Video: Vimeo – YouTube
Photos: Flickr
Audio: zip download: right-click, save as

This session was recorded in Glasgow before Josh’s performance at Oran Mor on 22nd November last year.  The first attempt to record a session with him was at Stereo, but recording in a venue really didn’t work out, so this time we decided to take up the kind offer of Phil from PAWS to record it in his bedroom instead.

Again we were a little pressed for time, because Josh had a marathon day, recording a session with the BBC and conducting an interview before doing our session, and then having the gig to play afterwards.  So we only recorded three songs, and for simplicity’s sake we did the interview in one chunk and I have just chopped bits of it into the podcast where appropriate.

Given the incredibly punishing schedule he tends to have I really do appreciate Josh taking the time to re-record this session, as well as the infallibly good humour and cooperative nature showed by both himself and Peter and Tom, his management team.  It may have been tight to get done, but this is a really, really nice session if you ask me.

As usual, the videos can all be found on our Vimeo and YouTube pages and the photos, which were jointly taken by Stephanie Gibson and Dylan Matthews, are collected on our Flickr page.  The session mp3s can be downloaded below, or in a zip file here, the session podcast can be played or downloaded below too, and the tracklisting for the podcast can be found at the bottom of the page.

Direct download: Toadcast #211 – Josh T. Pearson Toad Session

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Josh T. Pearson – Woman When I’ve Raised Hell (Toad Session)

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Josh T. Pearson – Country Dumb (Toad Session)

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Josh T. Pearson – Covers Medley (Toad Session)

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01. Josh T. Pearson – Woman When I’ve Raised Hell (Toad Session) (02.54)
02. Lift to Experience – To Guard and to Guide You (12.30)
03. Perfume Genius – All Waters (19.06)
04. Josh T. Pearson – Country Dumb (Toad Session) (25.26)
05. The Dirty Three – Some Summers They Drop Like Flys (31.43)
06. Papa M – The Lass of Roch Royal (38.17)
07. Judy Collins – Wild Mountain Thyme (53.03)
08. Howe Gelb – Can’t Help Falling in Love (55.37)
09. Josh T. Pearson – Covers Medley (Toad Session) (61.54)

I found this absolute gem on relatively new (and also Edinburgh-based – huzzah!) blog Spins & Needles, and I think it’s fucking brilliant. I’m not going to lie and say that this will appeal to everyone, but if any of you revel in the beauty of misery and pessimism taken to an almost amusingly unshackled pinnacle, then you will love this. To the unflinching growl of Glaswegian poet Gerry Mitchell is added macabre folk music with just a touch of the wrath of God about it, and the results are phenomenal.

It’s spoken word too, for the most part, but fear not – this is what spoken word is for. The sheer relish with which Mitchell unleashes his misery on us is completely captivating, and the rich rumble of his voice would almost be ruined by attempts to hit any kind of tune. The magic of his performance is in the way he drips his words out one at a time with a kind of love for each syllable and combination. There’s something utterly Scottish about this, but unless you’ve spent time sharing whiskey with a pickled Scots depressive in an empty pub as the rain absolutely batters down outside, then I doubt I could explain it properly.

Musically, the album is much the same. It’s all slow-moving and painfully lovely strings, played with a love-lorn scrape that I only really think I have ever heard Warren Ellis match. It’s not surprising then that I am reminded of Nick Cave’s gorgeous song Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum, done with The Dirty Three fittingly enough, which could almost be the sonic template for this entire album.

There’s a brand of Scottish miserablism that is in some ways so utterly over the top that there is an element of self-parody in it. A kind of pessimism that so relishes its own deplorable view of the world that it is actually almost a pleasure to indulge. And somehow this kind of album seems cut from just that cloth: so downbeat, so demoralised, so bleak that there is an oddly uplifting quality about it. They’re an odd bunch the Scots – there’s a kind of gloriousness to their gloominess at times.

Gerry Mitchell & Little Sparta – Widow Dressing
Gerry Mitchell & Little Sparta – The Ragged Garden of Your Eye
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum (with The Dirty Three)

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