Video: Vimeo – YouTube
Photos: Flickr
Audio: zip dowload (right click, save as)

This session came together in an extremely short space of time, and as such I am extremely pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out – from an audio point of view in particular these are some of my favourite session recordings.

We invited Milk Maid to play an Ides of Toad gig in June, they arrived the night before the gig, and we happened to be having beers and listening to some records when I mentioned that we sometimes record in our living room.  I showed them the Scottish Enlightenment Toad Session, and they suggested recording a session too, the next day, before the gig.

Recording a band with a full drum kit, two guitarists and a bass in one room made me nervous enough, and actually getting anyone to help seemed improbable at such short notice, but thankfully Fee and Rory were able to make it down, so I owe them both a massive debt of gratitude for their help.

As per usual we have a full set of photos, freely downloadable session mp3s, a full interview podcast (immediately below, and with the tracklisting at the bottom of the page) and videos of both the whole day (above) and each individual song (below).  Enjoy!

Direct download: Toadcast #186 – Milk Maid Toad Session

Milk Maid – Can’t You See (Toad Session)

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Milk Maid – Girl (Toad Session)

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Milk Maid – Stir So Slow (Toad Session)

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Milk Maid – Not Me (Toad Session)

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01. Milk Maid – Can’t You See (Toad Session) (04.11)
02. Women – Black Rice (12.14)
03. Weird Era – Summer Heights (15:26)
04. Milk Maid – Girl (Toad Session) (20.19)
05. Irk the River – Mind That Child (26.22 )
06. Daily Life – No Eyes (28.43)
07. Milk Maid – Stir So Slow (Toad Session) (36.32)
08. Evan Dando – Hard Drive (45.12)
09. Easter – Holy Island (48.24)
10. Milk Maid – Not Me (Toad Session) (62.50)

Contrary to what you might suspect from my location this week and the steady stream of silly videos from Anstruther , this podcast is not anything to do with the Fence Collective or Haarfest.

Actually, apart from a few brief intrusions from my pile of audio cassettes (a lot of time in the van, you see) this is generally just the usual stream of music news and new bits and pieces from my inbox.

Actually, I am way behind my inbox at the moment, due to a week of holiday and now a week in Anstruther, and things aren’t likely to get any better either, what with… oh never mind, you hear enough of my whining as it is.  Tunes…

Direct download: Toadcast #136 – The Haarcast

01. Eels – Jungle Telegraph (02.32)
02. Les Shelleys – The World is Waiting for the Sunrise (07.22)
03. Broken Records – A Leaving Song (13.41)
04. Women – Heat Distraction (19.56)
05. Let’s Talk About Trees – Wood of Rassay (23.50)
06. The Tragically Hip – Fireworks (31.57)
07. Grant Lee Buffalo – Testimony (35.48)
08. Inspector Tapehead – Grooming (44.48)
09. Nice Purse – Heart Medley (50.52)
10. Bombadil – Barcelona (54.55)

In terms of making yourselves absolutely fucking impossible to track down on the internet, calling a band ‘Women’ has got to be pretty damn near the top of the list. I eventually found these guys by following my last.fm profile and discovering Flemish Eye Records, to whom they are signed.

They’re a Candian band, from Calgary I believe, which always fills my little patriotic heart with a little extra joy, and have a self-titled (presumably to make it even harder to track down – try searching Amazon for “Women”) album out in the first week of July. I’ve been listening to my preview copy for a while now and, although it really didn’t grab me by the ‘nads immediately, it’s been growing and growing steadily and has slowly emerged from the background to make itself known as a really rather decent record.

I say emerged, because it is not obviously any more than a standard, slightly fuzzy indie guitar album. It was something of a low-tech recording process by all accounts, and I am a sucker for that, so the rough sound sort of suits me. Synths make occasional intrusions into what is a pretty textural sound, accompanying mechanical rhythms and industrial noise. The vocals are distracted and distant, and I find myself just slightly reminded of a dense, muffled version of early nineties indie.

Nevertheless, from this swamp of sounds there does emerge a fairly insistent album of deceptively good tunes. They sound a little like The Walkmen in some aspects, although without the furious noise which that group so often generate. I’ve heard, however, that they are somewhat fearsome live so I’d be keen to see them if the opportunity arose. I know it’s all a bit tentative, this review, but that’s kind of how I feel. I’m not flabberghasted by the brilliance, but there is plenty of promise in this album and I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye on these chaps in future.

Women – Black Rice
Women – Lawncare

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