avalanche records

TRACKLISTING

1. LITTLE SPARTA
2. TAP O’ LAURISTON
3. TACOMA RADAR
4. IF LOVE DOES THIS?
5. I AM SKELETON
6. TAXI TO THE OCEAN
7. MARKED HEART
8. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEEN
9. FROM THE ARTIC STAR TO THE SOUTHERN BAR
10. THE SAILOR THAT FELL FROM GRACE WITH THE SEA
11. ONE MILLION DAYS IN FIFE
12. FOOT OF THE WALK

“abcdefg…etc…” is just a collection of some letters, and some musical notes, in various combinations…

Rooted in Scotland’s thriving folk/anti-folk scene, this second album from double-bassist and singer/songwriter Emily Scott combines simply elements of folk, back-porch skiffle and old-time music hall, with her trademark quirky word-play and multi-syllabic rhymes.

“abcdefg…etc…” is a glass up to the wall or a tiny fishing-net, gathering insignificant details and just observing them; a chiming clock, an old photograph, a jar of buttons, the sound of the needle on record that’s ended, the morning sun moving across a bed, nothing major, just the really good stuff.

Inspired in part by something Tom Waits once said in an interview, that a good record should be made like a hand-made doll with tinsel for hair, Emily Scott’s DIY ethic plays a major part of the recording process (playing almost everything herself and co-producing), and this extends to the labour of love that is her hand-made packaging, each copy individually cut, folded and rubber-stamped.

Recorded at the fireside of ex-Incredible String Band member Malcolm Le Maistre (and featuring him on banjo), “abcdefg…etc…” is a simply and lovingly crafted work, as if Joni Mitchell meets Noel Coward and they spend the afternoon baking jam tarts…

Tracklisting

1. Downriver
2. Radiator
3. All That Glitters
4. Moving On
5. Eyelet
6. Maybe
7. Don’t You Tease Me
8. Pageant Queen
9. Lazy Falls
10. Duck Out Of Water
11. Static
12. Solitaire

Made possible through support from the Scottish Arts Council, the album has been recorded with cult American producer Kramer (Galaxie 500 / Low / Daniel Johnston).

Good News sees Willson augmenting his regular live band – Neil Pennycook (Meursault), Alun Thomas (The Leg) and Hannah Shepherd – with the voices of local celebrity Bart Owl (eagleowl) and Lone Pigeon/Aliens collaborator Jo Foster

Tracklisting

1. PROVIDENCE
2. CORNFLAKE
3. LOVEIN THE OF ECSTACY
4. JOY
5. NEW DAWN
6. RELIGIOUS SONGS
7. NO CIGARETTES
8. I AM NOTHING
9. HARD ON
10. FOR THE MAUDLIN

Broken Records’ penchant for arena-sized anthems peppered with violin, cello, and accordion caused U.K. music behemoth NME to dub them the “Scottish Arcade Fire”, a notion that holds more than a little weight upon digging into their bigger-than-life 2009 debut, UNTIL THE EARTH BEGINS TO PART.

Like their American counterparts, the band sports an enigmatic front man (Jamie Sutherland)with a voice that is as unhinged as it is passionate (his throaty brogue casts a smoky Tom Waits/Bruce Springsteen-ish pallor to the whole affair), a love for all things orchestral, and an unhealthy obsession with semi-apocalyptic, social melodrama. But while the comparison is apt, the Broken Records have more in common with early, “Big Music” -era Waterboys. Like Mike Scott, Spencer Chamberlain doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, he’s barely holding on to it with his fingertips. He’s looking to connect, and on stand-out cuts like “Nearly Home”, ” Thoughts on a Picture (In a Paper, January 2009)”, and “Slow Parade”, he lands a knockout blow, delivering on an early promise of greatness.

Track Listing

1. Nearly Home
2. If The News Makes You Sad Don’t Watch It
3. Until The Earth Begins To Part
4. Promise, A
5. Thoughts On A Picture (In A Paper January 2009)
6. If Eilert Loevborg Wrote A Song It Would Sound Like This
7. Wolves
8. Ghosts
9. Good Reason, A
10. Slow Parade

Jesus H. Foxx have put together a rhythmic, harmony laden EP with Matter. It’s a perfectly sequenced, nuanced release and after a short self-released run covered in glitter they’ve been nice enough to allow us to give it a full release. To read what I thought about it the first time (ie when it wasn’t on this label, so I could be trusted to tell you the truth) just click here.

1. Oh, Messy Life
2. I’m Half the Man You Were
3. Elegy for the Good Times
4. Trying to Be Good
5. Xa Xa Xa
6. Matter

Low Key Ltd edition EP with a slightly more acoustic angle from the laptop folk debut album. Really beautiful none the less.

1. Nothing Broke
2. Red Candle Bulb
3. Love or Limb
4. William Henry Miller Pt.1
5. William Henry Miller Pt.2

Another album recorded at Chem19 Studios with Paul Savage on production duties, ‘The Cage Was Unlocked All Along’ finds bandits and buried treasure co-existing with tales of TEFL students teaching in Fukuyama; dark ruminations on the coming apocalypse alongside romantic kidnap ballads; a surreal journey that’s as melodically whimsical as it is structurally complex. With the fairytale element heightened further by Peter Diamond’s Hergé meets Henry Darger artwork, Zoey Van Goey’s debut album becomes a work of charming ambition loaded with full-blooded sing-along choruses, understated keyboards, close harmonies and irresistible melodies – all underpinned by various musical ephemera including vintage Super Mario sound effects.

Track Listing

1. The Best Treasure Stays Buried
2. We Don’t Have That Kind Of Bread
3. Sweethearts In Disguise
4. We All Hid In Basements
5. Two White Ghosts
6. Foxtrot Vandals
7. My Persecution Complex
8. Nae Wonder
9. Cotton Covering
10. City Is Exploding

The debut album released through Song By Toad… an amazing eclectic clutch of songs that is hard to describe… just buy it, listen to it and make your own mind up is the best advice

1. Salt, Pt. 1
2. Statues of Strangers
3. The Furnace
4. Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues
5. Salt, Pt. 2
6. The Dirt & the Roots
7. A Few Kind Words
8. A Small Stretch of Land
9. Ampersand After Ampersand
10. Lament For a Teenage Millionaire
11. Oh, Neighbourhood!

Track Listing

1. Colombian Fireworks
2. So The Story Goes
3. Midfield Maestro
4. Guising
5. Off With Their Head
6. I Like The Lights
7. A Kind Of Furnace
8. We Sleep Through The Bombs
9. Headlights
10. We Were A Roman Candle
11. Says Aye
12. Foreign Thought
13. Joined Up Writing

“An eye-opening step forward… Understatedly subtle yet monumentally affecting.” (The Skinny, 4/5)

“eagleowl are the Spacemen 3 of folk.” (Suitcase Orchestra)

Each copy individually wrapped, and includes a free digital download

Tracklisting

1. Sleep the Winter
2. Laughter

1. Reflection Of The Television
2. I Became A Prostitute
3. Seven Years Of Letters
4. Made To Disappear
5. Scissors
6. The Room
7. That Birthday Present
8. Floorboards Under The Bed
9. Interrupted
10. The Neighbours Can’t Breathe
11. At The Burnside

With the majority of tracks mixed and mastered by Iain Cook of Aerogramme, ‘…Killed My Parents And Hit The Road’ encompasses the bands’ bare, unfeigned use of melancholy with rousing, epic intensity, never straying too far from hitting sentimental nerves. Throughout the record, melodies stagger between feedback-laden instrumentals and rich, seemingly effortless acoustic ballads, each accented by Graham’s strong Scottish tones, creating a collection of songs that are as intriguing as they are engulfing. Alongside their own tracks, the band have chosen to cover songs by Joy Division (‘Twenty Four Hours’), Yeah Yeah Yeahs (‘Modern Romance’) and The Smiths (‘Half A Person’), providing greater scope into the tracks’ pensive and wistful subjects, whilst retaining the stirring and engaging qualities of the originals.

The release includes live recordings of four songs from ‘Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters’, their debut album released in 2007. The album was met with extensive critical acclaim; Plan B described it as a “melancholy, beautiful and strong [voice] competing with a near overwhelming, organic tumble of shoe-gaze combining ancient Scottish folk music, frost brittle and cymbal heavy drumming…A dark achievement”, and Rocksound commended as “startling in its perfect execution…even those impervious to the twin titans of melancholy indie-rock, Messrs Middleton and Moffat, are likely to be swept away by its epic embellishment of all known misery”. Though their influences ranging from Van Dyke Parks to Phil Spector, Daniel Johnston, as well as their immediate geography (“the sticks just outside Glasgow”), ‘Fourteen Autumns…’ evokes a more familiar indie canon, from white-noise era Creation Records, to fellow Scots Arab Strap or Mogwai.

The Twilight Sad comprises of James Graham (vocals), Andy MacFarlane, (guitar/accordion/noise), Craig Orzel (bass), and Mark Devine (drums). Hailing from Kilsyth, Scotland, they formed in 2003 and played a couple of early shows at Glasgow’s 13th Note, during which half hour pieces of music would be created utilising guitars, drums, bass, theremin, tape loops from films and old folk and country songs, toy keyboards, effects pedals, thumb pianos, computer games and various other ephemera. They then withdrew to the studio to refine their sound, rejecting any live shows offered, and evolved into a more traditional outift, concentrating more heavily on emotive, eloquent song, whilst retaining their adventurous fascination with sound.

Track List
Walking For Two Hours That Summer,
At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy
Untitled #28
Cold Days From The Birdhouse
And She Would Darken The Memory
Twenty Four Hours
The Wealther Is Bad
Half A Person
Untitled #27
Modern Romance
I Was Hoping Winter Was Over

Track Listings

1. Cold Days From The Birdhouse
2. That Summer At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy
3. Walking For Two Hours
4. Last Year’s Rain Didn’t Fall Quite So Hard
5. Talking Wwith Fireworks / Here It Never Snowed
6. Mapped By What Surrounded Them
7. And She Would Darken The Memory
8. I’m Taking The Train Home
9. Fourteen Autumns Aand Fifteen Winters

Featuring an outstanding line up of mainly Edinburgh local bands, but peppered with some top notch talent from across Scotland. All proceeds go to the shop’s charity of Street Invest who help children on the streets of Africa and the Sick Kids Edinburgh.

Track listing

1. There Will Be Fireworks – In Excelsis Deo
2. The Savings & Loan – Christmastime in the Mountains
3. Rob St John – December & Whisky
4. Frightened Rabbit – It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop
5. Pictish Trail – But Once a Year
6. Eagleowl – Sleep the Winter
7. Withered Hand – It’s a Wonderful Lie
8. Meursault – Christmas in Kirkcaldy
9. Emily Scott – Holy
10. Money Can’t Buy music – Atoms
11. Saint Jude’s Infirmary – Xmas in New York
12. Broken Records – All So Tired
13. Ballboy – Shallow Footprints in the Snow
14. X-Lion Tamer – Little Drum Machine Boy
15. Zoey Van Goey – In Scotland it Never Snowed, In Canada it Did

Emerging from Glasgow in 2006, indie-rock quartet Frightened Rabbit follow their debut LP ‘Sings The Greys’ (a collection of demo recordings) with ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’. There is already a marked progression from the scratchier, noisier early recordings to this release, an altogether more polished affair with stronger instrumentation and more accomplished production. The lyrical themes, though, belie the directpop nature of the music, often containing challenging, sordid and emotionally-wrought intimations. ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’ contains the single ‘Head Rolls Off’, partly a reflection on the power of religion as propaganda.

1. Modern Leper
2. I Feel Better
3. Good Arms Vs Bad Arms
4. Fast Blood
5. Old Old Fashioned
6. Twist
7. Bright Pink Bookmark
8. Heads Roll Off
9. My Backwards Walk
10. Keep Yourself Warm
11. Extrasupervery
12. Poke
13. Floating In The Forth
14. Who’d You Kill Now

1. The Howling
2. Burial Sounds
3. Folk Song Oblivion
4. Crocodile
5. Halfhound
6. Left Hand Wave
7. Island
8. Throwing Bones
9. The Whole Is On My Side

SECRET SOUNDZ Vol.1 is a diverse collection of ten lo-fi pieces that are, at times, a bit homeboy electronic, often a lil’ folky, and a wee bit pop too. Zippy instrumentals snuggle up next to stripped back acoustic ditties, which in turn tickle-the-fancy of proto-electro pop songs. Subject matter is similarly assorted – there’s the story of a psychopathic killer lighthouse-keeper (‘The Lighthouse’), a closed-curtain house-warming gone wrong (‘Winter Home Disco’) and, er, a track composed of snippets of a Reginald Perrin novel being read out aloud (‘Secret Sound #1’)!

What connects these disparate styles and themes are the manner in which they are produced – the focus very much on capturing an immediate performance as opposed to an over-rehearsed one. Most of the album was recorded by PT himself, on his 8-track recorder at his home in Cellardyke, Anstruther – using whatever came to hand … just a tambourine, a few guitars, bass, drum machine, keyboard and voice. Listen closely and you can hear the swoosh of the number 26 bus whizz past the window, muffled voices of people outside, and the creaking of household pipes.

Not all of the tracks are Fife-based creations, however. Three songs from the album were recorded with Manchester-based collective The Earlies (who collaborated with King Creosote on 2005’s KC Rules OK), over the course of a one day session at their studio in Chorlton. ‘I Don’t Know Where To Begin’, ‘Ribbon (The Twist)’, and ‘Into The Smoke’ are the fruits of this highly-productive day’s labour, and add flute, accordion, double bass, cello, drums, all kinds of percussion, piano, weird synth and the voices of Sara Lowes and King Creosote to the mix. As with the home recordings, emphasis was placed on spontaneity – with the first take more often than not being the final one.

1. Secret Sound #2
2. All I Own
3. I Don’t Know Where To Begin
4. Secret Sound #1
5. Words Fail Me Now
6. Ribbon
7. Winter Home Disco
8. The Lighthouse
9. Into The Smoke
10. Secret Sound #5

Originally formed in 1979, TV21 released a string of singles and one album, A Thin Red Line. During that time they toured extensively, both in their own right and as support to bands such as The Skids, The Jam, The Moondogs and The Undertones. But by May 1982 the band had grown frustrated at their inability to break through to the next level and decided to quit while they were ahead, immediately after coming offstage supporting The Rolling Stones at Edinburgh Playhouse. And that was the end of that, until October 2005, when out of the blue, they agreed to perform as part of the John Peel Day gigs organised around the country to mark the anniversary of the DJ’s death.

Peel had been a huge influence on the band and it seemed entirely appropriate to get together for the event. The gig, at Edinburgh’s Citrus Club, was an unqualified success, if a little rough at the edges, though that was hardly surprising after twenty three years, the introduction of a new drummer and only two rehearsals! Most surprising for the three original band members was simply how much they enjoyed playing again. So, now they’re back and enjoying it more and more.

Tracklisting
1.Scunnered
2.One Day In Summertime
3.When Cole Was King
4.Forever 22
5.How Did You Get It So Wrong
6.Look To The Sun
7.Last Man Standing
8.In Another World
9.Too Late For Me Now
10.Through Different Eyes<
11.On The Run

Bonus Tracks
12.Swimming
13.Best Day Of The Year
14.Time And Again
15.Something’s Wrong
16.Snakes And Ladders
17.End Of A Dream
18.It’s Me
19.Shattered By It All

September saw the much anticipated first fruits of the collaboration between Malcolm Ross, the elder statesman of Postcard pop (Josef K/Orange Juice/Aztec Camera) and The Low Miffs, Glasgow’s young pretenders to the Post-Punk/Pure Pop throne.

Bristling with the kind of effervescent guitar-play you’d expect from a Postcard veteran, the single The Man Who Took on Love flits effortlessly from its Television-esque intro and explodes into the self-same virtuoso territory once occupied by both Sparks and The Associates, with an appreciative vocal nod in the direction of both Bowie and Scott Walker.

Ambitious? Yes, but in possessing an almost indecent array of collective musical dexterity, they carry it off with great aplomb! This is only one facet of The Low Miffs and Malcolm Ross, but gives some indication of what to expect from the stylistic diversity flaunted on the forthcoming, one-off, album.

The album is currently Vic Galloway’s ‘album of the month’ for August on his BBC Radio 1 show, whilst the single is picking up plays on Marc Riley’s BBC 6 Music, and Jim Gellatly’s BBC Scotland show, plus his online show at Radio Magnetic.Com.

“For those who’ve whiled away nanoseconds pondering just how Scott Walker and David Bowie might have sounded had they formed a surf guitar band, The Low Miffs and erstwhile Josef K guitarist Malcom Ross have the answer.” The Skinny

“Featuring some quite brilliantly controlled playing weaving lovely patterns around singing that is part Associates, part Sparks, this is sonic sunshine to light up the darkest room.” – Scotland on Sunday

1. Cressida
2. Kind Of Keen
3. Back Of Midnight
4. Dear Josephine
5. Scarface
6. The Man Who Took On Love (And Won)
7. Mankind
8. As Good As It Gets

‘My Maudlin Career’ is the fourth studio album from Camera Obscura. Enlisting the help of producer JariHaapalainen (The Concretes, Ed Harcourt) who produced 2006′s ‘Let’s Get Out Of This Country’, the album sees the band continue with their unique Spectoresque indie-pop topped withTracyanne Campbell’s sweet Glaswegian vocals.

1. French Navy
2. The Sweetest Thing
3. You Told A Lie
4. Away With Murder
5. Swans
6. James
7. Careless Love
8. My Maudlin Career
9. Forests And Sands
10. Other Towns And Cities
11. Honey In The Sun

THE SCARS epitomise the post-punk new seriousness that has radically re-activated pop music, destroying the dichotomy between intelligence and emotion and confronting a whole range of different fears and desires. New pop that treats the transient thrill seriously. New pop, the matter-realism that is today’s heroic retaliation, has imagination and conviction. It screams to the outer limits, dreams to the inner limits, its themes are maudlin and magnificent and the effect is both ephemeral and complicated. Scars’ challenge-pop is dominated by sexy and dazzling Paul Research guitars : a subtle fury. Characterised by young and self-absorbed Rob King vocals : based on dreams. Balanced by curling John Mackie bass and lifting Steve McLaughlin drums: underdone disco, a good and evil duet. Producer Robert Blamire on a debut ride that is simply exceptional. Melodramatic arrangements are set in bristling, balmy space, on an edge between solemnity and sensuality, with the focus U2 didn’t get on ‘Boy’, that Penetration almost got on ‘Moving Targets’. At their most impressive – ‘Leave Me in the Autumn’. ‘Obsessions’, ‘All About You’ – The Scars decorate/deprecate melancholy mood music with trickling pop impudence. A listener can never settle, never escape the underlying struggle. The tension comes from the balance between the innocent and the sardonic, between delicate impulses and hard-headed concentration. LPs are not the place for pop music, yet The Scars have created something worth consuming and contemplating. It’s only one of two long players released this year on pop labels that I’d seriously suggest you pay up and pay attention to. Ten songs of first class fashion and post-adolescent passion. The Scars will be stars: they’re the new craze. The stage is theirs. Applause! Applause! –Paul Morley, NME 1981

1. Leave Me In Autumn
2. Fear Of The Dark
3. Aquarama
4. David
5. Obsessions
6. Everywhere I Go
7. Lady In The Car With Glasses On And A Gun
8. Je T’Aime C’Est La Morte
9. Your Attention Please
10. All About You
11. Silver Dream Machine
12. She’s Alive
13. All About You (single version)
14. Author! Author!
15. Love Song
16. Psychomodo
17. They Came And Took Her
18. Romance by Mail

Some of the artists on the LP went on to churn out rather substantial bodies of work: Talulah Gosh with Sarah Records, BMX Bandits with Creation Records. But for many of the featured groups, the output wasn’t so substantial. Take The Groovy Little Numbers, for example. The band released just two singles during its lifespan, both for 53rd & 3rd: “You Make My Head Explode” in 1987 and “Happy Like Yesterday” one year later. The latter track is featured on the aforementioned compilation and calls to mind contemporaries such as The June Brides, who deftly blended sunny horn sections with cheery guitar parts.

The Groovy Little Numbers were part of the incestuous Bellshill scene and featured notable musicians like Jim McCulloch (one-time member of BMX Bandits and later, The Soup Dragons) and Joe McAlinden (another one-time member of BMX Bandits, as well as an arranger and sideman for Teenage Fanclub).

Track Listing

01 THE VASELINES / MOLLY’S LIPS
02 SHOP ASSISTANTS / SOMEWHERE IN CHINA
03 TALULAH GOSH / TESTCARD GIRL
04 BMX BANDITS / THE DAY BEFORE TOMORROW
05 THE GROOVY LITTLE NUMBERS / HAPPY LIKE YESTERDAY
06 HOUSEHUNTERS / COOLER THAN THOU
07 THE BOY HAIRDRESSERS / GOLDEN SHOWERS
08 THE VASELINES / JESUS DON’T WANT ME FOR A SUNBEAM
09 TALULAH GOSH / BRINGING UP BABY
10 CHIN CHIN / STOP YOUR CRYIN’
11 BMX BANDITS / IN HER HAIR
12 THE GROOVY LITTLE NUMBERS / WINDY
13 HOUSEHUNTERS / I AM A MOLE
14 TALULAH GOSH / BEATNIK BOY
15 THE VASELINES / SEX SUX (AMEN)

1 Pop Your Top
2 Can
3 Telepod Fly
4 Eyes That Shine
5 Dark Sensation
6 Dead Pictures
7 Snapper And The Ocean
8 What Are You Thinking
9 Hot Sun
10 I Don’t Know
11 Emmanuelle
12 Dry Spot
13 Rain

Soon signing to Pastels frontman Stephan Pastel’s newly formed 53rd and 3rd label, the Vaselines’ first-ever studio session yielded their debut single, 1987′s fantastic “Son of a Gun.” The follow-up, “Dying for It,” appeared a year later, with the inclusion of viola player Sophie Pragnell plainly acknowledging the band’s debt to the Velvet Underground.

01 SON OF A GUN
02 RORY RIDE ME RAW
03 YOU THINK YOU’RE A MAN
04 DYING FOR IT
05 MORRY’S LIPS
06 TEENAGE SUPERSTAR
07 JESUS WANTS ME FOR A SUNBEAM
08 LET’S GET UGLY
09 SEX SUX
10 DUM DUM
11 OLIVER TWISTED
12 MONSTAR PUSSY
13 THE DAY I WAS A HORSE
14 BITCH
15 SLUSHY
16 NO HOPE
17 HAIRY
18 DYING FOR IT(BLUES VERSION)
19 LOVE CRAFT

Tracklisting:

1 Grand Hotel
2 Good Bye Misery
3 Her Eyes Closed
4 Heaven And A Higher Place
5 Love Loves To Love Me
6 She Falls From Me

1 Hold Me Now
2 Bury Me Deep
3 Stand Up
4 Eight-Lane Freeway
5 Deliverance
6 Eden

Tracklisting:

1. Here It Comes
2. Too Much Adrenalin

1. I’d Rather Be With You
2. Look Out

Tracklisting:

1. Big E Power
2. She Said

1. One More Time
2. Big E Power (Live)

Frightened Rabbit’s success speaks for itself. Having already
released a primer single ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ from
‘The Winter of Mixed Drinks’ album, the band have performed on
the BBC’s Culture Show, tour dates with Modest Mouse, highprofile
radio plays, TV appearances, print and online press, a
nomination for the Spirit of Scotland Award; a televised
performance for the Royal Variety Show and a secret,
unannounced show at London’s Lexington.

Track listing
1. Things
2. Swim Until You Can’t See Land
3. Loneliness And The Scream, The
4. Wrestle, The
5. Skip The Youth
6. Nothing Like You
7. Man/Bag Of Sand
8. FootShooter
9. Not Miserable
10. Living In Colour
11. Yes I Would

Number of CDs: 1
Recording type: Studio
Distributor: PIAS UK/Sony DADC

Frightened Rabbit’s success speaks for itself. Having already
released a primer single ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ from
‘The Winter of Mixed Drinks’ album, the band have performed on
the BBC’s Culture Show, tour dates with Modest Mouse, highprofile
radio plays, TV appearances, print and online press, a
nomination for the Spirit of Scotland Award; a televised
performance for the Royal Variety Show and a secret,
unannounced show at London’s Lexington.

Track listing
1. Things
2. Swim Until You Can’t See Land
3. Loneliness And The Scream, The
4. Wrestle, The
5. Skip The Youth
6. Nothing Like You
7. Man/Bag Of Sand
8. FootShooter
9. Not Miserable
10. Living In Colour
11. Yes I Would

The Unwinding Hours self-titled debut will be released on February 15th, 2010. The Unwinding Hours is the new musical project from Craig B and Iain Cook, former members of Glasgow’s critically acclaimed and much-loved Aereogramme. Their debut self-titled album is an intensely rewarding experience with the literate flair of the song-writing effortlessly matched by Craig and Iain’s musical ambition & creative scope. Avid cineastes, The Unwinding Hours acknowledge the influence of film on their work by taking their name from a reference buried deep within Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”

Track listing
1. Knut
2. Tightrope
3. Little One
4. There Are Worse Things Than Being Alone
5. Solstice
6. Peaceful Liquid Shell
7. Child
8. Traces
9. Annie Jane
10. Final Hour, The

Details
Number of CDs: 1
Recording type: Studio
Distributor: PIAS UK/Sony DADC

Emma Pollock returns to Chemikal
Underground, the label she co-founded with
The Delgados in 1995, with a follow up to
2007’s album ‘Watch The Fireworks’

A darker, more intense album than her debut,
‘The Law Of Large Numbers’ has been seen
by many publications as a considerable leap
forward from her solo debut

TRACKLISTING

Hug The Piano (AND)
Hug The Harbour
I Could Be A Saint
Red Orange Green
Nine Lives
House On The Hill
Letter To Strangers
The Loop
Confessions
The Child In Me
Chemistry Will Find Me
Hug The Piano (OR)

1. Bridge Or Cloud?
2. A Rumour In Africa
3. Supertribe
4. Antipode
5. The Erskine Bridge
6. Sorry About The Mess
7. Germany
8. Jolomo
9. The Black Tent
10. Beards

Track Listing:

We will all asphyxiate,
Beautifulgirlssunnyledges,
Thunder + Lightning,
Slow Days,
After we were drunk,
but before we were dead,
Morphine,
The Ghosts,
Love will break your heart,
Holidays are here to help you,
Secret Plans and Clever Tricks.

Track Listing:
Love will break your heart,
The Song of Oblivion,
The Song of Bob’s Cock,
The Hangover Song,
Japanese Rope Bondage,
There are only inches between us, but there might as well be mountains and trees,
When the sun broke over the playing fields at last,
No Ball Games,
Old Town,
I wrote this song on Garageband (Boy).

Following an unexpected reunion on Edinburgh’s Princes Street in 2005, the two former primary school pugilists decided to forget the unsavoury incident and to begin making music together. They have since gathered members from places as diverse as Crieff, New York and Alberta.

Currently a six-piece band, they make music on a variety of instruments and record anywhere they can, including loch-side cottages, friends’ box rooms and church attics.

Track Listing:

1. All That We Need
2. Open Road
3. Fleeting Moments
4. Colours Of The Day
5. Follow Me
6. Where All The Paths Lead
7. Home
8. One Step Behind
9. Pride Of Place
10. Believing Man
11. Morning Song

TRACKLIST
1. PLAYING WITH FIRE
2. SHATTERED BY IT ALL
3. AMBITION
4. TICKING AWAY
5. THIS IS ZERO
6. ON THE RUN
7. END OF A DREAM
8. SNAKES AND LADDERS
A THIN RED LINE ALBUM 1981
9. WAITING FOR THE DROP
10. IDEAL WAY OF LIFE
11. THIS IS ZERO
12. TICKING AWAY
13. IT FEELS LIKE IT’S STARTING TO RAIN
14. SOMETHING’S WRONG
15. WHAT’S GOING ON
16. WHEN I SCREAM
17. TOMORROW
18. ATTENTION SPAN
19. ALL JOIN HANDS

Tracklisting:
Maff
Golden Tomorrow
27 Russian Friends
Masick’s Blues

1. HIP HOP HOT POT POT NOODLE
2. PICK UP STICKS
3. SAC ATTACK
4. SHEILA’S STABALISER WHEELS
5. NOSFERATU
6. MY OTHER BRAIN
7. THINK LIKE A FISH
8. POINTLESS SELF-INDULGENCE

Tracklisting:

1. Voices
2. To my ears
3. Cambridge County
4. Bring your trouble to the mountain
5. Desparate man
6. Treehouse
7. When you punished me
8. To your darkness
9. Hide & Seek
10. Another man’s wife
11. Down I go
12. Wishing well

Tracklisting:

1. The man I love
2. beggar to fall
3. golden girl
4. bored little rosie
5. running song
6. hand-me-down
7. the beatles
8. not what it was
9. your close friend
10. goddess of love
11. waltzing
12. at the outpost

‘Home and the Wildhunt’ set to be released on Electric Honey (Belle and Sebastian, Snow Patrol, Biffy Clyro) on April 5, 2010 is a reference to the medieval Germano-Celtic legend of ‘The Wild Hunt’. A phantasmal group of huntsmen, often led by the god Wodan, would appear in the sky replete with horses and hounds. The hunters may have been dead souls or faeries and the hunt was thought to presage catastrophe. In the Peterborough Chronicle of 1132, an anonymous monk testifies to the appearance of the hunt: Then soon afterwards many people saw and heard many hunters hunting. The hunters were big and black and terrible, and their hounds were all black and wide-eyed and loathsome, and they rode on black horses and black goats Lead single from the album, ‘Draw a Line’ has already garnered nationwide radio support from such luminaries as Gideon Coe, Vic Galloway, Steve Lamacq, Marc Riley and Radcliffe & Maconie, and the album’s release will be supported with an extensive UK tour. Woodenbox with a fistful of fivers are Ali Downer on vocals, guitar, piano and harmonica, Nick Dudman on drums and vocals, Fraser McKirdy on bass, organs and vocals, Jordan Croan on electric guitar and vocals, Phil Cardwell on trumpet, and Sam Evans on sax.

Tracklisting

1. Intro
2. Life From Above
3. Twisted Mile
4. Fistful Of Fivers
5. Draw A Line
6. Immigrant
7. Letting Go
8. Besides The Point
9. The Nothing To Nobody
10. Hang The Noose
11. Heart Attack
12. My Mule

Three years ago Pearl was just another music-loving shopgirl (Woolworths) and student (primary school teacher). She was classically trained (on woodwind) and could bash out a tune (on piano). But she’d never so much as picked up a guitar.

Then, aged 19, she bought a guitar. She taught herself how to play it and quickly wrote some songs. Within a matter of months she’d set up a myspace and posted four demos. Within a week, the first record label contacted her.

Pearl spent much of 2009 developing herself: she gigged, she wrote, she gigged some more. Having recruited a band and taken the name Pearl and the Puppets, and now in 2010 releases her first EP, Because I Do on 10th May.

Pearl’s music draws influence from the likes of Regina Spektor and Feist, but also from every day observations about life and her effervescent melodies have seen her music already find its way onto advert soundtracks all over the world, even if you may not have heard of her just yet.

Tracks

Because I Do
Girlfriend
Mango Tree
Lower Ground

But Zach is a different species to his bro. If it’s a safe bet both appreciate Neil Young, then Zach reflects the skeletal, wrought folk-blues of On The Beach rather than Josh’s After The Goldrush influence. And if there are occasional lonesome-pine moods that echo Fleet Foxes, then Zach is much more Hank Williams that the Foxes’ Brian Wilson inspiration. But what about ‘Navy Blues’, with its haunting Mariachi sway, that uncannily suggests the swelling pride of a wedding and the melancholy remorse of a funeral? Other times, the ghost of Big Star’s deadbeat classic Third/Sisters Lovers floats up, or even primitive rock’n’roll classicism. The clear, ringing double vocals of ‘Oh, What A Time’ are pure Everly Brothers – no surprise to know it’s Zach and John together.

On his part, Zach says his musical origins can be found in a great love for Pavement’s Slanted And Enchanted (“for its seemingly incongruous mix of punk beats and brilliant poetry”), which steered him toward the Velvets and Neutral Milk Hotel, among others. After high school, he later purchased a Casio keyboard, sang songs into his laptop and sometimes added scratchy acoustic guitar. But after becoming “junior songwriter,” at what Zach labels, “local deadbeat record label” Barsuk, Zach enlisted Josh [drums], Joe [bass] and Colin [guitar] for recording, and played concerts supporting Josh around Europe and America, while finding time to pluck bass in a few friends’ projects.

For a “junior songwriter,” Pearly Gate Music seems amazingly mature. Starting with ‘Golden Funeral’, the most spellbinding intro you’re likely to hear this year, with hushed, distant, hymnal chords and trickles of rain sounding like they’re suspended in mid-air. Just perfect for Zach’s opening words: “When you turn your friends into lovers / and your lovers, they are all gone / so you bite down hard, a bitter bullet / and you ask them back”.

“‘Golden Funeral’ is the album’s flagship song,” says Zach. “I meant it, lyrically, as a benediction, and the production turned out perfectly. I wish the whole thing was that hissy.”

Track listing
1. Golden Funeral
2. Big Escape
3. Navy Blues
4. Oh What A Time
5. I Woke Up
6. Gossamer Hair
7. I Was A River
8. Bad Nostalgia
9. Rejoice

1. Payday
2. Crank Resolutions
3. All Creatures Will Make Merry
4. Weather
5. One Day This’ll All Be Fields
6. What You Don’t Have
7. Another
8. New Ruin
9. Sleet
10. Song for Martin Kippenberger
11. A Fair Exchange

On August 3, 2010, The Burns Unit releases their anticipated debut, “Side Show” through Proper Distribution in the UK. Produced by the band’s drummer Mattie Foulds, “Side Show” was mixed with Paul Savage (Franz Ferdinand) and mastered by Jon Astley (The Who, ABBA, Norah Jones).

“Side Show” is an exhilarating, theatrical and intimate album. Featuring no less than 6 lead vocalists, “Side Show” is surprisingly cohesive and emotionally resonant. Incorporating elements of indie-rock, cabaret, dub, synth-pop, and folk, the 10 songs on “Side Show” are both anthemic and organic, and walk the line from dark to playful and back again.

“We may be the world’s first accidental big band’, laughs Johnston. Formed out of a one-week songwriting retreat – called “Burnsong” – held in rural Scotland in December 2006 (that also included Squeeze’s Chris Difford), each musician arrived with virtually no connections to or knowledge of one another. “Together, we’re such a mish-mash of personalities and styles”, says Johnston, “we had no right to have gotten along as well as we did, let alone form a band and make an album. We often joke that we’re the band nobody asked to be a member of.”

With all 10 songs co-written by at least 2 members of the band, the collaborative sound on “Side Show” is furthered by interweaving vocal parts (Kim Edgar and Karine Polwart’s mesmerizing chant on “Send Them Kids To War” underscoring Soom T’s urgent lead vocal); several duets (like the spellbinding opening track “Since We’ve Fallen Out”, featuring King Creosote and Polwart, and the Jacques Brel-esque “You Need Me To Need This” delivered by Emma Pollock and Michael Johnston); hypnotic instrumentation (the heavy drum & bass groove of “Future Pilot AKC”) and – most interestingly – each member stepping out of their more familiar styles as solo artists.

The unique and bold sound of “Side Show” includes retro synths, accordion, shruti box and tamboura along with guitars, piano, drums and bass.

1. Since We’ve Fallen Out
2. Trouble
3. Send Them Kids To War
4. Future Pilot A.K.C.
5. Blood, Ice And Ashes
6. Sorrys
7. You Need Me To Need This
8. Majesty Of Decay
9. What Is Life?
10. Helpless To Turn

After re-locating to Edinburgh they have performed at a number of festivals including The Wickerman Festival, The Fence Homegame (for the last three years), goNorth, Manchester’s ‘In The City’ and Glasgow’s ‘La Fete de la Musique’ – as well as gathering airplay on Vic Galloway’s BBC Scotland and Radio 1 Shows, Rob Da Bank and Steve Lamacq’s BBC Radio 1 shows and Jim Gellatly’s XFM and BBC Radio Scotland Shows.

Tracks

1. Good Morning
2. You Only Went Out To Get Drunk Last Night
3. Left and Right
4. Cursing Your Apples
5. Smash Hits
6. Quiet Things Are Quiet Now
7. And Another Thing!!
8. On Occasion
9. Talk and Talk
10. Couldn’t Dance
11. Her Hair Hangs Down
12. Good Morning (Reprise)

Read more: http://www.myspace.com/kidcanaveral#ixzz0wIWc6OzY

1. How Do You Do…
2. We Were Like Strangers Today
3. And in Real Life He Wears Corduroy Pants
4. Breaking Up With My Mormon Missionaries
5. You Should Really Get Yours
6. Prelude to a Shark Attack
7. Memoirs of a Martyr
8. Thanks for Sharing
9. Damaged Goods

TRACKLISTING

1. Dogs, Boys & Men 2. Sonny, You’ll Never Get That Ride 3. You Belong To No One 4. Radar 5. Sold Down The River 6. There Is A Hole In The Middle Of The Sea… 7. Count Your Feet 8. George & Harm 9. Soheyo 10. Pinholes 11. Mars Just Plied Her With Gin

Track Listings
1. Maschine
2. Wasp
3. Wildthings
4. Flinch
5. Cheer
6. Bear
7. Crawl
8. Tracer
9. Neanderthal
10. Giant
11. Ira

01. Swallows
02. Lit Out
03. The Virgin’s Lullaby
04. Catholic Boys in the Rain
05. Pale Water
06. The Star of the County Down
07. Met (a Storm)
08. Her Window
09. A Pleasing Companion

The sound and feel of the songs embodies a bygone era from the days when albums were recorded in an open and honest way with few effects or overdubs and relied more on heartfelt performances.
Ryan’s deep bass tones and almost talking style combined with lo-fi arrangements give the band a depth, a history.
Guests and friends who featured on the album include Kirsten Adamson from The Gillyflowers and Riley Briggs of Aberfeldy.
The debut CD was recorded and mixed in Aberfeldy in Craig Milton’s studio at Dunvarlich. It was mastered in Skye and pressed elsewhere, then all the hand printing and cover assembly was carried out at the Temple Studios in Aberfeldy where it is available for £10.
Lauren Laverne on BBC6 has plugged the CD and novelist Ian Rankin has described it as ‘Gorgeous, hazy, quirky Americana…’

1. Claire
2. Somewhere To Jump From
3. Malcolm
4. Mean Ol Misery
5. If I Were A Joiner
6. Turn The Record Over
7. In Denial
8. Lisa-Marie
9. Talk Me Around
10. Wendy
11. Play The Music Loud
12. California, West Lothian