Those of you who listened to Toadcast #180 – The Corsicast (which is all of you, right? right?) will have already been introduced to the rather excellent Mavis the Dog.  This is their second album and can be downloaded for free from the band’s website here.

Given what I am listening to at the moment would you be at all surprised to hear that this is really lo-fi?  Grumbly, buried vocals and plenty of fuzz on the instrumentation – pretty much classic Happy Toad at the moment.

Instead of being angry garage rock, though, this is rattly, saucy barroom pop by turns dreamy and jaunty, but always bright and enjoyable.

There are times when they almost sound like The Beatles being played on a damaged cassette player in the next room.  And then there are times when they sound like a perfect pop song slowly unravelling into a dissipating cloud of found sounds, accidental noises and abstraction.  There’s piano pop, moments of bluesy guitar, and the odd drifting meander through mumbled monologues – it’s a varied and engaging stumble through pop’s least polished digressions.

Due to the fuzzy, distracted nature of the production there are times when songs don’t quite break through, and when the general pace of the sequencing can allow your attention to just get away a little.  I am not sure what I would recommend here, perhaps just shifting the pace a little, and adding a little more urgency here and there, maybe just lift the blanket of fog on the production here and there, or something like that.  I am not sure what it is, or what I reckon I personally would change, but there’s a feeling at times of an album in need of just a little lifting here and there.

That doesn’t stop me enjoying the record, though. It just has plenty of charm, and a kind of insouciance I find really compelling.

Mavis the Dog – End of Our Day

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Mavis the Dog – Kelly’s Favourite

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This podcast was recorded – not a word of a lie – on a deserted mountaintop in Corsica in the shadow of a ruined castle.  Not an especially enormous ruined castle, I’ll grant you, but the shadow of a ruined castle nevertheless.

I will try and show you this as clearly as possible when I choose the picture for the mp3 tag and all that stuff, but I honestly doubt it will be all that easy.  Vast panoramas of rocky mountains don’t really come across all that well in photos, particularly when the only device you have with you with which to take them is an iPhone.

Anyhow, having recorded this, the challenge is going to be to find somewhere to upload the fucker.  Bank machines and shops which let you pay by card are pretty scarce commodities in the interior of the island, never mind a decent internet connection.

Direct download: Toadcast #180 – The Corsicast

01. Kate & Anna McGarrigle – Come a Long Way (00.09)
02. Yusuf Azak – Lay Me Down (05.36)
03. The Black Tambourines – Better Off Dead (09.54)
04. Fog – 10th Avenue Freakout (18.42)
05. Six Organs of Admittance – Saint Cloud (23.19)
06. Adam Stafford – Fire & Theft (33.20)
07. Neil Young – Old Man (Live at Massey Hall 1971) (38.45)
08. Girls Names – I Lose (46.53)
09. Mavis the Dog – End of Our Day (50.55)
10. Jenny Reeve & Jill O’Sullivan – Tooth & Claw (56.59)