Hello and welcome back to the Toad Sessions. I was a little drunk when I noticed that Alela Diane was playing in Edinburgh as part of the Triptych Festival, so the idea of emailing her label and inviting her to do a Toad Session didn’t seem quite so preposterous. In the morning, I thought I was mad and would be laughed at, but amazingly they agreed, and now here it is.

This one was also recorded by Nick at Bananarow and he’s done another amazing job – the songs sound absolutely gorgeous. Dylan’s pictures can be found at the Flickr page, and we have some more videos at the Song, by Toad YouTube page. Here’s the interview podcast, with the tracklisting at the bottom of the page.

Toadcast #30 – Alela Diane & Mariee Sioux Toad Session

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Here are the sessions tracks themselves. The Cuckoo is a traditional song, and Dry Grass & the Shadows is from Alela’s new album which should hopefully be out later this year. Mariee’s songs are Flowers & Blood from her recent album Faces in the Rocks, whereas the gorgeous Icarus Eye is an old song from a home release.

Alela Diane – Dry Grass & the Shadows

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Alela Diane – The Cuckoo

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Mariee Sioux – The Icarus Eye

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Mariee Sioux – Flowers & Blood

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Here are the videos, all hosted at the YouTube page. Again, the interview is going to have to go up later because I seem to have entirely lost Morgan, my resident editing expert, so I’ve had to cobble these things together myself. I am going to work on the interview movies as best I can, so they should hopefully be available in a week or two.

01. Alela Diane – Dry Grass & the Shadows (Toad Session) (04.51)
02. The Shaky Hands – Summer’s Life (08.36)
03. Johnny Cash – I See a Darkness (11.45)
04. The Holy Modal Rounders – Hesitation Blues (20.42)
05. Neutral Milk Hotel – The Communist’s Daughter (24.10)
06. Mariee Sioux – Flowers & Blood (Toad Session) (26.07)
07. Hem – Half Acre (32.29)
08. Bonnie Prince Billy – No Bad News (41.41)
09. Willard Grant Conspiracy – Twistification (46.05)
10. Vashti Bunyan – Glow Worms (53.35)
11. Mariee Sioux – The Icarus Eye (Toad Session) (58.10)
12. Alela Diane – The Cuckoo (Toad Session) (62.56)

Well I hope you like these. The next session is going to be with local band Meursault, and will be the first one to be recorded in Toad Hall. Very exciting!

When not bickering about the solipsism (no, I had to look it up too) of the American people and comparing Diana to Osama Bin Laden, Campfires and Battlefields and DC can agree on one thing: Mariee Sioux is absolutely bloody gorgeous. This was a joint recommendation before Christmas and it’s only now I am able to catch up and write my reviews.

In a similar vein to the truly inspired Alela Diane, this leans more towards hippy folky loveliness, complete with wizards and magic and all the rest of it. I can’t imagine being able to have a conversation with someone like Miss Sioux without deeply outraging her more or less once a sentence, but that’s an entirely unfounded impression and musically at least, she scratches my back most wonderfully.

It is certainly all a bit on the magic and fairies side for me in many ways, with blissful flute quite prevalent, but her voice dances tantalisingly between the airyness and pathos in a way that is truly arresting. The songs themselves roll in a way that reminds me of a lot of the hippy stuff in the 60s that drew a lot of inspiration from an imagined Middle Ages, and the imagery of the songs complements this approach. Bows and arrows and sunlit glades abound, as do magical creatures of all sorts.

In that sense it does its best to put me off actually, because that sort of stuff really can get on my tits a bit, but not here. There’s something in the emotive undercurrents of her voice coupled to the fact that the music is never indulgently intricate, in that way that music of this style can be on occasion, that means this is an album that I can make that little stretch and really enjoy.

Mariee Sioux – Wizard Flurry Home
Mariee Sioux – Buried in Teeth

myspace | hype | buy