Just when we’d got the podcasts up on the Elba Sessions website, all shiny and available for download…they went silent. We hadn’t given up on doing them, simply, life gets busy and more importantly, Elba Studios got busy. Indeed, a mixture of work, life and a little bit of play restricted us to blog posting and putting on the Elba Sessions gigs. Thankfully, we cleared space in our diary for one of our favourite new acquaintances.

Not content with just having them along to headline June’s Elba Sessions gig, we thought we’d also drag them into the studio and ask those really probing questions…well, within reason!

So without further ado, here we go, June’s podcast with the fabulous Blue Sky Archives…

Blue Sky Archives June 2010 podcast by elbasessions

Blue Sky Archives EP is available for purchase here

We spent a brilliant 8 hours with Laurence and Johny of King James last Friday (19th Feb) culminating in an effortlessly awesome set at Elba Sessions Presents…at The Liquid Ship. After a gruelling overnight drive from London, looking a little startled, we welcomed them into Elba Studios to have a wee chat and let them play a couple of their songs.

Also, we’re pretty happy that for your comfort and pleasure, this is the first Elba podcast that you can download, so you can always have us handy on your portable music device.

King James Podcast by elbasessions

King James the album will be out soon so keep checking the Lynched Recordings site for further info.

King James
Thirty Pounds of Bone
Diamond Family Archive

I think I speak for us all when I say the sooner we see them back up north the better!

After a wee rest we’re feeling refreshed here at the Elba Sessions and to kick off the year we’ve got a podcast featuring Conor Mason. Recorded last month in between his two Elba gig appearances it features three live tracks from his debut album ‘When It’s Over’. It was a pleasure having Conor over, our first ‘overeas’ podcastee and hopefully it won’t be long until we see him back here, as long as he books a later boat home next time! Also, you will notice that you can listen to the podcast, right here on the blog, for the very first time! Thanks to the recommendations we got!!

Enjoy!

Conor Mason Podast by elbasessions

Martin John Henry

Our podcast for November is now live. Listen to the excellent Martin John Henry here.

Martin joined us at Elba to discuss going solo, upcoming releases (including creating the packaging for his quarterly (‘In Three’s’ project)) and how it is writting on his own.

Martin performs two tracks of his own work (‘The Other Half Of Everything’ & ‘Woodilee Song’) and an acoustic version of ‘Pest’ taken from De Rosa’s 2009 album ‘Prevention’.

‘Prevention’ is a big favourite with all at Elba and worth tracking down for anyone that is yet to pick it up. Also, still available 2006′s debut album ’Mend’.

Martin is currently working on his first solo album, keep updated on release dates and project updates on his myspace.

All northern loons and quines can catch Martin at The Lemon Tree in Aberdeen on the 20th of November as part of an evening with Chemikal Underground records. Also on the bill are the mind blowing Phantom Band, Emma Pollock and Aidan Moffat and The Best Of’s. Sounds like a great night!

There’s been a whole load of stuff happening here at Elba Towers as well as happening everywhere else so I just thought I’d post a wee update…

We’ve been in the studio recording next months podcast with Martin John Henry (ex-De Rosa) and it’s gonna be a goodie. The double bill of October podcasts featuring Andrea Marini and Salon Society are still up on the myspace page for those who haven’t listened yet (note to self; do something about making them downloadable!).

Elba Studios‘ Stephen has been fairly busy in the studio recently whilst also masquerading as a keyboard virtuoso. He’s been practicing with the afore mentioned Salon Society for their album launch this coming FRIDAY (30/10) at Arta. We’ve been told rehearsals are coming on well and it should be a great show!

The second Elba Sessions Presents…evening on November 5th is all sorted and ready to go. We’re feeling super organised this time and still buzzing slightly after the last one! We’ve got a great line-up on the night featuring Julia and The Doogans, John Hinshelwood & Sandra Gellatly and Andrea Marini. It would be great to see some of you down at The Liquid Ship, after all it is a recession busting £0 to get in!

Myself and Chris Elba are off to see Chris T-T at Sleazies this week, really looking forward to it, some good local supports playing as well. Other notable gigs in the next 7 days are Camera Obscura + Emma Pollock at Barrowlands (29/10), Los Campesinos + Copy Haho + Sparky Deathcap at King Tuts and Glasgow PodcART’s big gig at The Classic Grand featuring Esperi, Debutant, Panda Su and Yahweh, who we caught at Sloans last night and were mightily impressed with!

Also, for everyone who likes a good freebie and hasn’t done so already, go here to download some tracks which The Scottish Enlightenment are just giving away!!!

Our Christmas album debate has now had a couple of responses, all bigging up LOW and in Al’s case, posting us a youtube video which is still chilling us to our very core…all very HO HO HO! Join in here…

Night! x

P.S. We have just set up a facebook, if you have one too, just search facebook for Elba Sessions, be a fan!

P.P.S Muller Little Stars Jelly Pots are dynamite!

Elba Sessions - Andrea Marini

Instalment 2 of our October Podcast is now live.

Andrea Marini joined us at Elba to play three stunning live tracks. Andrea opened with a track ‘with no name yet’…(that’s what we like to call yet another Elba exclusive…) before closing with ‘Windmills’ and ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’.

Andrea also shared with us how he works, key influences and reveals how close the album is to completion.

Andrea Marini can be seen live in the coming weeks at our very own Elba Sessions Presents…@ Liquid Ship on 5th November (Free Entry) with John Hinshelwood/Sandra Gellatly & Julia & The Doogans.

Also Live – 25th October – Brunswick Hotel (OXJAM Festival) & 25th November – Captain’s Rest.

Head down to check him out live…and pick up a CD…They’re Free!!!!

Salon Society Poster

Instalment 1 of our October Podcast is now live.

Salon Society joined Elba Sessions to discuss the launch of the new single ‘Preaching The Blues’ (Out Now), their debut album Promenade (Out 30th October), launching a record label….oh and pissing off the pope.

We were joined by Roxanne, Dorothy & Luci from Salon Society and the girls were eager to discuss all the things ‘Salon Society’. For any newcomers to the band you can listen to 3 album tracks (including single ‘Preaching The Blues’) along with details on how the band was formed, the choice behind ‘Preaching The Blues’ as a single and the joys of recording in Elba Studios.

The ‘Promenade’ album launch will take place at 8pm on Friday 30th October 2009 as part of the Glasgay! Festival at ARTA (62 Albion Street, G1 1PA) in the heart of Glasgow’s Merchant City. Tickets (£5) are available at the Q!Gallery (0141 552 7575) or on the door. Special guests for the night are Kochka and Sandra MacBeth.

The album was recorded in Elba Studios and is released 30th October on First Aid Records.

Just a quick update for anyone eagerly awaiting the two podcasts for October. Due to busy schedules by all parties we are launching these a couple of days later than normal on the 5th October.

Our two podcasts involve Salon Society & Andrea Marini.

Salon Society who’s single PREACHING THE BLUES is out on 1st October followed by the album ‘Promenade’ at the end of the month with launch night at Arta on 30th October.

Andrea Marini who will be playing at the Elba Sessions second night at Liquid Ship on 5th November is also playing Oxjam Festival in October and will have news on this and more in the podcast.

So check back for those on the 5th October for the above and in the meantime check out our September podcast with Le Reno Amps who have just finished their UK tour promoting new EP ‘The Stand Off’ and will be headlining the Elba Sessions 8th October night at Liquid Ship.

Laters!!!

Elba Studios have just been awarded the YMI demo fund from the Scottish Arts Council, more news to come on that soon.

September’s Elba podcasters and the busiest band in showbiz, Le Reno Amps, seemingly not content with releasing The Stand Off EP on Monday (21/09/09), have released a follow up to their album Tear It Open with a new compendium of B-Sides, covers and a few remixes, including a remix of The Stand Off by The Cinematics. Inventively titled Torn Open, it is available at their forthcoming shows and from the fantastic Drift Records. A word of warning though, a trip to the Drift shop will inevitably result in bankruptcy with the sheer quality of artists on their roster. Le Reno play a couple of shows in London and Bristol this weekend along with fellow ‘Drifters’ Something Beginning With L and Muddy Suzuki before returning north to play the 13th Note next Thursday (24/09/09) with Super Adventure Club, Peter Parker and the new look Elvis Suicide as part of the Merchant City festival. We’ll be heading along to that and can’t wait!

In other news, we are just about ready to announce full details of the first Elba Sessions @ The Free Candy and we are very excited about the line-up!! Also, I was so happy to read this earlier. Totally rad!

Anyway, off to blast out some Pavement to drown out Coldplay’s racket at Hampden.

The Le Reno Amps Podcast for September is now up and it’s brilliant!!! You can hear it right now on our myspace.

We thought we would give a bit of background since you may have noticed that it’s over two parts. This is down to us having loads of material to use which includes 3 exclusives for Elba.

We eventually got the session down to 30 minutes.

In Part 1 you can hear live performances of All You Gave Me, Golden Futures & You Do Your Thing as well as chat about the new EP, Drift Records and much more.

In Part 2 you can here chat about Le Reno future ventures (4th & 5th album chat) and the sessions finish with a brilliant performance of Long Gone.

Note – All You Gave Me & Long Gone are exclusives that don’t appear on any Le Reno releases; Golden Futures is from The Stand Off EP; You Do Your Thing appears on LRA 3rd album Tear It Open.

Enjoy!!!