Flutes - Flutes: Track By Track

 I have to hold my hands up, recently I have been neglecting the blog a bit. It's not that I don't love running this site, I am still as passionate as ever about new music, I simply don't have the time to keep on top of things nowadays. Running Olive Grove, managing Randolph's Leap, being a dad, husband and having a real life job, surprisingly doesn't leave me with too much time come and have good old ramble on here. Hopefully as things calm down a bit in the New Year I'll have more time to post about music that I have been enjoying. Which in a very roundabout way brings me to the band Flutes and their self-titled debut album which came out at the start of this week. Some of you might remember that I featured them as a Fresh Meat band all the way back in September, which was followed by this review by Boab of their last single, Auld Archie.

Now for me personally, Auld Archie is up there as one of the best songs that I had heard all year, so I had very high expectations for this album and I am pleased to say that I wasn't disappointed. Flutes self-titled album is one of my favourite albums of 2012, what makes it even more special for me is that quite simply I didn't see it coming. On a daily basis I get loads of music sent to me, some of which is pretty good, some not so and some which makes me want to rip my own ears off. Flutes though had something that bit special about them that made me stand up and take notice, in what I could best describe as WTF moment.

In many ways the album reminds me of a combination of numerous Scottish bands that I love, from De Rosa to Frabbit, there's even a wee splash of what I would describe as being John Knox Sex Club-esq in there. Then again I don't think it's fair to try and pigeon hole them like that, as it's so much more than that. Anyway, it was for that reason that I decided to ask Godfrey from the band to talk you through an album that I love and I hope you do too...



Auld Archie 

I'm not really sure how this ended up sounding so massive and aggressive, but I'm glad we ended up there.  I'd had some ideas around the lyrics for a few days and had been trying to fit them around Rob's repeated guitar part which underpins the tune.  When we sat in his flat in Maida Vale, the lyrics seemed to work quite well although we were concerned the track didn't really go anywhere and had concerns around the level of repetition.  We then took it to Andy (bass, piano) and Alex (drums) who really nailed the dynamics.  Initially Alex was really anti the big swing beat although we eventually persuaded him and he now loves playing it live (I think).  The extra instruments (choir, clarinet, cello, organ, piano) were all added during the production process with Jamie Savage (from Olympic Swimmers) pushing us to experiment more than we ever had before.  We asked a couple of friends of ours to play the cello/clarinet parts referencing The Clangers (wee weird stop motion mousy looking fellas who live on a moon) and a Radiohead track called Life in a Glasshouse.  Louise (cello) and Trish (clarinet) have been playing together for years and both just went insane with their parts - I remember sitting in the studio being totally in awe of them.  The final bit was the choir which was a recorded really late at night at Chem19.  We asked the other band if they'd be up for singing in exchange for a couple of tins...and then Jamie worked his magic on the mix.  We knew it had to be the first single as I think we're all pretty proud of how this one turned out. 

It's What's Between That Makes Us Happy

Probably the only tune on the album you can actually have a wee groove to.  This is one Rob penned on his tod and I contributed a couple of lines here and there.  It's got a weird structure and initially we found it really tough to play as a band.  It's unusual for us as well as it cracks in straight from the start - something only a couple of our tunes do.  I think the refrain of 'Give us love, give us loss, give us all that's in between' is beautiful and am incredibly pissed off that I didn't write it.  In fact, it's a bone of contention in the band and Rob and I regularly have bare knuckle fist fights about it mid way through the final chorus. 

This is No Country For Old Men

I think this is one of the older tracks on the album and in fact it was written when we were still called Pushboxer.  As with Auld Archie, Rob had written a cracking guitar part and I was trying to find a melody/some lyrics that would compliment it.  My grandad was on his last legs at that point and was receiving some pretty below par treatment in the hospital he was in...hence the title 'This Is No Country For Old Men'.  The song's written from his point of view reflecting on his life during his last few days among us.  I feel like this was the first song we wrote where we started to push ourselves in a different direction (from the Editors covers band we once were).  Andy and Alex really clicked on this tune and I love when the drums kick in.  Jamie then pushed us to add the massive guitar crash at the start.  We were all pretty resistant at first, but I love it now as I feel like I'm in Mogwai (if only for 3 or 4 seconds) when we play it live. 

Solo Sleep

Until we wrote This Is A Lift, this was by far the most lyrically direct and explicit song we'd ever written.  I remember Rob and I being nervous about playing this to Alex and Andy as we thought some of the lyrics were a bit clunky. Andy loved the chorus and said he could envisage some strings to compliment the vocals so we cracked on with it.  Given the lyrics I was keen to have a female voice singing alongside me so we asked a friend of ours Siobhan Anderson (formally of French Wives) to come along to Chem for a day and sing it. She also added some staccato violin at the end alongside Louise's cello part which really helped to bring the song to a close. 

Dolores

The oldest track on the album named after a park in San Francisco.  I think this was written right at the start of 2009 and initially I thought it would remain a Pushboxer song as I think it's the most poppy song on the album (despite being 5 minutes long).  We always had trouble with the arrangement (at one point it was gigantic in an attempt to copy Interpol's Not Even Jail) although settled eventually on something soft yet with a driving pulse.  The song used to be much shorter until Jamie asked us to write an extra verse off the cuff while we were recording.  The verse that starts 'As your moving west' was written in about 5 minutes so I'm extra pleased with how it turned out.  There's also a cheeky wee trumpet part in there if you listen closely.  

Kilburn

This is a tongue in cheek song about how artists and poets always seem to attract the most beautiful woman...and then treat them like shite.  The crazy sounds you can hear in the background at the start and the end were recorded very early in the morning after we'd all had a bit too much to drink.  I ended up screaming Tam O'Shanter into two mics while Jamie, Rob and Andy wandered about hitting things.  It felt a bit pretentious and stupid at the time but in fact I think the poetry and noises actually compliment the song quite well.  

This Is A Lift

I was extremely anxious about this going on the album as it's so bare and, well....not exactly abstract.  I wrote it just as we were finishing the album when we were fishing for an elusive eighth track.  Andy heard me playing it one night through the wall (we live together) and emailed me the next day so say 'potential eighth track?'.  And so it was. 

Sand 

The first time we performed this live was at our last gig as Pushboxer (Dec 11th 2009).  I remember a few people saying they liked the melody so we kept on working the track up and eventually added in the piano and cello parts.  I like how different this is to Auld Archie as they book-end the album quite well. 

Flutes self-titled album is out now, you can order yourself a copy directly from the bands Big Cartel page. You can also pick yourself up a copy at Avalanche Records in Edinburgh, where they will also be playing an instore on Saturday 15th December at 4pm. They're also headlining Nice n Sleazy's in Glasgow the night before (Friday 14th), where they will be joined by some very secret special guests (I don't think I am allowed to tell you who they are though).

If you're looking for something that bit special that your friends probably won't have heard of yet, then I would urge you to check this album. Actually anyone with ears should check this album out as it's fucking ace.

Order the Album

Home

SoundCloud

Twitter

Facebook

French Wives - Dream of the Inbetween: Track By Track

It's been a long time coming, but today sees the release of the much anticipated (well at least it has been by me), debut album, 'Dream of the Inbetween' from French Wives. If you frequent this blog then you'll know that 1) I don't do reviews and 2) that I fucking love this band. So rather than cobble together some half arsed attempt at a review,  I asked Scott from the band to write up this little Track By Track for me. He's a funny wee bugger is our Scott, or at least he thinks he is. All that you really need to know is that it's a cracking wee album that gets the Peenko seal of approval. Anyway, enough about me here's what Scott had to say about the Dream of the Inbetween,

Modern Columns

I feel like I should say early on that I’m perhaps not the best person to provide insight on lyrical content/themes. This is largely because I’m a moron. Thankfully, for those of you who want to know what the words n that are all about, Stuart has done a similar track by track elsewhere. For those of you who wish to endure my chat, I’m mainly going to offer rubbish stories and tales of our of tune guitars. Still here? Good. This was actually one of the first songs we wrote for the album, the initial musical idea starting to take place towards the end of 2010. I particularly like the backing vocals in the pre-chorus, especially since the way Tony* has recorded them makes them sound all synthy and cool. In between (see what I did there?) the sessions with Tony we recorded some shouty bits during the loud parts of the instrumental section- trying to be The Young Knives, basically. They were rubbish, and that’s why you can’t hear them, but we had a lot of fun shouting. Particularly Siobhan. A lot of rage.

Numbers

This was the first single to be released way back last October and most of it was recorded during a stand-alone session. It was our first time working with a string quartet and Siobhan did a cracking job with the arrangement. It also features my debut as a percussionist, slamming that tambourine during the chorus. This, like Modern Columns, also came into fruition quite early during the writing sessions. I’m really pleased that we went for it with the big chorus. Initially we had the verse and I played the chorus the way it is as a bit of a pisstake, but Stuart thankfully talked me round into putting it in with the reasoning that if others can get away with big choruses like that, why can’t we? I think we just about pull it off, or I hope so anyway!

 

Back Breaker

This song forms the basis of a lot of the lyrical themes on the album, but you’ve been warned about reading them here! This was, embarrassingly, the first song I’d ever written in open tuning so the chords were a bit of an experiment at first but it made the hook really easy to come up with. It was also the first time I’d recorded with an e-bow. Tony likes e-bows. I became similarly obsessed very quickly.

The Inbetween

We were all really keen on having something in the middle of the album that could tie themes together both lyrically and musically. It’s something that can be quite hit and miss on records, especially with the nature of skipping tracks from the iPod generation. However, we were quite passionate about the album flowing like an album so we decided to just go for it. A fun fact is that the delayed guitar towards the end of the track (yes, the one that sounds like The Edge) is actually taken from the demo we made of it very rustically at our studio before we started working with Tony. Chris thinks that this entitles him to a production credit on the album now! 

Me vs. Me

This is literally the oldest song in the history of French Wives. What started out as a 15 minute opus complete with melancholic keyboard intro has been stripped down time and time again to the incarnation we have now. The backing vocals, thankfully for me, are forgivingly low in the mix as they were done in a bit of a rush due to lack of time at the end of the sessions, but I really like the 60s style guitars in the bridges, which was something I did for a bit of a laugh during recording that stuck. Most of the things I do, it seems, are initially for a bit of a laugh.

Sleep Tight

This song was borne out of frustration that we were taking so long writing songs. To combat this we set ourselves a challenge of sorts to write a song in half an hour and this is basically the result. As such it’s very repetitive and hooky but I see them as entirely good things. The first recording takes of it were very clean and seemed to be missing something, so the decision was made to make it really quite dirty which is unlike anything else on the record. I was sent into the live room with an overdrive pedal and an analog delay pedal and told to make noise. Red rag to a bull there. The distorted vocals are really cool too. We did a gig last night where Stuart’s mic was fucked and all the songs had distorted vocals of sorts. Best Sleep Tight has ever sounded.

Halloween

When we play this live Stuart (with his tongue firmly inserted in his cheek) sometimes announces it as “our big hit.” As such it was quite nerve-wracking changing the arrangement quite so much from the one that, for the majority of people who know our band, is how we’d been identified sonically. As much as people cling to the old version, I hope that people can see the same improvement in the new one that we can. The chorus is a lot smoother and poppy, and the production is generally a bit more ambient which I think in the context of the album as a whole is a bit more suitable than an attempt to go all out and be anthemic.

Month of Sundays

I WAS ALLOWED TO USE A WAH WAH PEDAL ON A FRENCH WIVES RECORD. I never thought that day would come. Years ago the band banned me from using one, with my pedal suspiciously disappearing shortly after. This song is really poppy, again borne from a riff that was created just for a laugh. I should really start taking things more seriously!

Younger

This was our attempt to throw everything into a big production in order to create a big tune, if you will. Obviously the brass part was created through me having a laugh at a midi keyboard, but you probably could have guessed that by now. I think this song might largely replace Halloween as our kind of calling card, but that’s no bad thing. The motif from The Inbetween is repeated here with the key a tone up. If I was a total wank I’d say that the moving it up a tone is meant to show the increased hopefulness through the songs of the album, but I’m fairly sure it was just an accident. In the studio we used to joke that Tony had a pop machete that he used to cut down songs to make them 3 and a half minutes long. We had to really beg to keep the end bit as long, but I think that it works with all the different parts being introduced what with more guitars, the strings and then the brass.

The Sickness

Siobhan, Stuart and I came up with the basic progression and melody for this one day years ago in Jordanhill and we always loved the violin moving in harmony with the guitar melody, but we could never really come up with a suitable arrangement for it, which got to the point where Stuart started harvesting a lot of the lyrics for other songs. The problem was that we were trying to make it too grand and too big, always crescendoing into something. We solved that problem by stripping it back and focusing on the things that we loved about it in the first place- the melodies. Because of this and the way the synth part dies at the end it was an obvious choice for the album closer. 

'Dream of the Inbetween' is out now today on Electric Honey Records, all of the details that you need in termsn of how to get hold of a copy can be found on the bands homepage. Also, to celebrate it's release they're playing a free show at The Captain's Rest tonight  (Monday 7th May). Doors are at 7.30pm and seeing as entry is on a first come first served matter, youd' be best to get down nice and early.

Home

Bandcamp

Twitter

Facebook 

SoundCloud

* Tony Doogan who produced the album

Born To Be Wide: Festivals Seminar

Those nice folk at Born To Wide, Scotland’s only regular music-business seminar night, have announced that their first seminar of the year will take place next month and it is going to be devoted to music festivals and the opportunities that they can offer to emerging acts. Taking place at their regular haunt, Edinburgh’s Electric Circus, the event will be held on Thursday 2 February, it will detail the selection procedure, fees, what artists are offered in terms of promotion and how they can make the best use of the opportunity.

To date they've confirmed that they will have folk along from  DF Concerts (who put on T In The Park/The Edge Festival), Knockengorroch Festival, The Insider Festival and Go Events (who put on goNorth and also showcase at events such as Wickerman, Belladrum, Loopallu and Wizard.

“Festivals offer a great platform for emerging acts to reach new audiences,” says Born To Be Wide co-organiser, Olaf Furniss. “This event will provide a unique insight into what festivals offer, and will also give musicians the opportunity to meet the bookers. We recommend people bring their CDs!“

After the panel, the seminar guests will stay at the venue to DJ with records they have selected from Edinburgh’s Oxfam music shop. Everything played will be for sale with all proceeds going to the charity.

Buy tickets in advance and save money, click below or visit: www.borntobewide.bigcartel.com