Fresh from an appearance on this week’s Toadcast, Donny Hue & the Colours have released one of those easy going records that rattles and rolls along being at once cheerful music for a sunny evening barbecue, and also enjoyably pleasant stuff you could put on in the evening over a glass of wine without depressing everyone or being too strident – mostly. It’s just a perfectly pitched album of contemplative, folksy rock ‘n’ roll that sways gently between the raucously ramshackle and the meanderingly introspective.
It reminds me of a slightly scruffier version of The Shaky Hands on occasion, although here the piano seems to drive the music forward rather than the bass guitar. The imagery is a little odd, almost evoking Elvis Costello’s Couldn’t Call it Unexpected No. 4 in some ways, slightly surreal and magical, and not always especially obvious. The music is equally enigmatic on occasion, with a brief intro and outro, and a couple of pretty long numbers giving the album a similar atmosphere to some of the more meandering Howe Gelb stuff. It seems occasionally to have lost focus for a moment and wandered off, but it always find its way back.
It took me a while to realise how much I liked this, although I couldn’t tell you why. There’s such a warm, welcoming vibe that it should really pull you in immediately, but oddly I am only realising this now. A lovely album – buy one!
Donny Hue & the Colors – Humming With the Flowerbirds
Donny Hue & the Colors – Mountain Piece It takes its time to get going but is eminently worth the wait.
website | myspace | buy the album (Officially released on the 28th August)
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a quite splendid podcast. Not the chat – there’s actually blessed little of that for a change – but the actual music. There may not be the one or two big names I tend to try and slip in to make sure that casual listener more likely to have a listen and thus bring an audience to the smaller bands, but it just didn’t quite happen. I like to do it for myself too, really, but for some reason they just didn’t quite get a look in this week, although I did throw in a rather obscure Pogues track, but it just seemed fine without them.
I really like this one though, and there are some excellent new things to hear, so get stuck in. It’s all quite an acoustic folk-pop sort of atmosphere, so I hope that sort of thing is your bag, but I’ve thrown in a couple of slightly different things, like David Cronenberg’s Wife, Mother & the Addicts and A Hawk & a Hacksaw to make sure it’s not too one-paced. So get stuck in, my little Toadlings, music a-plenty and jolly fine stuff too!
Toadcast #8 – New Things & Englishness[audio http://media.libsyn.com/media/songbytoad/ToadcastNo8.mp3]
1. Donny Hue & the Colours – Humming With the Flowerbirds (01.01)
2. Monkey Swallows the Universe – Jimmy Down the Well (06.19)
3. Emmy the Great – Canopies & Grapes (10.26)
4. Mother & the Addicts – Are Others (14.30)
5. Champion Kickboxer – Perforations (20.42)
6. Jake Flowers & the Carol-Anne Showband – Annabel (26.06)
7. Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Tickle Me Pink (28.07)
8. Mirah & Spectratone International – Supper (34.09)
9. Patti Page – Old Cape Cod (38.01)
10. A Hawk & a Hacksaw – The Way the Wind Blows (41.52)
11. David Cronenberg’s Wife – My Ukrainian Girlfriend (47.20)
12. The Pogues – First Day of Forever (54.08)
13. Iron & Wine – Kingdom of the Animals (57.22)
14. The Ralfe Band – Albatross Waltz (63.23)
15. A Hawk & a Hacksaw – Portlandtown (68.19)
