I Cannot Sing You Here But For Songs Of Where

Album of the Week: Thirty Pounds of Bone – I Cannot Sing You Here But For Songs Of Where

Thirty Pounds of Bone (a.k.a Germany-based native Scot Johny Lamb) released the heartbreaking Method in 2010, an alcohol-fuelled trip through troubled times that couldn’t fail to move even the most casual listener.

The rather more verbosely-titled I Cannot Sing You Here But For Songs Of Where covers similar territory. From the sound of lapping water and rhythmic handclaps, and the first breath of Lamb’s overtly Scots tones, this parks intself in the same spot as Method.

While not as traditional as Alasdair Roberts, Lamb’s sound is squarely based in old fashioned folk and sea shanties. Opener Veesik for the Broch sounds EXACTLY like you think it will. You’ll picture yourself looking out over a bleak, forlorn bay, with maybe only a fishing boat in the distant and a few mean-spirited sea birds for company.

This isn’t just one-man-and-his-guitar stuff though. An impressive guest list includes Hefner’s Darren Hayman plus Armellodie alumni Le Reno Amps and Jen Macro of Something Beginning With L. And sure enough, in amongst the banjo on The Truth of the Matter are subtle tape hiss sounds suggesting that this ain’t just an ordinary lament; and sure enough it bursts into life with a huge chorus and massive guitars. It’s bloody brilliant.

Meursault have managed to successfully combine traditional instruments with a massive stack of effects pedals and some of their older work is a useful reference point for I Cannot Sing You Here. So too is the minimalist wind arrangements of the seminal Creosote and Hopkins Diamond Mine collaboration. Helen’s House might be about the best example of where this works – contemporary yet olde worlde all at the same time.

Lamb spends most of his time in Germany, which is a shame for Scottish live audiences. This kind of stuff would be lapped up by his home crowds. Maybe we need to work on getting him back more often. Or maybe not. Crying through a rendition of Mother This Land Won’t Hold Me might be a bit embarrassing.

How do you feel your sound has moved on since ‘Method’?

I’m not sure really, I think these two records are close relations. This new one is trying to close the suitcase of trouble that ‘Method’ opened. That being said, ‘Method’ was made very quickly, and this new one was made very slowly. I became obsessed by the idea that production and recording were part of the composition. Everything carries meaning in that way, and I had the space to be thorough with that. ‘Method’ was made in a room, but with the new album, if a song was about a place, I went there and recorded it, and played there. If an instrument needed to sound broken, I broke it. There is nothing on this record that is an accident. It’s still shoddy and stuff, I don’t edit things, ever. Everything is a complete take, but if it’s a bit wrong, I spent three years getting the right kind of wrong. But once a record is made, it belongs to others, and that labour doesn’t matter anymore. People either like it or not. I don’t think either, that spending a long time on something necessarily makes it better than something done really fast, it’s just these songs had to be that way. Hopefully its an improvement on ‘Method’ though, I’d hate to think I was getting worse….

How did you end up working with the guests on the album?

Easy, they are all friends and I asked them. They do the things that I’m not able to. Jen has about the cleanest voice ever, it’s quite something and her singing just sits exactly where it’s needed. Gris and Stacey play the fiddles because I can’t, likewise with Laurence and Seamus, who I have done other projects with. I play a lot with Laurence and Seamus and I made a piece for the international Samuel Beckett festival last summer. I can’t get my head around diatonic instruments, and I had written some parts that I couldn’t play, so the Irish box and the more difficult harmonica stuff was those two gentlemen. Chris, Mary and Darren all helped me with the research for this record and it seemed appropriate to have them on it, I contributed a track for a project of Darren’s, and I play in Chris’s band too. But it’s tough doing stuff on your own and playing with others is a nice treat. Oh, and Le Reno Amps are on it too, because they would have complained endlessly if I hadn’t let them (just kidding, they’re two of my favourite musicians). They are all people that I really admire. I’m delighted they agreed to contribute.

Tell us about the songs on the record!

Jesus. Really? That would take a really long time to do properly. They are all about place. Past place, the place of heritage, present place and the in between. I suppose they’re trying to make sense of our relationship to where we’ve been, where we’re from, and where we are. How a place forms the construction of identity, and how we perform that stuff. Folk music seems obsessed with authenticity, whatever that means, but for many of us, in order to say something truthful, the place to start is by acknowledging inauthenticity. Itinerancy does that. You can’t claim a place in the way you could if you’d always been there. You have to work with what’s left. The travel, the leaving and the loss. It matters, you know?

Can we expect to see any shows coming up?

I’m on tour right now. I’ve done some gigs in Germany, now I’m in Switzerland, heading to Zurich when I’ve finished typing this, then on to France. I’ve got a couple of shows with the Diamond Family Archive in Bristol and Exeter in May, and I’ve just started booking a few festivals. I’m open to offers. Always.

I Cannot Sing You Here But For Songs Of Where is out on May 6 through Armellodie.

Terminator 3, X-Men 3, Godfather 3…

I’ve namechecked some rotten final parts of well known trilogies in the name of this post.

Thankfully, the final part of my Freshair radio show actually wiznae too bad. Arguably the best and most professionally so far.

Thanks again to Kid Canaveral for their contribution and apologies to King Creosote & John Hopkins and Adam Stafford whose songs were played before we, ahhhh, pressed record.

Hooray!

And who knows, I might be back. Terminator Salvation wasn’t that bad, was it???

Anyway, I can’t seem to embed the damn thing so here’s the link:

http://www.mixcloud.com/Stu_Lewis/tidal-wave-of-dead-air-pt-3/

Beautiful Ground

Album of the Week: Something Beginning With L – Beautiful Ground

You know that rather wonderful feeling you get when you chuck on a new album and it feels so perfect, it’s almost as if it’s been written just for you?

Well that’s the feeling the Tidal Wave of Indifference got when we put on Something Beginning With L’s debut album for the first time.

We’ve gone on record many’s a time about our love for My Bloody Valentine and the multitude of bands that claim to be influenced by them. So we’re delighted that SBL (that’s what we’re calling them from here) follow a similar path, albeit with enough of their own identity to rise above being mere shoegaze copyists.

There are stacks of reverberating guitars, sweet melodies and subtle background blasts of noise throughout the piece and the band they arguably most resemble is Welsh ‘popgaze’ trio the Joy Formidable. Songs like Last Night’s Party, Hobby and One Knee Two Knee are awash with stunning female harmonies courtesy of twin vocalist/guitarists Jen Macro and Lucy Parnell and if this were a just world they’d be all over 6 Music like a rash.

They’ve got rock royalty credentials as well as they tunes. Drums have been provided on three songs by PJ Harvey collaborator Rob Ellis and members of the band have been involved with Graham Coxon, Charlotte Hatherley and Robyn Hitchcock.

Famous friends can bring recognition but they shouldn’t need them. Beautiful Ground’s 12 songs are concise and captivating, melodic and monstrous all at the same time.

If there’s a single issue to raise, it’s not even with their recorded works, it’s about the lack of a live drummer. Clearly, Ellis isn’t going to come out on tour with them but live they do lack a little percussive power, judging from their otherwise superb support slot with the Douglas Firs earlier this month.

But that shouldn’t detract from a very fine album indeed. The challenge for you now, oh reader and fan of fine music is to prevent Beautiful Ground from becoming 2011’s great lost album.

We caught up with bass and keys man Jon Clayton hots on the heels of their recent Edinburgh shows at Sneaky Pete’s and Avalanche Records as part of an Armellodie showcase.

It’s almost like this album was tailor-made for the Tidal Wave of Indifference – tell me a little about the writing and recording of Beautiful Ground.

Most of the songs from Beautiful Ground were conceived by either Jen or Lucy and then filled out and arranged by all three of us. We set out to make an album that sounded as good on tape as it did in our heads, even if we wouldn’t be able to recreate it exactly live. So, for example, we enlisted the help of some remarkable drummers, and there were lots of lovely toys in the studio, we probably played with all of them through the process of recording this album.

How was working with the legendary Rob Ellis?

Rob’s an excellent drummer and a great musician. He brought a different dimension to the tracks he played on. Although we’re obviously in awe of his talent, and were frankly a bit nervous of working with him, he was lovely, and comfortingly positive about our music.

Did you enjoy your recent trip to Edinburgh – your first as a band?

Yes, it was our first as Something Beginning With L. We have played Edinburgh before in other bands, but that Saturday around the Grassmarket was our favourite time in the city. Avalanche Records is a great place to spend an afternoon and it’s been really exciting to finally see some of our Armellodie label mates. In fact all the bands we played with this weekend were inspiring.

The band name’s a cryptic one. Is there a particular word beginning with L you have in mind?

Yes!

Damn, we were hoping to get some genuine insight with that question. Foiled! No matter, we’ll just have to assume it was the first one that popped into our heads which was ‘leeches’. An obvious answer, yes/ You can buy this fine piece of art over on SBL’s Bandcamp page and from actual proper record shops. And here’s a tune for you:

[soundcloud%20url=%22http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/16090759%22]

Bandcrush: The Douglas Firs

Fresh from giving us the pounding southern stomp of Le Reno Amps, the Armellodie stable have produced the goods again with something a little different.

The Douglas Firs, a musical project led by former Jesus H. Foxx drummer Neil Insh, are a largely hushed, more thoughtful affair featuring sparse instrumentation and not a lot of vocals.

Debut album Happy As A Windless Flag came out last month, pretty much an Insh solo effort, recorded over a whopping seven years.

It’s a remarkably cohesive work but doesn’t better it’s opening one-two of I Will Kill Again, a woozy, plugged in drone, reminiscent of Deerhunter’s best work, and A Military Farewell, a mocking take on a burial with full honours that picks up the melody from traditional tune John Brown’s Body.

Death haunts the album like sex scandals haunt certain Premier League footballers, meaning that it’s not a cheery listen.

It is, however, a thrilling one, so it’s was only fair that we quizzed Insh about Happy As a Windless Flag, ahead of the band’s headline Edinburgh show at Sneaky Pete’s (June 18).

So who the hell are you?

Neil Insh, from Aberdeen. A nobody, but I like making music.

Describe your sound in ten words or less!

Someone with no technical skill has learned some pop chords.

How the hell did you pull together an album that took so long to gestate into a coherent piece of work?

Notebooks – I have more of these than albums.

Did you record the piece all by yourself?

Yes, although I had help from some people who could play instruments better than I. My laptop is like a portable recording studio, which has advantages and drawbacks. although I’m a fan of locational recording, I also really admire a coherent piece of work that reflects a singular location (plus a succinct ‘era’ – my record is an era of many years and many places, so it’s a little jumbled).

Being ‘happy as a windless flag’ screams ‘not happy at all’ to me. Fair comment?

Not exactly – the title comes from a notebook entry from about five years ago. I was watching a moth lying idly on the wall during a gigantic thunderstorm in Berlin. for me it seemed to represent an idea I had been thinking about. The moth was certain to die, but it was just hanging there like an old flag watching the storm. The idea is that there’s only so much you can do in life to affect the course it will take. so, to enjoy it for-what-it-is seems to give some meaning – for me anyway.
 
Tell me about the songs I Will Kill Again and A Military Farewell, two of the numbers I’m instantly drawn to…

I Will Kill – this is the opener, which is supposed to be a first-person ‘farewell’ to everything (delusions, romanticism, youth, fears, all the horrors that provoke those fears). The big thump at the end is supposed to be someone jumping from a great height into oblivion. The line about the landing is a true story – when I discovered a pile of blood and teeth on my postal route (One of these horrors?).

A Military Farewell is meant to be a light-hearted release from the previous song – a laughable funeral for someone who was a contradiction/disgrace in the first place. plus I really liked the harmonies. and I like the series ‘Band of Brothers’.

I have to ask about the overall theme of death on the album. Is there a particular event/issue that’s drawn you to such writing?

I don’t think it would be worthwhile discussing personal events, but with regards to the theme itself, I guess death is the thing that has most terrified me, and still does. So it’s a little like an attempt to make sense of death, and life, I suppose.

What’s next? Do you plan to take this music out on the road?

I have been recording a second record – it will not take much longer. I reckon it’ll be ready for release by the end of the year (I admit I’m one for optimistic, unrealistic targets/deadlines, but this time it’s moving super fast).

I would love to take it on the road, if I could afford it. I don’t think at this stage anyone would come to our shows outside the central belt. and even in the central belt, we’d be lucky.

Don’t be so sure. The Douglas Firs headline Sneaky Pete’s with Something Beginning With L and Plastic Animals this Saturday (June 18). Get your ass down there for some fine tunes (and buy me a beer while you’re at it…)