Adam Stafford - Imaginary Walls Collapse: Track By Track

I know, I know, I haven't been paying this site as much attention these days I really should. I have pretty much restricted myself to posting Fresh Meat blogs every Monday to keep things ticking over, but every so often something pops up that I feel that I want to make that extra bit of effort for. In this instance that something special is the new Adam Stafford album, Imaginary Walls Collapse, which of course those of you who are followers of the Scottish music scene should already know, came out a week or so ago. I might pretend that I am still able to keep up with everything that's going on in the Scottish music scene these days, but trying to write posts about it is much easier said than done. Fuck, I have done it again. I always aim to write about the music, then I end up waffling on about myself.

Anyway, back to the point, 'Imaginary Walls Collapse' is in my opinion the finest record that you're likely to hear in all of 2013. Trying to summarise what the album sounds like is beyond my limited writing skills. Theirs an array of loops, beatboxing and some fine fine pop music. Actually it's a million times better than the way that I am selling it. So rather than write some feeble attempt at a review I decided to get Adam to write a wee bit about the album and what the sons mean to him. So without further ado, here's a wee track by track from the fabulous Mr Adam Stafford...


1. Imaginary Walls Collapse  

Satan is indefinite detention without trial, secret courts and protest censorship. Satan is sweetheart tax deals, the denigration of the poor, vulnerable and mentally ill. Satan is backroom handshakes, anti-transparency, anti-intellectualism and profit-over-people. It's the bondage of debt and work and your place in society. The Devil prevails when good men do nowt.  



2. Vanishing Tanks  

I read a story once about a woman who becomes the lover of the poltergeist who haunted her as a child.  



3. Ghostly Arms  

When I was a little kid I used to get sent to bed early during the summer holidays and outside, you could hear all the other kids playing in the street. It's a terrible feeling that's dogged me all my life.  



4. Please  

I like Low, and I like Roy Orbison. I tried to combine them on this.  



5. Cold Seas  

Siobhan Wilson sings "Into the light, into the rain". She is very good. I try to get a different female vocalist to collaborate on each release to keep it fresh by working with new people. Hopefully in the future I'll be able to phase out my own voice on the albums and have it entirely feminine.  

6. Carshulton Girls  

Carshalton Girls is an all-girls school in Carshalton, strangely enough. There was something about the name that stuck, I changed Carshalton to Carshulton for no apparent reason. I listened into a call where the headmaster was reporting "Older Boys on the premises" to the police. It made me laugh.  



7. Invisible Migration  

When the banking crisis hit, and the subsequent aftermath, it was sickening to see so many families lose their homes to the merry pide-pipper as he lead us all off the bridge. And we sat back and watched it happen.  




8. The Sound of Fear Evaporating  

Sometimes this is my favourite song on the album, other times I think it sounds bland-as-fuck. It's healthy to have that relationship with your songs I think. Siobhan's vocal harmonies always make it listenable whatever mood I'm in though.  




9. His Acres  

In Southern Ireland, when a female is courting and there's talk of marriage in the air, one might hear the phrase "Have you walked his acres" i.e., have you surveyed his land/inheritance, and; "Would you like to be buried with his people" - are you ready to be initiated into his family.  



10. Phased Return  

What is there to say about this final track? It's about getting older, looking back at all of the let-downs in your life and thinking, Ach, I don't really care!

Imaginary Walls Collapse is out now on 12″ vinyl and digital download via Song, By Toad.You can pick yourself up a copy here.

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.

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State Broadcasters - Ghosts We Must Carry: Track By Track

Part of me has been putting off publishing this post for a while now as I thought it made more sense to stick it on the blog around the time of the album launch gig (which is this Sunday in case you were wondering). The other side of me has delayed posting anything simply because quite simply I don't believe that I have the vocabulary to portray just how much this album means to me. Over the past couple of months 'Ghosts We Must Carry' has received some mighty fine reviews, it even received this amazing review from Mike.
For those of you who aren't already aware, the album came out on Olive Grove Records, the label that I co-run. Now I have always been a wee bit paranoid about posting anything on the site about releases that I have been directly involved with, what with the conflict of interest and all. Then I realised that the label is essentially an extenuation of this blog. I post about music that I like, so if I like a band enough to release their record, it makes sense to me that I would want to post about them on here. If you disagree, then that's your opinion, as long as my conscious is clear that's all that matters
Rather than trying to justify myself, I guess it would make more sense to tell you a bit more about my relationship with the band and how all of this came to pass. It was way back in December of last year that Pete from the band got in touch to see if we might be interested in working together. Now to my shame it took me a few weeks until I actually listened to the album that they'd sent over, but once I did there was really no way that I could say no. So after many many months of planning it came to pass that we sized each other up and agreed that we'd love to work together. Seeing as we haven't released an album on Olive Grove since back in October of last year, I am so glad that we held out and didn't just rush into our next release. Quality over quantity and all that jazz. This is an album that I have been lucky enough to live with for almost a year now, I am so pleased at the plaudits that it has received since it's release. Sometimes it's good to know that it's not just me that believes in a band. Anyway, I have rambled at you more than enough, so you'll be pleased to know that I am now going to pass you across to Graeme from the band to talk you through the album...

The Only Way Home 

I wrote this about halfway through the making of the album. By this time the feel of the album was pretty clear and, in some ways, was dictating what kind of songs I was writing. The truth of this song is that the only certainty in life is that we will die, some people choose when that moment will be and sometimes I can understand why people make that choice. I hoped for this song to be a fitting tribute to 2 of my favourite songwriters, Mark Linkous and Vic Chesnutt.  


Kittiwake 

Written during a holiday in Orkney where I hoped to see lots of Kittiwake but they are in decline on the islands so I didn't see too many, other than on postcards. It's a pretty straightforward story song about a husband losing his wife suddenly and far too young. The arrangement on this song is one of the best on the album and the band did a brilliant job. I wanted the album to have lots of singing on it and I'm pretty pleased that the first 2 songs have all six of us singing on them albeit quite quietly.    


Trespassers 

A love song: 'Take off your coat, sit by the fire, I'll brush out your hair, your true friend is here.' Could be State Broadcasters motto. The instrumental bit in the middle is affectionately known as Mr Twinkles by the band and I look forward to hearing it every time we play this song. It's like I got my own little bit of Sigur Ros into one of our songs.  


The Only One

I wanted to have a harp led song on this album and doing this Billy Bragg song seemed to make sense. The lyrics are unsurpassable, Bragg is a fine chronicler of unrequited love and broken hearts. I'm really pleased with the way this turned out as we've always been rubbish at cover versions before. I knew putting Gill in charge of the vocal and the lead instrument we couldn't really go wrong. I think Billy likes it too!  


Takeshi 

The first song Pete and I worked on together back in 2004! There's a different version of this on our debut self released EP which is basically just me, Pete and Fergus plus a couple of pals helping out and a lot of people loved it. We decided the song didn't quite fit on our first album but this version had to go on Ghosts We Must Carry, it fits the mood perfectly. It features the duel trombone talents of Pete and Cam and sometimes when we play this live I just look over and watch them and the sound seems kind of magically mesmerizing to me.   



Outside The Bakery 


Written not long after the first album but signalling the intent of where we were going next - a quieter, more melancholy mood. This is a song about the beauty of friendship and the small, often unspoken and even unacknowledged, gestures that humans can make to each other to provide hope in hopeless situations. Did the protagonist in this song deliberately fall over in the muddy path because he knew it would make his friend laugh for the first time in a long time?   


Where I Belong 

I wrote this really quickly and didn't think much of it to be honest but when I played it to Pete he really liked it and persuaded me, eventually, that we should try it. I'm glad he did as it's one of the strongest songs on the album. I love the sound of the recording of this it feels kind of earthy and warm to me, it's those trombones again and the accordion part is sublime. Happy to report that there's lots of singing on this too, a 4 part harmony no less. It's kind of about agoraphobia and it's kind of about how records can help you through rough times and it's the first time we've ever employed fade out  at the end of a song which pleases me enormously.  


The Writing's On The Wall 

This is a very poppy song for us but I think we just about get away with putting it on this album. I think I was listening to the Ben Kweller album when I wrote this and it has some brilliant pop tunes on it like Penny On A Train Track and Sundress. Ours doesn't sound like that but in my head it sort of does, the lyrics are fairly self explanatory and well explored: self loathing, hopelessness, 'that bloody black dog' as Winston Churchill would say. Everyone feels like that sometimes, don't they? WE ARE HERE FOR YOU WHEN YOU DO.


This Old Table 

The original guitar version of this is kind of a Smog, Palace rip off but I never wanted it to be like that when the band did it. We had this idea of using a harmonium and having unison singing to make it feel like a kind of Church Of Scotland hymn. Fortunately, Malcolm Lindsay (Glasgow based producer and composer) let us use his harmonium and studio to record this in and I think it sounds perfect. Lyrically it is the song I am most proud of and I am delighted that the performance came together the way we hoped. It's a very personal song to me but I think the way we present it makes it more meaningful to the listener, that's what I hope anyway.  


New Years Day 

Pete wrote most of this I just added a couple of lines. Gill's vocal performance on this is great and the piano is a creaky old thing that Pete has which is just about in tune with itself and nothing much else, but it sounds perfect here. Our first album ended with a little, short song at the end and so does this one. I like that. This song does the one thing that is most difficult for a song to do: sound simple and yet convey emotion and meaning. That's proper pop music.

Ghosts We Must Carry is out now on Olive Grove Records. You can buy a copy in person from LoveMusic, Avalanche Records, Groucho Records, Monorail, Fopp (Union Street) and One Up Records. As always it would be great if you could do your bit to support your local record store.

If you can't get to one one of these stores then the album is available via Bandcamp or you can always download it through all of your usual digital stores.

The band are celebrating the release of Ghosts We Must Carry, this coming Sunday at the Wellington Church (off University Avenue) in Glasgow. Support on the evening comes from the fabulous eagleowl.
Plus we will also have the premier of the video for the bands single, Trespassers. It's £4 to get in and it's also BYOB!!! If you can come along it would be great to see you there. Here's the Facebook events page if you want more info.

Cancel The Astronauts - Animal Love Match: Track By Track

It's been a long time coming, but next week sees the release of Cancel The Astronauts debut album, Animal Love Match. Having been a fan of the band ever since I first saw them supporting Kid Canaveral back in Edinburgh a few years ago, I have been looking forward to this album for a while now. I am pleased to say that they didn't let me down, as it's a cracking wee record fully of dark catchy pop tunes. If you're looking for a more observant opinion of the album then you should check out the review that Steve wrote last month. For now here's Matthew and Kieran to talk us through the album...


Animal Love Match   

Matthew: This was a natural opener for the album as it's been the first song we play at gigs for ages now. It's got a nice pretty start, followed by a less pretty guitarmaggedon noiseattack by Kieran, before it launches in to the song proper. I also knew I wanted the album to be called Animal Love Match, so that really fixed it as the album opener. Lyrically it establishes the themes behind the album: the conflict between desire and impulse, morality and ethics- what's a more honest way to live your life? Doing what YOU want, or doing what your supposed to do. What's more truthful- passion or conscience?    

Kieran: I bought a reverb pedal that if you turn all the knobs all the way right and thrash your guitar about makes a sound like the world and several other worlds and maybe some moons are ending, but in quite a pleasant way. I call it StuntReverb. It’s my favourite thing. If you listen really carefully, you can just about hear it being deployed about a minute and half into this track. 


Seven Vices 

M: This carries over the energy from Animal Love Match, but it's a bit poppier and it's got more hooks, so it seemed sensible to put it second, especially as it was a familiar song to people, having been released as a single last year. It's got some good lyrics and reinforces the themes of the album, as well as some fun backing vocals. 

K: Our first single! And the most stressful to mix because we did it first, making it the big scary template for the sound of the whole album. Everyone was all opinions and freaking out. I think it also made us aware of just how much we had bitten off by electing to do the album ourselves. We spent aaaages getting Seven Vices right. I’m glad we persevered with it though. The song and the album. 


Intervention 

M: There was a lot of debate about the vocoder hook in the intro and mid, and whether to keep it or not. Me and Chris added it one day when we were recording vocals and I think Kieran and Michael hated it to start with. It was even more vocoded/autotuned though and over time we compromised to how you hear it now. It's the oldest song on the album, and I think it gives it a freshness, as well as being a bangin' hook.  

K: When I first heard it I was a bit ‘what the what?’, because I was surprised and also watching a lot of 30 Rock. But Intervention falls victim to an old songwriting habit we had, whereby we’d write intros with a number of sections and we’d play each one twice before moving on to the next, and so they’d build quite predictably, with little, er, ‘sonic movement’ in each section. This is boring. The vocoder vocal fixes that, and is indeed a banging hook. I think me and Michael were ultimately concerned that the sound of it would put people in mind of The Black Eyed Peas, rather than, say, Daft Punk. Because no one like to think about The Black Eyed Peas.

Love Backwards 

M: After three fast songs it was time for a breather and the acoustic intro does that nicely. Someone we know recently got the lyrics to this tattooed on their back (not all of them of course) which is pretty cool. They owe us royalties though now.  

K: The first name on the teamsheet. Big game player. Will probably score from a corner in the cup final. Charlie Mulgrew. 


Making Dynamite 

M: This song changes the tone of the album a bit. The first few songs are deliberately poppy and upbeat but you can't keep that up over a whole album or people will get bored. It's a slightly edgier song lyrically and musically, and is sort of intended to demonstrate that we don't just write 3 minute pop tunes.  

K: Came together over a period of (cough) nine months in the practice room. I went to see Beardyman a few days after we finally nailed it and it was the wrong thing to do, seeing as he spent the entire evening writing tunes like this in real time, using only a mic, a laptop and whimsy. Sob. Beardyman doesn’t have our rhythm section though. Or as many beards. Or faces on which to sport them, I suppose.   


Lekking   

M: Lekking continues the change of mood and is us at our post-rocky. This one probably reflects Kieran and Michael's musical influences more strongly than my own, because they love noisemongering, and the recorded version here is definitely not how I heard it in my head. Sometimes other Astronauts have good ideas too. We tried this as a pretty, delicate almost ballad-like song but it just didn't work. We decided to hit things very hard instead, and it sounded loud and exciting. Thus, Lekking was born. 

K: Our post-rock side project is going to be called Destroy All Cosmonauts and it’ll sound like this. We played the old, delicate version of Lekking live only once. Our friend heard us soundcheck it and was ‘blown away’. Then we played it in the set and he changed his mind entirely. Entirely. Incidentally, a ‘lek’ is “a tradition place where males assemble during the mating season and engage in competitive displays that attract females.” I had to look it up. 


Shapes 

M: This is the start of the second half of the album and we knew we needed a quieter moment, particularly after such a big song as Lekking. It documents the end of a relationship, and it's the most fragile, simple thing on the record (apart from it's big(ish) outro). It's got a delightful bassline.  

K: Yeah, we always knew this was going to be at the centre of the album, lyrically as well as, er, tracklisting-ally, I would venture. We managed (for the most part) to resist our usual urge to go big, or to go disco, or to go big and disco, and it’s all the better for it. I think it turned out lovely.   


Promises of Strangers 

M: Lyrically this works well after Shapes; to the discerning listener, it perhaps answers some questions raised by the previous song, while asking questions itself. It's got a different feel to Shapes though. It's a sexy, sultry song (or is supposed to be) with a killer bassline and some great synth. I like how it's got a mad guitar solo as an outro too. 

K: It’s basically about sex, this song. At the climax, I launch into a big fuck off guitar solo. I try not to over analyse this one. 


I See, Uh-huh  

M: The last four songs are the newest ones we've written. This wasn't a deliberate decision, but it seems natural enough to start off with some familiar songs and end with a few surprises. I wanted this song to be second on the album because it's even punchier- and a bit shorter- than Seven Vices, while the lyrics are directly related to the themes of the record.   

K: This one’s a special favourite of mine. It’s almost old-school CTA in its simple, straight ahead poppyness, but it’s got some nice bass and a killer vocal hook. It’s also one of the few songs (along with Intervention) that sounded great at every point in the recording process. A good song that never gave us no trouble, apart from that one time when I accidentally threw all my guitar parts in the recycle bin and then emptied the reycle bin.   


While I Was Sleeping 

M: This is a big song. Simple, driving, economical, straightforward, with a sing-a-long chorus. One of my favourites. Good lyrics. 

K: The album was already way behind schedule when we wrote this, but we knew it had to go on. Schedules be damned! It’s tremendous fun to play live, and features what you could conceivably argue is a bass solo towards the end. 


Catch You If I Can 

M: This is probably the most un-Cancel the Astronauts-ey song we've ever written. It doesn't use traditional structure, it's got piano on it and mostly electronic drums. We messed around a lot with the outro until we got something that really worked. This is a direction I'd like to experiment with more. 

K: StuntReverb! There’s quite a bit of it on here. I like how this one is built up using texture, and how the chorus is announced by acoustic guitar, and how the hi-hats at the end sound like the tide going out, which mimics a recording of the tide going out which runs secretly through the whole thing, and how when Matthew sings about ‘one heart’ the kick drum sounds like a single, sad heart, beating forlornly and soon giving up. I’ve over-analysed this one, haven’t I? 


I Sold My Soul (And This Is All I Got)    

M: If Noel Gallagher taught me anything, it's that every album should have at least one song with brackets in it's title. We all agreed this was the obvious choice to close the album. It mirrors Animal Love Match in that it starts big and ends slow, and it's the same chords pretty much. It's got some great lyrics and answers some of the questions posed throughout the album I think. Also: lead guitar by Matthew Riley.   

K: I’ve moved beyond lead guitar at this point in the album. Beyond notes themselves. Instead I spend the entire back half of the song strumming indiscriminately with the help of my friend, StuntReverb. People who aren’t fans of this approach to guitar playing include my upstairs neighbours, who almost ruined a perfect take by ringing the doorbell to complain about the noise. People can be so selfish. I say almost, because we used the take and you can hear the doorbell tinkle right at the end of the song. They’ll probably want royalties now.


Animal Love Match is available to pre-order now on Bandcamp.Details on a forthcoming Glasgow show will be announced very very shortly, hint hint I might be involved it in some way...

The Unwinding Hours - Afterlives: Track By Track

Two years on from their self titled debut, The Unwinding Hours are back with their follow up album 'Afterlives'.. Having listened back to the album a fair wee bit over the past few weeks, it is a real grower. In fact I'd go as far as saying that they've surpassed the high standard that their debut set. If you're looking for something a bit more descriptive then should check out Steve's review of the album. Or you could always just keep reading as Craig B from the band talks you through Afterlives...


Break 

I’ve never been bothered by the term “post rock” but it seems to be a common tag with any music we make. I realise that the first song from our previous album, “Knut” could certainly fit into that category since it was a slow building, repetitive number with barely any singing but this time we decided to start the album off with something completely different. We wanted it to be a huge boot in the genitals, a blast of melody, a traditionally structured song with a verse and a chorus. It wasn’t an attempt to distance ourselves from any post rock tag because….well, we have always written traditionally structured songs along with the weirder structured ones but Break was our attempt to grab the listener’s attention right away making it clear we were trying to do something different.  



I’ve Loved You For So Long

The Flaming Lips “the soft bulletin” was in the back of our mind when we were mixing this song. The bass is meant to have that big warm, fuzzy feel to it to compliment the driving guitars. I guess you can hear the influence of all the 90’s guitar bands that I was obsessed with growing up. We also wanted to have less intimate, fragile songs on this album so that we didn’t repeat ourselves. This song hopefully keeps up the pace and keeps the listener interested so they don’t drift off, go eat a yoghurt, forget we ever existed and get distracted by a plastic bag floating by the front window or something.  


The Right To Know  

So hopefully by this point, the listener is still with us so we felt we needed to keep things interesting and change it up a bit. There is only one guitar on this song and Iain made it sound like a synth during the mix anyway so the idea was to introduce a new sound/feel/atmosphere (?) to the proceedings. It was certainly influenced by Iain’s obsession with collecting synths over the past few years but Aereogramme/Unwinding Hours always had an electronic element to certain songs so this just felt like a natural progression for us from the programmed synth parts that we have always used. Very much like “Child” from the previous album, the Terminator 2 theme was at the back of our minds while writing this. That’s what you get from growing up in the 80’s and watching violent films. It’s such a great tune.  

Saimaa 

Saimaa is a lake in eastern Finland and is maybe the most beautiful landscape I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing and experiencing. I was living in the southside of Glasgow at that point and had neighbours from hell making my home life pretty miserable so to find myself on the shores of a peaceful lake, far away from civilisation was exactly what I needed and my heart still swells when I think about the sound of the water quietly lapping at my feet, not seeing another human being for miles and the sky slowly turning red, reflecting on the surface of the still water. But when  you have to leave, to go home to the neighbour blasting “sex on fire” on repeat while they have passed out drunk or the screaming couple fighting in the hall …well, that initial feeling of wonder is unfortunately mixed with a feeling of dread of what you have to return to and the thought that you might never see that wonderful place ever again. That’s what Saimaa is about and it was an attempt to try and capture both those feelings. 


The Promised Land

I have studied Theology for years and I find it endlessly fascinating. It really is a conversation killer at parties though. Still, it’s always at the back of my mind and The Promised Land reflects that. It might possibly be my favourite song on the album but more for personal reasons. It feels like a song I have been trying to write for years. I had the biblical story of Abraham and the near sacrifice of his son, Isaac, at the back of my mind when writing this although it’s not just about that. It’s a simple arrangement that builds and evolves into something that hopefully feels more ethereal and hypnotic by the end.  


Wayward 

This was the first song we wrote after the first album was completed. I remember wanting to emulate one of my favourite Wedding Present songs which is called “What have a said now” which has a wonderful repetitive pattern at the end that I used to air drum to in my room to when I was wee. (Everyone else was out getting drunk and having questionable first time sexual experiences. I was sitting in my room listening to John Peel and air drumming on my imaginary drum kit. Yes indeed. I was that cool.) Anyway, the long and short of it is that Wayward doesn’t really sound like that wedding present song but the initial inspiration was to write something as fast, driving and as fun to play, and with real instruments too. 

Say My Name

How long does it take before you think of Destiny’s Child when you read that song title? Well anyway….I can’t remember a single thing about how this was written but I know the feeling I was trying to express. A good relationship can give sustenance to your life and you can begin to miss it, feeling pale and empty when you have spent too much time apart. I don’t believe in having a soul but the right person can give you inner strength and give you the energy you were missing. You can easily adapt this to how I feel about sausages as well but that’s not as romantic. And no-one wants to hear a song about that…..I think.  


The Dogs  

Remember that awful flat I mentioned earlier with the horrible neighbours? This is the song about living there. We wanted to make it as sparse as possible though, really intimate, so you got that close feeling while listening to it, as if you managed to find a moment of peace but it could be broken at any moment. Iain took about two takes to play the piano part and managed to make the song so much better.  


Skin on Skin 

My default time signature for writing songs seems to be in three/four but that’s a waltz which makes it difficult for people to dance around at our concerts. I‘ve seen it happen. They want to get into it but then they try to jump around but quickly and inevitably feel awkward so they stop and stand with arms folded, nodding along, hoping no-one saw them. So one of our goals was to try and write more songs in four/four so we could have more songs to choose from for the live set. This song started with the most basic drum pattern I could possible write to make damn sure I wouldn’t deviate from that. The initial influence was “wandering star” by Portishead which is a song I’ve always loved but that song is much darker. Skin on Skin was an attempt to express the power of connecting with someone, a closeness that you only achieve after a longer period of time, so needed to be more relaxed and lighter.  


Day By Day 

Many of my friends or even family members are at the age now where they are having kids. I often think of them growing up and the experiences they will have. I realise western life is so much easier than the life most of the rest of the world has to live through but when you grow up, you are only reacting to what you know and experience around you. I’ve suffered from depression in the past and it felt sometimes that it was completely out with my control and something I genuinely struggled to contain. This song is about what I might have wanted to hear years ago, when I was younger, angry and confused but it’s also something I thought might be helpful for someone else to hear that could be going through similar feelings at this present time. It’s simple and to the point and I knew it might make some people roll their eyes but that’s ok. It’s not meant for them.  

Afterlives is released out now through Chemikal Underground Records. You can catch the Unwinding Hours playing live at The Tunnels in Aberdeen on 31/08/12, then the following night they're going playing a home town show at Stereo in Glasgow.

Miaoux Miaoux - Light of the North: Track By Track

Do you know what's a bit bloody good, the new Miaoux Miaoux album, that's what. Not that I expected it to be anything less than great, but even though I set my expectation pretty damn high, Julian Corrie, aka Miaoux Miaoux, has only gone and conjured up the finest pop record that you're likely to hear all year. Having been a massive fan of his music since I was first introduced to his music by Glasgow Podcart a good few years ago, and i have to admit that I have pretty much been hooked ever since. There was even talk of us releasing something with him on Olive Grove for a while, but thankfully Chemikal Underground were also taking note and are now giving him the kind of platform that he deserves in order that as many folk possible can hear this master class in pop. Right, that's enough of my ramblings for one evening, I'm now going to pass you across to Julian to let him talk you through his new album (which you should buy as it's fucking amazing)...


Sweep Clean 

The beginning of the record is basically a rip-off of the beginning of Tortoise's 'Standards', one of my favourite albums. Lots of droney distortion niceness. The verse melody for this had been hanging around for ages, then the chorus came about a year later when I was having lunch. This song changed quite a lot over a couple of demos, it was originally a key down and a bit slower, now it's a complete bitch to sing. Lyrically it's about trying to have a new beginning, to forget the past, but still being indecisive.  


Autopilot

I wanted to try and do some wobbly bass somewhere, so here it is. It was the clap rhythm that came first, then that keyboard line that starts it, which I did in Ableton when I was bored and originally dismissed as rubbish. Wrote the verse on the piano I think, then the rest of it came quite easily. I like how it goes from stripped down verses to quite full choruses. Paul Savage changed the arrangement a bit and kept the vocals super dry to play that up. I think the middle eight is a bit Panda Bear.  


Hey Sound! 

So the main riff in this is a cross between Nina Simone 'Sinnerman' and Ricardo Villalobos 'Enfants (Chants)', then everything just hung off that. I actually dreamed the vocal hook, one of the few times that I've dreamed a song and can remember it. The bassline was written completely separately a few months before, then it turned out the two fit together really nicely. Lucky! There's a recording on my phone of me singing it, walking down the street. That happens quite a lot.  


Better For Now

This one was one of the few to be written as a complete song to start with - on piano I think - then I made the arrangement to go with it. Again, it was originally a lot slower, the original demos completely suck. I was really struggling with it then came up with that disco-style bassline, and that drives the whole thing. I was very lucky to get hold of some analogue synths around the same time, so that's an Korg MS20 doing the bassline, which makes a big difference. Again, Paul changed the arrangement slightly, as the chorus only originally appeared at the end. Paul's got a thing for repeating choruses.  


Cloud Computer

The second track I wrote after getting a Waldorf Blofeld (now a key part of the live set). I made that synth sound that opens it, then the rest of it happened. Another one that was slower, much more chilled out originally, so I sped it up and put that bassline on it. I'm sensing a pattern here! Also the only instrumental on the record, weirdly.  


Is It A Dream

This was originally not going to be on the record, but after making it Stewart Henderson from Chemikal kind of insisted I put it on there. The strings are from another project I was working on - I made a loop in Pro Tools to EQ something and that's what came out, so I had to grab it and make a tune out of it. Anna came in and did the vocals in about an hour. I added my vocals and guitar at the last minute, to turn it into a proper song rather than pure 90s garage. It's a good start to side B of the vinyl.  


Virtua Fighter

I was inspired to mess around in the studio after hearing the Dananananaykroyd track 'Microsoft Word' (which is them messing around in the studio), so this was originally called 'Microsoft Excel'. Somehow it evolved into a hip-hop track. I'd heard Profisee's stuff on the radio before so got in touch with him through mutual friends, and he delivered that killer 16 bars. That chorus is also quite Panda Bear I think.  


Stop The Clocks

This has been quite a strange album for me, in that it was planned quite carefully from the start, although it might not sound like that from what I've already said! So by this point I knew I needed something 'dark and long' and was thinking of some bass-heavy, delay monster, but couldn't quite get it to work. I had the thought of a song about the passing of time, quite fatalistic, then came up with a few lines of lyrics and the bassline one evening. Made the loop and messed around on guitar and the melody came quite easily. I enjoyed splicing folk with techno here, it doesn't happen often. Fun one to play live this.  


Singing in the Dark

This was a demo for a while that I really liked - I basically wrote the song as I played it, but it wasn't originally going to go on the record. I played it to a few folk and they really liked it, so on it went. The demo was almost like country music, so Paul toned the guitars down and fucked up the middle 16 a bit - we recorded vocals in the control room and got monitor spill, passing cars and phase errors everywhere. This is the one he probably had the most input on.  Ribbon Falls:  Written on the piano as a complete song (like 'Better For Now') then dolled up with lots of silly production. Again, used to be a key down and slower. The samples at the beginning are from the original demo, cut up. I wanted it to sound like the CD was skipping and then when the vocals came in it would be a surprise - it didn't quite work but you get the idea. Paul made the drop super big and suggested adding that acid synth at the end to stop it from being too indie-pop. It still really is, though!


Light of the North is out now on Chemikal Underground Records on CD, vinyl and digital. It's available in all good reocrd stores (that'll be your indie ones) and you can also buy it directly from Chemikal Underground using the following link.

Hey Sound!


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Live Dates

14th June - Electric Circus, Edinburgh                
15th June - Insider Olympiad Festival , Aviemore               
24th June - Oran Mor, Glasgow 
(alongside We Were Promised Jetpacks, Aidan Moffat, RM Hubbert and loads more)       
1st July - Kelburn Garden Party, Kelburn Castle               
25th August - Doune The Rabbit Hole Festival, Kilsyth    

Olympic Swimmers - No Flags Will Fly: Track By Track

For those of you who frequent these parts on a regular basis, you may recall that I tipped Olympic Swimmers as being one of my Ones To Watch for 2012. Generally when folk start banging on about how they tipped such and such a band before they were big, it really does piss me off. The reason I mention that I tipped Olympic Swimmers as being a band to look out for this year, was purely because I had been so looking forward to hearing their debut album. Thankfully I wasn't disappointed, as it's a cracking wee record that was well worth the wait. As you I am sure you already know, I try to avoid writing reviews as I don't think I am all that great at them. So what do you do if you think an albums great, but you don't write reviews? Well if you're me, then you just get the band to do all of the hard work for you. Clever eh! In this instance I asked Susie from Olympic Swimmers to talk us through their cracking debut album, No Flags Will Fly, and here's what she had to say...

Father Said  

We quite often finish live sets with it, but on the album it's the opener. This is the oldest song on the album and was on our first single/ep.  My mum has said to me before that she thinks it's odd that there's no word in English for grown-up offspring, they still get called 'my children' regardless of age. I've wondered if that's a reflection of the fact that no matter how a relationship with your child might change over time as they age, a huge part of how a parent sees their child will always remain fundamentally the same. I figure that, that's not an easy process, and that's what this song is about.

Knots  

I like a lot of Iain Crichton Smith and in particular I love his poetry about aging and the passage of time. This is influenced by those and more specifically I was thinking about the importance of memories as we age. We've actually just made a video for this so it should appear sometime soon after the album's out.

Where 

It Snows  Simon put together a video for this in December last year (just as we were finishing mixing the album) using archive footage that he and Graeme chose from the Scottish Screen Archive. Oddly enough out of all the footage they looked at they chose some that had been filmed, in part, in the town that Simon and I grew up in by the grandfather of the person who taught us both piano.

Apples and Pears     

 

This is the only other previously released song on the album and was on our second single/ep. I've heard this shouted at us during gigs on more than one occasion so either folk like it or it's the only name anyone knows. The words are based on someone I met a few years ago and their experiences. I try to think of the song as having two voices - one in the verse and one in the chorus representing two people - one is the person I met and the other is the person who supported them without the usual judgements they received from other people. It's as close to a pop song as we could manage.

Bricks of our Building     

It's based on an account I read of a soldier returning to his home in Clydebank the day after the Clyde blitz in WW2, oblivious of the fact that his home was gone and the majority of his family were dead. The street that Graeme and I live on was hit by some of the bombs that were dropped that night and it's something that we've both read a lot about over the time we've lived there. The story of the soldier really hit a nerve with me and it's probably the most story-telling lyrics I've written. It's the only obvious use of acoustic guitar on the album, although it does creep in subtly in a few other places as well.

Game of the Century     

The lyrics in this are generally about people living on, in a way, within the events they played a part in and personally I thought about my grandfather having been at Dunkirk. Jamie played dulcimer on this and I think it gives it a good level of 'ancient' to accompany a song about history.

In This House     

I wrote the words to this sort of as a sequel in a way to a song we had on our first ep called 'I Won't Sleep', which is about the loss of a child and this is too. At the time when I wrote the words for 'I Won't Sleep' the body of Vicky Hamilton had been found 16 years after she disappeared. I remember really clearly her going missing when I was wee so I followed it really closely when she was found and it was on my mind a lot then so I suppose that's what led to 'I Won't Sleep' and in turn to 'In This House'.

 

Fallen Trees     

This song is about shunning the help of people who care about you. There's a lot of backing oo-ing in this thanks to Jonny, Graeme, Iain (Cook) and our friend Claire Quimby.

Rung Down The Curtain  

Unlike anything else on the album the words and melody for this were written after the majority of the album was already recorded. I only came up with something a few days before I started recording vocals at Iain's studio which meant neither he nor anyone in the band had heard the melody before I recorded it. I'm glad it got salvaged from the scrap pile because it's become my favourite song on the album. About a week before I wrote the words I heard some news about someone I used to know that made me think of them very differently. I suppose this song is a bit of an apology for never seeing what was really going on with them.

Mt Noah  

Lyrically this is about friendship. We tend to always write songs by someone bringing an idea or two to practice and working on it together but unusually for us this was pretty much finished by the time it even made it to a rehearsal. Jenny Reeve, Ruth Campbell and Kev Brolly kindly added strings and woodwind to this track.

No Flags Will Fly is available now from One Up Records in Aberdeen, Avalanche Records in Edinburgh, HMV in Stirling and in Glasgow, you can pick up copies from Monorail and Love Music. The album is also available to buy from Bandcamp, iTunes and a whole host of other download stores.

You can catch Olympic Swimmers playing live this coming Thursday in Inverness at DETOUR's goNorth showcase gig alongside Cleavers, Lady North and DARC. Then on the 24th of June they will be appearing alongside the likes of We Were Promised Jetpacks Aidan Moffat, RM Hubbert and loads more, at this awesome looking gig.

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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.

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* Tony Doogan who produced the album

Human Don't Be Angry - Human Don't Be Angry: Track by track

Regular visitors of the blog should know all too well that I have tended to avoid writing reviews, firstly because I don't think I am all that great at them and secondly because I'm a bit lazy. It's for that reason that I like these Track By Track features, as I get tell you all about an album that I have been really enjoying, whilst leaving the musicians to do all of the hard work (I'm not as daft as I look!).
Which in a round about way brings me to the latest release from the Chemikal Underground stable, Malcolm Middleton's new pseudonym, Human Don't Be Angry. Taking a step away from his previous self deprecating
past, Malcolm's new venture sees him surprisingly veering towards almost sounding upbeat. With song titles such as 'Getting Better (At Feeling Like Shit)' and 'Jaded', Malcolm jokingly plays homage to his perceived miserableness. There are songs on the album that sound like they could be from the coolest 80's film that never was, he recently described HDBA as being 'a facade, a front so I can have fun again musically'. In allowing himself the freedom to go off and explore new ideas, he's come up with one of the finest albums that you are likely to hear all year. Anyway, that's enough of my inane ramblings, I'll pass you over to Malcky to tell you a bit more about the album...

The Missing Plutonium

Probably my favourite song, it started out (like most here) as just two guitar lines, but the drums, percussion and casios give it a really light and fresh feel. It reminds me of the old arcade game Outrun. There was a leisure centre near my High School so a lot of wasted time was spent there, and I guess I soaked up all the noise and lights. I like making instrumental music where you don’t have to worry about leaving room for a voice. You can spend hours making something and going into detail, and then when you sing over the top of it all the tiny details disappear. The title comes from the bit in Back To The Future where the Iranian terrorists are racing around a car park in a camper van trying to find the said “missing plutonium”. This song is also the first single from the album, released on the 2^nd April.

H.D.B.A. Theme

This was always going to be a theme-song of some kind, the chorus hook is crying out for it. Another simple song that’s been bolstered by layers, not much else to it. The robot vocals were a last minute addition that seemed to give it a sense of identity. All the electronic drums were done by Paul Savage playing drum machines with his fingers. I think I spent a lot of time in the studio shouting “make the snare more 80’s!” or something daft like that. “Mensch argere Dich nicht” is the German name for the Frustration boardgame, which roughly translates as Human Don’t Be Angry.

First Person Singular, Present Tense

Drums again by Paul. We always have this weird thing going on where we have different opinions about the timing of a song, or how long a bar is or where the phrase starts. We’ve learnt over the years it’s better not to discuss it too much otherwise it breaks. This is a good example of that. I’d been doing this song live for about a year and it was originally half the length, but it needed to be extended and made more confusing vocally because of the subject matter, which is a bit of a head-fuck when you start getting into it. I’m not sure if this will make sense to people or whither they’ll just think it’s repetitive, random nonsense. So as a thankyou for listening to the first half you get more 80’s drums at the end and a blazing guitar solo! The title comes from the Douglas Harding book “On Having No Head”.

After The Pleasuredome

Yes, obviously a reference to one of my favourite albums of all time by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Just a nice wee “mood” piece, again not much too it. I often wondered what "the lads" got up to after "relaxing" in "the Pleasuredome", so I guess this is my interpretation of that. 

Monologue: River

This was the first HDBA song I wrote. Back in the summer of 2010 Johnny from Fence Records asked me to play their Away Game festival on the Isle Of Eigg. I said only if I can do it under a different name, he said yes, so I went away and thought up a name and wrote some songs and that’s how this whole thing came about. It gave me a good creative burst for a few weeks and much of the album was written then for a small gig on an island. Most of the songs were instrumental but this one and First Person seemed to have space for words. Part of me wishes I’d left the album entirely instrumental as my words tend to detract from the lightness of the overall feel, but maybe it was a good thing, I don’t know. It’s nice to have some personality on the record, even if it is too similar to my previous output lyrically. Although the words here are a bit more random I suppose. I haven’t rowed down any river recently…. The “ohs” at the end are blatantly ripping off Iron Maiden, and the main guitar hook is a wee bit of an homage to Jackson C. Frank. I was initially worried about Aidan’s drums on the end section because it reminded me of the tribal dance scene from The Matrix part 2. I believe my final say on the matter was “ah, fuck it”.

Jaded

A good example of a slow, tender piece of guitar music ripped apart with indifference by Paul Savage’s latent urban beat tendencies. It makes perfect sense though. Aidan Moffat did the live drums here too. And I am very Jaded, so this song is autobiographical.

1985

What a year! The summer was hot, we had Live Aid, great music, I was heavily in love with Madonna and about to start High School, where my childhood would be destroyed and Reality would make its first unwanted appearance on the stage that is "my life". Eh, what? Anyway. I love this song. Arab Strap v’s The Bee Gees.

Asklipiio

Aww… a song about proposing to my wife while on holiday in Rhodes. Yuck. Enrique Iglesias meets Mogwai via Manchester. I’m not sure what that means.

Getting Better (At Feeling Like Shit)

Well I had to ruin it didn’t I? There goes my positive new direction and trying not to have the word “shit” anywhere near my music. Stewart at Chemikal Underground swears that if he’d seen the artwork before it was completed he would’ve forced me to change the song title to just “Getting Better”, and thereby avoid any lazy tags being associated with the album. Ach well. 


  "H.D.B.A. Theme" by Human Don't Be Angry by Chemikal Underground


Human Don't Be Angry is out now on Chemikal Underground Records, on download and CD. Also, if you're quick off the mark you might till be able to pick up a copy of the album on vinyl from your local record store, as it was released on Saturday as part of the Record Store Day celebrations.

You can catch Malcolm playing live on Saturday the 16th of June at King Tut's in Glasgow with support from Martin John Henry.