Well blimey Charlie, for something that sounds like it was recorded on an old tape deck, under the bed in the dead of night, so the parents weren’t alerted, this really is very, very good.

It really wrong-footed me as well, in terms of the expectations I didn’t realise I had for the band and their next release.  The last time I saw these guys play was actually at an Ides of Toad gig at the Electric Circus last August, and they had a couple of strings players, a three-piece brass section and a big, rounded glossy pop sound.

I was also kind of surprised to see this release on Peenko Records, given that Mr. Peenko already has another independent label to be getting on with, namely Olive Grove.  And I was incredibly surprised to hear such a lo-fi, informal-sounding album.

Apparently this is more of a home-recording project by Adam, the band’s frontman, with relatively infrequent appearances by the rest of the band.  A couple of the songs are even the barest of bare-bones session recordings made for our local university radio station Fresh Air.

There are bigger, glossier releases on the way, but having heard this I don’t know if this style doesn’t suit their music better. It’s entirely possible I’ll change my mind when I hear the full band stuff, but for now I find this kind of unpolished approach, although it’ll presumably never make them famous, feels entirely consonant with the peculiar charm of the songs.

Adam Ross may be just about my favourite lyricist in Scotland in the moment, with a knack for staying exactly the right side of the line which divides witty from novelty.  He also has a habit of slipping suddenly from the cheekily amusing (going as far as to occasionally prompt the ‘he didn’t just sing that did he?’ reaction) to the touchingly poignant.  It doesn’t happen all that often, but the change of gear is such that the impact of those moments of pathos is greatly enhanced.

All in all, though, the impression left is of a person, not a band.  I have no idea how much Ross sings in persona but the picture painted is of someone with a sharp, mischievous sense of humour and yet also prone to moments of vulnerability.  The album feels, as such, unguarded and honest, but instead of taking that as an excuse to wallow, as most do in such situations, this is playful and amusing without ever feeling frivolous or silly.  I don’t know what their more polished releases are going to be like, but they’ll struggle to match this for emotional accessibility, for hummability rising above its lo-fi aesthetic, and just for sheer likability.

Randolph’s Leap – I Can’t Dance to This Music Anymore

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Randolph’s Leap – Bile

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 Assuming you are all boycotting Valentine’s Day which, let’s face it, you really should, we finally enter a week in Edinburgh where there are plenty of options for Superior Fun, after a longer than usual hangover from the Christmas period this year.

Limbo is back on Friday too, which is good news.  It’s not really my kind of lineup I must confess, but Limbo gigs are always good ones, so check it out here.

It’s also quite a Toady week as well, which is nice.  We have our first house gig of the year on Wednesday, which I am hugely looking forward to.  And then on Saturday the Ides of Toad return to Henry’s Cellar Bar, and Song, by Toad Records hero Rob St. John is also playing at the Banshee Labyrinth.

It’s an unfortunate clash, but both promises were made a long time ago, so there was nothing to be done about it, you’re just going to have to gird your loins and pick a favourite.

Tuesday 14th Feb: Akke Phallus Duo, Cat Hawed & Scrim at the Canon’s Gait.

The consistently excellent Powan Presents have a night of noise, found sounds and collage at the Canon’s Gait on Tuesday (forgive me if I get my genres wrong, I am not exactly an expert on this kind of music) and I guarantee you it will be better than awkwardly sitting in an ironed shirt at some restaurant which you don’t really like but is expensive enough to look like you made an effort while your other half wishes you could skip all the tedious small talk and just get to the shagging already.

Bacchus Frolicking In The Snow excerpt by Akke Phallus Duo

Wednesday 15th Feb: Randolph’s Leap & Molly Nilsson Song, by Toad House Gig.

Doubling as the album launch for Randolph’s Leap’s new release Randolph’s Leap and the Curse of the Haunted Headphones, this gig also sees Swedish Molly Nilsson popping up to play, after I was introduced to her music by some friends in Manchester. Please try and buy tickets in advance if you can (from here) because our house isn’t all that big and a bit of advance planning is a big help.

Randolph’s Leap – I Can’t Dance to This Music Anymore

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Friday 17th Feb: Ian Nagoski and The Family Elan at the The Pleasance Cabaret Bar.

This looks like being a very Eastern European/Levante flavoured psyche-folk event, with strong links archiving and field recording work.  Nagoski will be discussing as well as playing stuff from his new release To What Strange Place.

Saturday 18th Feb: The Ides of Toad present Chris Devotion and the Expectations, My Tiny Robots & Morris Major at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

Chris Devotion and the Expectations are launching their new album at Henry’s at the first Ides of Toad show for 2012.  They will be supported by Edinburgh’s My Tiny Robots and Edinburgh-via-Manchester band Morris Major. It’s all very indie, this lineup, with plenty of catchy guitars and eminently hummable choruses and should be great fun.

Chris Devotion & the Expectations – Tell the Girl

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Saturday 18th Feb: Rob St. John, Hiva Oa & Cheer at the Banshee Labyrinth.

Song, by Toad Records’ own Rob St. John returns to town to play what I believe is going to be a rather heavy, droney set at the excellent Banshee Labyrinth, accompanied by visuals, I think. Support comes from promising local band Hiva Oa, and Cheer, about whom I have to confess to knowing almost nothing.

Rob St. John – Sargasso Sea

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 Yes, this coming Wednesday, the fifteenth of February!!!  Get it in yer diaries! This is going to be the Edinburgh launch for Randolph’s Leap’s rather excellent new album Randolph’s Leap and the Curse of the Haunted Headphones.

It’s a brilliant album of lo-fi charm, moving effortlessly from humour to pathos, and will be available on Peenko Records on a limited run of 30 tapes.  Well, 29 as far as you’re concerned, because I will be having one.

Also on the bill will be Molly Nilsson, who is pals with friends of ours from Manchester and touring the UK at the moment.  She too is a little eccentric, but completely compelling, and I reckon this could be one of our best house gigs yet.

In other news, Brian, El and myself are back on Fresh Air Radio from half past three this afternoon. It will be your usual pre-pub Friday Five show, and I might even sneak on some naughty previews of Song, by Toad Records’ upcoming releases too, just because I am too excited to keep them to myself, but don’t want them out there in a format people can rip and pass around.

On air from 3:30pm UK time – listen live here.

Now, as to the Friday Fives themselves, here are your five stupid questions for this evening:

1. Given every venue in Edinburgh seems to be closing, where should we host gigs in future.
2. Where is the oddest place you’ve been to a gig so far?
3. If you had to name a venue, what would you call it?
4. Who doesn’t seem to be touring, but you would really like to see?
5. What are you looking forward to in your immediate gig-going future?

And in terms of the Song, by Toad House Gig, tickets are a mere £5, all of which goes straight to the artists, and can be purchased by clicking on the link below:

Randolph’s Leap – I Can’t Dance to This Music Anymore

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Playlist for the Fresh Air Funtimes…:
01. Molly Nilsson – A Song They Won’t Be Playing on the Radio
02. Randolph’s Leap – Bile
03. Sex Hands – Chandler in a Box
04. Dolfinz – Jennifer Finch
05. Police Teeth – I Made Out With You Before You Were Cool
06. Crocodiles – Stoned to Death
07. Wanda Jackson – Funnel of Love
08. Chris Devotion & the Expectations – Tell the Girls
09. Morris Major – In Amongst My Ideas
10. Warm Ghost – Open the Wormhole in Your Heart
11. LeThug – 3rd Lanark
12. R.M. Hubbert – Sunbeam Melts the Hour
13. Memory Tapes – Bicycle (Little Loud Remix)
14. PAWS – Chair
15. Waiters – Brisk

Ah, Tartan Shortbread, that most wonderful of sardonic Scottish put-downs.

For those unfamiliar with the term, this is the offhand dismissal used to describe the sort of mawkish, clichéd tourist tat which masquerades as Scottish heritage and culture for those with woefully little imagination.  Alternatively, I suppose you could say that Tartan Shortbread is a blanket term for Scottish heritage as a sort of motorway service station take on national identity.

Anyhow, given I work very much at the coalface of the DIY music world in Scotland, I find that I have been oddly unsupportive of a large number of Scottish bands who have emerged in the last couple of years to considerable enthusiasm from the Scottish music press, both professional and amateur.

For some reason, the recent bands who have shown some likelihood of cracking an audience wider than the relatively narrow confines of the five million or so people in Scotland itself just haven’t appealed to me, with a few notable exceptions.  However, sitting down to assemble the playlist for this week I noticed that there were something like seven of the ten songs which happened to be by Scottish bands.  Oh, I thought to myself, I appear to be Scottish again.  How nice.

Direct download: Toadcast #212 – The Tartan Shortcast

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01. Django Django – Default (00.17)
02. Andrew Bird – Eyeoneye (08.41)
03. Lower Dens – Brains (12.47)
04. Randolph’s Leap – Bile (26.17)
05. Clean George IV – XP Avenue (32.51)
06. Dumb Instrument – Reverse the Hearse (35.57)
07. The Occasional Flickers – When the Sky Looks so Grey (41.11)
08. R.M. Hubbert – Sunbeam Melt the Hour (with Marion Kenny & Hanna Tuulikki) (50.20)
09. The Twilight Sad – Don’t Move (55.49)
10. Brown Brogues – Anyone But You (62.04)

 There will be a bit of a change to the format of the Friday Fives for the next few weeks, as I combine it with my radio show on Fresh Air, which is the student radio station here in Edinburgh.

I will be joined by Brian Pokora, who plays guitar for The Last Battle, Loch Awe and Trapped Mice (and probably three or four others), and was selected for this role by virtue of having been stood next to me in the pub when I decided that Friday afternoons would be the best time for the show.

To reduce the middle-class white boy/tedious blokey pub banter factor just a little we are looking for someone else to join the team.  Specifically, someone who is not a nice, polite middle-class white boy. You’d need to be available from 3-5pm on Fridays, and have a rough, but please not exact, agreement with the kind of music we are likely to play.  Get in touch if you’re interested.

Live from 3:30pm – listen here.

As for the rest of the Friday Fives, well they will hopefully proceed very much as per usual I would think.  Five stupid questions, an afternoon to waste by answering them and then talking pish with everyone afterwards, and only one rule: fives first, pish-talking after.

So, for starters, this week’s Friday Five:
1. Which muppet best represents you (Fraggles and Sesame Street ones count too – Yoda does not).
2. What one thing best represents the really early days of the internet to you?
3. Technology you could happily do without.
4. Do you cross the road at the lights or absolutely wherever the fuck it occurs to you?
5. Say you were in a coffee shop trying to get some work done.  Say a sprawling infestations of yummy mummies and copious living evidence of their inability to keep their legs clamped shut came spilling into the place and proceeded to turn the whole fucking cafe into a writhing, squealing, cavorting cacophony of horror.  How many of the little fuckers do you think you could cheerfully batter to death with a fucking cricket bat before it stopped being fun?
Sneaky bonus research question: did Song, by Toad or Fresh Air bring you to these parts?

The playlist will appear live below from 3:30pm:

1. Bon Iver – Bloodbank
2. Rob St. John – Sargasso Sea
3. Tom Lehrer – Bright College Days
4. Randolph’s Leap – Cassie O’Tone (Fresh Air Session)
5. Cub Scouts – Evie
6. eagleowl – Sleep the Winter
7. Bob Seger System – 2+2=?
8. PAWS – Winners Don’t Bleed (Toad Session)
9. The Ukrainians – Polityka
10. The Moth & the Mirror – Fire
11. Evan Dando – $1000 Wedding (Gram Parsons Cover)
12. Yoofs – Sidewalk
13. We Were Promised Jetpacks – Medicine

 Yoo hoo internets, I’m ba-aack!  With a friend visiting, and in no mood to waste his holiday watching me fanny about on the computer, I ended up taking an unplanned day off yesterday.  We even did one of those tourist things which it is so easy to ignore when you actually live in a city: we climbed Arthur’s Seat.  And it was bloody amazing!

So what, after a weekend of endurance drinking, does this week hold in store? Well, the general idea was ‘as much sleep as I can manage’, but it looks like this might turn out to be something of a challenge, as we have a pretty busy gigging week ahead of us here in Edinburgh, from the looks of it.

Wednesday 17th August 2011: The Pineapple Chunks‘ album launch at the Electric Circus, with Dolfinz, and Mutch & Thomas.

This is the first of our four Toad at the Circus gigs, which we’re putting on in association with the Electric Circus over the next couple of weeks.  It also happens to be the launch of the Pineapple Chunks’ excellent new album A Dog Walked In (which can be previewed and purchased on their Bandcamp page).  Joining them on the bill will be lo-fi slacker indie outfit Dolfinz from Stonehaven, and a new project by Dan Mutch and Alun Thomas from The Leg.  It will be wonky and messy, this, but I think it’ll be fucking brilliant as well.

Dolfinz – Hot Pants

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Wednesday 18th August 2011: The Cave Singers at Cabaret Voltaire.

The second Cave Singers album underwhelmed me slightly, but their first was brilliant and they’re a cracking live band.  Their stomping Gothic Americana comes out really powerfully in a live setting, and I’d be intrigued to hear how well the ballads, which were the strongest songs on their second record in my opinion, come across live.

The Cave Singers – Beach House

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Thursday 18th & Friday 19th August: Kristin Hersh at Cabaret Voltaire.

Do I really need to explain much about the legendary Kristin Hersh?  If the answer is yes, then go and look up the Throwing Muses, and have a look around her own website.  As well as musically, I have a lot of respect for Kristin Hersh for other reasons as well.  When the digital panic reached its most shrill she was one of the first to start genuinely looking for new solutions, instead of simply trying to pretend that technological progress should be forbidden from happening.

Friday 19th August 2011: Randolph’s Leap, Amber Wilson, and Matthew Healy at the Electric Circus.

This is our second Toad at the Circus night, and instead of ramshackle and potentially (hopefully) rather awkward guitars, this lineup  is more of the folk-pop variety comprised of the quirky sentimentality of Randolph’s Leap, Amber Wilson’s first full band show in Edinburgh (I think) and a solo outing by Matthew Healy from Loch Awe.

Randolph’s Leap – Going Home

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Friday 19th August 2011: Chad VanGaalen, Jesus H. Foxx, and Tom Gilbert at Sneaky Pete’s.

More evidence, to follow up the point made by Bart in the comment on last week’s listings, that Sneaky Pete’s have a consistently excellent lineup throughout August.  Nice to see the Foxx back out and about as well.

Chad VanGaalen – City of Electric Light

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Saturday 20th August 2011: Conquering Animal Sound, and Hiva Oa at Sneaky Pete’s.

I’ll be honest, Hiva Oa and Conquering Animal Sound don’t sound like the most obvious combination on which to base a lineup, but CAS’s debut album is one of the most critically successful* to come out of Scotland in a good while, and if you haven’t seen their looping, emotive live set yet, then you should.

*I say ‘critically’ because I have no idea what the actual sales figures are like of course.

I don’t really need to add anything to the following, do I?  Apart from a big thanks to the Electric Circus for suggesting I put these nights on, thanks to all the bands for agreeing to play and umm… well, I hope to fuck you all turn up, eh!

This is the post-Homegame, ‘dear Jesus please just let me sleep for a week, good god someone please fetch me a green vegetable’ podcast.

I can just about keep my head together enough to get through this, but then I have the Monday listings to write and the bloody Francois/This is the Kit/Babe gig to organise tonight as well.  Aargh!

I also have all sorts of other things to do this week, but after the sort of mind-boggling battering your mind and your liver get at Homegame I am not sure I can face any of it.  I am going back to sleep, wake me up in June.

Direct download: Toadcast #173 – The Brokencast

01. FOUND – I’ll Wake With a Seismic Head No More (00.34)
02. Randolph’s Leap – Counting Sheep (7:57)
03. Josh T. Pearson – Country Dumb (Piano Version) (13.57)
04. The Singleman Affair – If I Only Fell in Love When I Was Young (21.16)
05. eagleowl – Into the Fold (Toad Session) (29.00)
06. The Last Battle – Ruins (35.07)
07. King Creosote & the Earlies – Bats in the Attic (Live on 6Music with Mark Riley) (40.23)
08. Sweet Baboo – Girl Under a Tree (45.37)
09. David Thomas Broughton – Ain’t Got No Sole (54.57)

I have mentioned often enough on this site how much I like EPs, not least for their lack of what I suppose Americans might call a Seventh Inning Stretch – that weary feeling you get about two thirds to three quarters of the way through an album, where your attention starts to wane and you wander off to make a cup of tea.

Anyhow, I have a lot of them in my inbox at the moment, all good for varying reasons, but it seems like I would be excessive to write a separate post for each, so figured I would condense four of my favourites down into a single post for your efficient musical enjoyment, in alphabetical order by band name:

Cheapskate – Knock Knock Knock

This is actually a free download from the Cheapskate website, which appears to be down at the moment, but is also available from last.fm in the meantime.  I first found out about this band from Cloud Sounds, and it’s not the kind of music to shock you or make you sit up straight immediately you hear it, but it’s odd, and oddly compelling.

There are times when it sounds like music from children’s TV, times when it sounds like a peculiar advertising jingle, and times when it’s just sinister enough you might be worried about your teenage daughter listening to it.

In fact, this probably comes across a lot like a MySpace groomer, except in musical form: superficially friendly and oh so innocent, but with something oddly out of place and not quite right, but never so strange as to let you put your finger on it entirely.

Cheapskate – Get Up Early

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My Tiny Robots – Rock Bossa Nova EP

This EP is short and sweet, checking in at a mere four songs, with the first one swerving shy of the two-minute mark.

Stylistically it’s an interesting mish-mash.  The first track has rather surprising hints of Maximo Park, of all things, but the rest of the EP tends to embrace seventies alt-pop sung in a voice which sits halfway between new wave and a barroom croon.

It sounds sort of cocky at times, I think, with the guitar played with a stylish swagger and the rhythms feeling kind of suggestive, although not in a way that is too obvious.  Good stuff though, and given these guys seemed to be in danger of petering out until quite recently, it’s good to see ‘em back in the game, and back so strongly as well.

The My Tiny Robots site is here, and you can buy Rock Bossa Nova here – the physical copy of the CD really is gorgeous though, so I recommend pestering them about that, rather than settling for mere downloads.

My Tiny Robots – Rock Bossa Nova Fourbeat Black

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Randolph’s Leap – Battleships and Kettlechips

When will bloggers learn not to go starting record labels?  It’s a natural extension of the instinct to spend all your time writing about your favourite music though I guess, so it should be no surprise really, particularly in the age of the internet where there actually is an audience out there to be reached now that the traditional gatekeepers are floundering about like buffoons in search of their lost customers.

Step forward Olive Grove Records, and debut release, Battleships and Kettlechips by Randolph’s Leap. Randolph’s Leap are clever and sensitive, with a tongue in cheek way with their lyrics, and the ability to combine the sincere with the amusing which few manage this well.

I hate words like quirky, but it’s hard to avoid with bands like this.  Not that there’s anything zany or madcap about them, more that there are plenty of moments on this EP where I find myself looking up and actually cocking an eyebrow at the speakers, wondering quite how these guys see the world.  They seem like the kind of lunatics who are absolutely convinced that they are sane, and who tolerate the rest of the world’s eccentricities with a genial sympathy.

Randolph’s Leap – As I Lie in the Mud

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Willy Mason – So Long Baby Shoes

There was a time Willy Mason seemed oh so very close to becoming one of my favourite artists.  That he didn’t quite owes an unreasonable amount to a disappointing show at the Liquid Rooms about four years ago, where the full band he played with rather smothered the loveliness of his songs, making it all sound less remarkable than it actually is.

Shame on me, I actually stopped really paying attention with anything like the same enthusiasm after that.  I suppose it doesn’t help that he seemed to drift back from the verge of a major, permanent breakthrough to the vastly different world of self-release, meaning his new stuff wasn’t as enthusiastically forced on me as it might have been.

This is bloody gorgeous though.  The arrangements are really simple, leaving the emphasis on his lovely, lovely voice, and gentle, tender lyrics.  It’s sufficiently lovely that I feel like a right disloyal bastard for letting his music drift out of my life for the last couple of years.

The website of his UK fanclub is here, and you can buy So Long Baby Shoes from CDBaby here.

Willy Mason – I Wish I Knew How to Say Goodbye

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It’s not going to surprise anyone at all that I am being an absolute slob today, is it?  Mrs. Toad got back from Australia around lunchtime, and after a few hours of pottering about she crashed out with jetlag, so I snuck off to record the podcast.  I am sure that soon enough she will wake and start demanding attention and general servitude soon enough, so I better get this over with quickly.

After that I am going straight back to bed to watch stupid films while my sweetheart dozes by my side, awaking occasionally to tell me off for not being comfortable enough, or to send me to fetch her things, or to just swear at me for taking all the covers or some other such sweet nothings of the kind she is wont to come out with from time to time.

Direct download: Toadcast #148 – The Slobcast

01. Elvis Perkins in Dearland – Shampoo (00.21)
02. Elvis Costello – Couldn’t Call it Unexpected No.4 (06.24)
03. Billie Holiday – Good Morning Heartache (13.17)
04. Smog – In the Pines (16.22)
05. My Tiny Robots – Ballad of the Mapmaker’s Daughter (23.17)
06. Randolph’s Leap – Going Home (32.19)
07. The Japanese War Effort – Face Like a Lemon (Ivor Cutler cover, live on Fresh Air Radio) (36.50)
08. Grass House – Lazy Bones (43.01)
09. Bob Dylan – I’ll Keep it With Mine (49.23)
10. Bettye Swann – Don’t Look Back (54.47)