songs which best describe the mood of Bright Works and Baton would be the gently shuffling likes of War Story Hellos or Potted Plant, although it ends on the really satisfying downer of A Badge. All in all this makes for a nice introduction to a band who I think have a lot of potential, and should be worth watching out for in future. They may want to be careful to keep the pace varied through their albums – American Quilts can feel a little sluggish, to be honest – but for the most part this is very good.
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