Elba Sessions

So, we’ve had some ‘database issues’ over the last couple of weeks so we’re declaring January a bust. No blogging in Jan, for various issues. It’s pleasing however that one of these reasons isn’t that there was no good music to listen to, the reasons are another story however, and I’m leaving it at that.

I’d started writing this post in the first week of January and had got to 800 words but now it’s Feb, I’m not going where I was going when I wrote it anymore but I am keeping the title to this post, cos I like it. If you don’t know it, it’s the title of a Willie Nelson song.

I liked the idea that at the start of the year when we are besieged by ‘ones to watch’ lists that we have no idea what’s selling this year. In fact, I hope sad songs and waltzes are selling this year, because those type of songs are fucking great.

That’s all really, we just wanted to say hello, for the new year, assure you that we hadn’t nicked off anywhere and we’ll try and write about better stuff this year. I’ve added some things from Jan that I’ve enjoyed below and we’ll resume normal service over the next week

* Go and download yourself the latest single from Dad Rocks! It’s free to do so.

* Check out new albums from RM Hubbert, Django Django and Chris Devotion & The Expectations

* On that last point Chris Devotion and the Expectations are launching their album tonight at Captain’s Rest in Glasgow. If you’re on the east coast, they will be playing at Henry’s Cellar Bar in Edinburgh on Feb 18th as part of Song, By Toad’s ‘Ides of Toad‘ gigs.

* And finally, whilst mentioning Song, By Toad. His latest Toad Session with Josh T Pearson is available for download/perusal over this direction

The title says it all, we’ve got a few things to mention and tell you about, so look sharp.

You may remember a few months back we talked about a couple of releases from South Coast based Lynched Recordings. We thoroughly enjoyed the Clowns 7″ and you can still pick up a free Masked Eldorados of the Americas track here. Anyhoo, the label has come up trumps with a lovely little EP by Birdengine. Turn your pointers here for a little listen and more importantly to buy the digital or 7″ version.

Closer to home, Olive Grove Records have released details of the forthcoming album by The Moth & The Mirror. ‘Honestly, This World’ will be released on October 10th through the usual good record buying channels.

It’s been a while since we dipped our toes in the promoting waters, nearly a year since our voluntary sabbatical, but news of a return to gigging is imminent, so keep your peepers open for that.

In the past, The Liquid Ship has been our home and hopefully we’ll return one day but alas, The Ship has closed and is undergoing a bit of a refurb. We hear it will open again soon under the name The Roxy 171. You can keep up to date with happenings on their facebook page.

We’ve got a theme going here, so, even closer to home, Elba Studio’s have let us know about a wee autumn deal they are running, should you be looking to get some stuff recorded. I’ll leave it to Stephen, heid honcho at the studio, to tell all…

“Hey folks, we are running an Autumn recording deal of 3 days in The Tracking Room at Elba Studios for £450 (usual price £540) or 2 days in The Tracking Room at Elba Studios and 1 day mixing at Underworld Mixing & Production for £480.”

Sounds like a good deal and it’s a cosy wee studio to work in. We record our podcast s there which brings us on to the final piece of housekeeping.

You can hear September’s podcast with Andrea Marini on the mixcloud player below and look out for October’s podcast with Sparrow & The Workshop who are popping down to Elba tomorrow before their jaunt to Europe.

There’s always plenty to tell but that’ll do us for now. Look out in the next few days though, for a post about the aforementioned gig we’re helping to put on with one of our favourite bands and labels. It’s exciting stuff!

I quite liked that it was appropriate for me to use the title of a Public Enemy track for this post, y’know the song that Anthrax featured on?

Anyway, the title of the post isn’t about rap music, it’s about noisy stuff.

Firstly, we were delighted to see that our friends at Brain Burner, after a brief hiatus, have returned to The Liquid Ship for some more experimental noise gigs. The first in the current run will take place on Aug 14th with a 9pm start. On the bill are Now Wakes The Sea whose ‘lush ambient folk drones’ we gave a live debut to at one of our Elba gigs last year. There’s some free NWTS downloads here if you wish to have a listen. Also in the line-up is Boom Edan, Neil A.Simpson, Falconry and Uzuruzu. These nights are always ‘a little different’ and they’re free so get yourself along to it if you’re stuck for something to do on the 14th! The event page is here.

Keeping on the same lines, we picked up this free download by The Masked Eldorados of the Americas recorded at the School of Noise in Falmouth. Now, that’s the second mention of Falmouth on this blog in the past few weeks, which is a bit strange for a blog based in Glasgow, but we came by this download after a recommendation from Lynch(ed) Records who are based down there. It turns out now that Lynch(ed) have ‘signed’ them up and they’ve got an EP out called If You Are Prepared To Eat It You Can Kill It.

The members of the band have been kept under lock and key with their live performance being performed by two men behind animal masks. Their numbers have now swelled to four and the EP sounds rather different to the live drone improvisation mentioned earlier. What we have on the E.P. is four instrumental ‘pop’ tracks lasting around 3-5 minutes each. It was absolutely not what I expected to sound like but it’s enjoyable listening with riffs and hooks abound. The tracks were all recorded remotely with each member retreating to their own home studio to bash out their parts of the record. It’s a worthy listen from a label who seem to really be putting out a really varying selection of music.

As a footnote, after going on to Lynch(ed) bandcamp I notice that they have the new single from Birdengine coming out at the end of this month. If you aren’t already familiar with Birdengine, we’d recommend you right that wrong.

…are just some of the novelty ways which bands have decided to release their new records over the last couple of months. I’m not sure if anyone has told their label bosses that there’s a dodgy economic climate but fair play to them for injecting some fun into the whole event of releasing a record.

First up we have the now famed 7″ Chocolate Vinyl release from FOUND. There were only 50 copies of this up for grabs so I suspect not many of our readers own one but with the medium of youtube, you can watch Edinburgh band Eagleowl listen to and then eat the record here. I suspect the remaining 49 have gone the same way and been melted down for hot chocolate or something.

Keeping the theme with the edibles is the rather swish looking clear vinyl package from Japanese War Effort. The EP, Surrender to Summer which is out on Edinburgh’s Song, By Toad Records comes equipped with a bag of those lovely sweets that you see on the front cover. You can pick up a copy of the record here, it’s limited to 250 i think.

Rounding up this post on novelty releases is Glasgow’s Mitchell Museum who recently released their new single on a 16-note keyboard. The download code for said single is hidden inside the keyboard so you can either systematically dismantle the keyboard to preserve it or if you feel like smashing the living daylights out of it, get yourself a mallet from the shed, both methods are recommended on the Mitchell Museum website. There’s still a couple of them left here for a fiver.

I received this little gem in the post today courtesy of Falmouth based Lynch(ed) Recordings. It’s the label’s recent release, a 7″ by Brighton band Clowns.

Clowns came together a while ago now and are made up by bits and pieces of Electric Soft Parade, Field Music, Brakes and Garageland. A fairly impressive list really. The A-Side ‘Idiot Bouncing’ is a melodic riff filled three and a half minutes of garage rock which asks ‘Do you wanna bounce?’. Yep, we do actually.

The 7″ comes in a limited run of 250 and you can have a wee listen for yourself and buy it here.

The sun makes things look pretty awesome. I enjoyed just wandering about at lunchtime today enjoying Glasgow bathed in sunshine, looking up at the buildings and blue skies. It looks so much different in the sun. If I am honest though, I like Glasgow in the rain. It somehow suits the place.

I guess in talking about looks, it’s a round-about way of introducing the new design of the Elba Sessions website. We haven’t gone nuts with ‘loads of fab new content’ and a big launch of it wasn’t necessary, or very us, instead, quietly just appearing is our new brown, cream and polka dot theme. We’ve been working at it ourselves, with a little bit of consultancy from friends, you know who you are and we think it looks a lot fresher and clean.

We’ll tidy up some of the pages and get it generally spruced up over the next while but now that the look is in place we can turn our attention to writing about the pile of the things we have heard recently as well as getting some gigs on the go again. Podcasts are a little more sparse at the moment as Elba Studios has been jam-packed with bookings but we’ll let you know as soon as things die down a bit. I’m also going to sort out the blog roll so if there’s anything that you think is worthy of a good read then just holler at us!

The other day we spoke about the Barmellodie gig this Friday night however, if you are looking for some pre-gig, um, gigging, we’d heartily recommend you have a wee visit to The Flying Duck where Jim from Aye Tunes will be celebrating a multitude of birthdays with Verse Metrics, The Big Nowhere and Black International (whose album we also like around here). It’s only 3 bucks to get in and the fun starts at 8pm.

This has been a firm fixture in my browser all week. Get yourself on to it for some burrito goodness and GET INVOLVED!

GLASGOW MEGA BURRITO

Aff to build a burrito!!

This Friday sees the penultimate Barmellodie night in it’s current run at Bloc.

The line up includes Kill The Captains from Sheffield, a pretty formidable act live, expect plenty noise and energy. We caught up with them about a year ago when they released their album and it’s good to see them heading back to Glasgow.

Joining KTC on the bill are Popcorn Fiend, fresh from their EP launch at the Captains Rest last month. They’ve got a song called ‘A Fucking Epiphany’, which is good enough for me!

Also playing on the night are Pensioner, Vendor Defender were due to play but have now decided to call it a day so excuse them from the attached poster. If that wasn’t enough, Jim from Aye Tunes will be spinning Skee Lo on the decks after the bands, it’s free before 11pm and only £2 thereafter which you really can’t argue with!!

11pm Popcorn Fiend
11.45pm Kill The Captains
12:30am Pensioner
1:15 til close Dancing/Fighting/Jim Ayetunes and ArmelloDJ’s.

Randolph’s Leap, after selling out their first EP ‘Battleships & Kettle Chips’, have now released a double A-side single titled ‘Counting Sheep’. It came out today on Olive Grove Records and can be bought from the usual download outlets, links are at the bottom of the page.

To go along with the single release they are having a wee party to celebrate at Mono tomorrow night (17th May). Joining them on the bill are Burnt Island and the brilliant Moth & The Mirror. I had just been thinking recently that I hadn’t seen the Moth & The Mirror’s name about recently so it was good to see them on the lineup!!

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