This album sounds a bit like the lonely song of a lost fairground attraction, mournfully singing a sad lament and starting to lose hope that the waltzer or the big dipper will hear it and reply, thus allowing it to navigate its way home.

It’s a bit much to handle, all the way through, and I will confess that facing the whole record at once can be a bit… well, a bit wearing I suppose.  It’s not loud or strident or all that weird exactly, but the whole thing can be a bit aggressive nonetheless, and one from which there is little respite over the album’s three-quarter hour run time.

Nevertheless, a lot of the time that very characteristic is what makes The Great Valley great. Because for all I’ve said so far, this is very much still a pop record, just one so wonky you could be forgiven for thinking that the wheels are going to come off any second.  When it’s at its best the sheer macabre, lurching drunkeness of it is as thrilling as it is unsettling.  Occasionally, to be fair, it feels more like just a cacophony, but those moments are rare.

It’s a bit like you’re having a great day, but just out of your peripheral vision there is someone trying to poke you with sticks, and every once in a while they succeed.  I don’t even know if that’s the good part or the bad part, no matter how comfortable you get with this album there always seems to be something elusive trying to poke you in the ear with a pointed stick; when it lands a jab it’s really annoying, but sometimes you’re not even sure it’s there at all.

You can buy this from the band’s Bandcamp page or, if you prefer vinyl, which you should, from their label The Spooky Town – also responsible for releasing the brilliant Look Into, Look Unto vinyl EP by Manners, so the label as a whole is well worth a look.

I know I have done a pretty poor job of describing this album, and I apologise for that (to the band as much as anyone else).  I am really enjoying it, and there are some great songs here, but it’s the kind of record that just won’t let me get comfortable with it, quite possibly entirely on purpose.

The Great Valley – Be Afraid

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The Great Valley – Tall Smoke

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Bandcamp (buy the album digitally here) | More mp3s | Buy on 12″ vinyl from The Spooky Town

Yes indeed, I am back on Fresh Air tonight, once again sans Ruth, but she will be back next week apparently, which is good news.

For today, however, you are stuck with me sitting in a room by myself blethering away about nothing at all, which is pretty much par for the course, but I promise that as of next week that blethering will be interspersed with liberal helpings of Ruth telling me that my music taste is fucking shit.  We’re a cute little double act like that.

Live on air from 8pm UK time – listen live here.

As per usual I will be updating the playlist live below as we go along, so feel free to chip in in the comments and let me know how incredible (no really, incredible, no matter what you think) the playlist and chat just happen to be this week.  Anyone mentions the word shit and they’re getting punched.  Through the internet.  Punched through the internet.  Oh dear.

01. Li’l Daggers – King Corpze
02. Lift to Experience – To Guard and to Guide
03. Josh T. Pearson – Sorry for the Song
04. Bob Dylan – Girl From the North Country (Witmark Demos)
05. Edinburgh School for the Deaf – 11 Kinds of Loneliness
06. Ringo Deathstarr – Imagine Hearts
07. Earth Girl Helen Brown – I Wanna Do It
08. Rob St. John – Phantom Limb
09. Warm Ghost – Claws Overhead
10.  The Great Valley – Tall Smoke
11.  Eels on Heels – G
12. Range Rover – Mind
13. Taxrat – Burn Down Slow
14. Tom Waits – All the World is Green

I think I have figured out why Fence Records hate the internet.  Or at least, I feel like I am starting to get some insight into what is an intensely troubled relationship.  The two of them just don’t get along at all, and the mutual antipathy has boiled over into outright hostility this afternoon, with the rush to buy Homegame tickets from the Fence website actually breaking the whole internet.

So while I wait for normal service to be resumed, and with it the opportunity to buy tickets for Homegame this year, I thought I might record a podcast.  Or at least, so I thought.  But it turned out the Facebook chat about the interminable (three hour) wait was too entertaining, and the paralysing fear of the site suddenly coming back online and me missing out on tickets was too much.

So I faffed about, went out and got pissed, and ended up recording this after our gig tonight, sorry.

Direct download: Toadcast #158 – The Refreshcast

01. Edinburgh School for the Deaf – Love is Terminal (00.17)
02. Black Tambourine – Throw Aggi off the Bridge (07.34)
03. The Great Valley – Tall Smoke (11.53)
04. Hezekiah Jones – I Love My Family (Album Version) (20.47)
05. Lift to Experience – These are the Days (29.14)
06. Titus Andronicus – Fear & Loathing in Mahwah, NJ (33.09)
07. Byrds of Paradise – Touch Tunnel (42.54)
08. Eels on Heels – G (48.59)
09. Balkans – Edita V (52.40)
10. The Caulfield Sisters – I See Your Face (59.37)

There is a large part of me which looks at the nature of the Whitehaus Family Project and wonders why the Whitehaus Family Record isn’t complete shit.  It’s not though, it’s bloody brilliant.

The Whitehaus is an actual house in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts in the States which seems to be inhabited by a shifting cast of artists, musicians and almost any other creative type – between about eight and eighteen of them at any one time, apparently. The house itself is used as studio, performance space, recording studio and all sorts, and this is where the Whitehaus Family Record comes from.

Released on double vinyl, and now down to the last fifty or so copies, this is a compilation of tracks from artists associated with the project.  There is blurb here, where you can also buy the record, but whilst evocative it is not particularly informative. The whole thing can be streamed on Bandcamp though, which is generous of them.

The results are a splendid, eclectic mess, however.  The music ranges from lo-fi to folk to experimental to quirky pop and most places in between.  But if you’ll pardon my cynicism and bear with me while I explain myself, I am going to go back to the statement in the first paragraph: I am really impressed that this isn’t total shite.

Generally projects like this rely strongly on enthusiasm to maintain momentum.  A small handful of people need to care passionately about keeping it going, and they need to pick up the slack in the ebbs and flows of the interest of others – it’s the same with any cooperative enterprise.  You can’t afford to be too picky either, because real dedication is hard to come by, and it is not wise to go turning it down, but herein lies the problem.  There are a lot of well-meaning, hard-working, generous-spirited people out there with absolutely no talent whatsoever.

This sounds enormously mean-spirited, but it’s true.  There are always useless people whose infectious enthusiasm means you can’t ignore them, but whose actual ability is limited to say the least, and I have seen a lot of collectives or cooperatives of various kinds struggle with this issue.

Whatever it is that The Whitehaus Family are doing right, though, they are doing very right indeed because this is excellent.  It manages to be both eclectic and extremely consistent which is something I have never really seen in projects of this nature before, and I am massively impressed.  Only fifty or so left, remember.  Buy one!

The Great Valley – Lucky Me

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Rene – Destination: Mars

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Ambitious Tugboat – Age Rings

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