Track By Track: Black International - In Debt

One of my favourite albums of last year, Black International's In Debt, has been picked up by Spiralchords Records, and was re-released on Friday. For those that missed it first time round here's a repeat from last year, when Black International's Stewart Allen shared some behinds the scenes secrets about the songs on the album.

Thanks to the magic of Bandcamp embeds you can listen to the whole album as you read. If you like it, buy it. Now, read on to learn about the mysteries of the Brazilian Trilogy, and other things.

A Million Mouths

This song probably had the longest gestation period of anything we’ve written, as I was terrified that I couldn't think of any lyrics for it, and always felt ill whenever I contemplated doing them. I think we started rehearsing this in 2008 before temporarily abandoning it, but the general chord sequence may have been kicking around for two or three years before that. We finished it a week before recording started. Nail biting, etc.

Destruct-o-

I can’t remember much about the process of writing this one, but the basic structure was finished before I took it to the rest of the band, which is quite unusual for us these days. Believe it or not, we had a sort of Sly & the Family Stone thing in mind when we were arranging it, which I think shows in the rhythm section. Imagine there are trumpets and grunts on it and you’ll see what I mean.

Dread (Excerpt)

The ‘excerpt’ in the title refers to the introduction, which was originally a complete song but wasn't very good, so we binned most of it and bolted it onto another song. The first of what I’ll call the Brazilian Trilogy, as it was written on a little Spanish classical guitar I got from a charity shop while I sat around trying to copy Jorge Ben.

The lyric idea owes a little bit to McCarthy’s Charles Windsor, but doesn’t have quite the same level of joyous nose thumbing. I’d say it was supposed to be ‘darkly comic’, if I were a bit more of a twat.

Word Virus

Imagine my disappointment upon finding out that the title was subconsciously pinched from a William Burroughs book. I thought I’d struck gold, but alas, he’d beaten me to it. Still, at least it was Burroughs and not Enid fucking Blyton.

This one was written extremely quickly in rehearsal, and I finished off the lyrics at work the next day when I was supposed to be doing some dull task or other. If my former boss is reading (doubtful), I’m sure he’ll be pleased.

Know You Exist

Originally this had the somewhat childish working title of ‘Sonic Urethra’ when I first started it, as it sounded a bit like… actually, do I even have to explain that? It doesn't sound like Sonic Youth anymore. Musically it was very much a collaborative effort, if it’d been left up to me it would have been a shapeless twenty-minute drone. Luckily Craig has a good ear for structuring stuff.

I can’t say for sure, but the “Here’s your hair shirt, son” line was probably cribbed from the title of a Birthday Party song, called (strangely enough) The Hair Shirt. I was in a bit of an odd place when I wrote these lyrics, but it’s ALL FUCKING FINE NOW OK?

Interval

Does what it says in the title. We just fancied having a bit of breathing space and dividing the album in two, so did this one evening near the end of mixing. I could give a proper in-depth description of how it was made, but nobody wants to read that shit.

The City Is Dead

This song dates back to around 2007 along with Monument and You Can Trust Me, so I can’t really remember much about its inception. It’s supposed to be a rockabilly type thing, but has been put through our patented ‘bombastic washing machine’ and the colours have run a little bit.

Lyrically it’s a bit of a jumble, but I suppose it’s about dropping out of repetitive cycles of living and doing something fun instead. We’re deep, man, what can I say?

Monument

Again, it was written a while ago and my memory is hazy… I remember doing some of the lyrics in a bar on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh one Saturday afternoon. Spot the deliberate mistake, metallurgy fans.

Idle Worship

The second of the Brazilian Trilogy, I’d have thought it was quite obvious in this instance. Close your eyes, visualise it slowed down, samba rhythm, acoustic guitar, singing in Portuguese… You could almost be mugging tourists in São Paolo!

Feed Me Rhetoric

Brazilian #3 (sounds like a humiliating waxing routine). I’m doing my best Jim Morrison croon on this one. Should I buy a pair of leather trousers, hmm? Call myself ‘The Crocodile Baron’ or something? Anyway, Lovely Latin drumming from Craig I must proclaim, and it seems to be a firm live favourite with audiences, so we hardly ever play it.

And yes, I know how ‘rhetoric’ should be pronounced, but it doesn’t fit in that way. So fuck off.

You Can Trust Me

This started out as a little folky number but when we began working on it properly we focussed it through a Birthday Party-esque prism and noised it up a bit. Are you still reading this? If I were you I’d have gone home ages ago. You really are a glutton for punishment.

Black International: Website - Facebook -  Bandcamp

Best Albums of 2011: 10 - 1

IT'S THE FIIIIIIINAAAAAAAAL COUNTDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWN!
Top ten Aye Tunes albums of the year time. I can stop listing things and try to reintroduce myself to society after this.
Same disclaimers as yesterday:

1. best just means my favourite, you are allowed to disagree without either of us being wrong.
2. I've not heard every blooming album released this year.

You can find a bunch of other albums I liked that didn't quite make the top twenty here, and numbers twenty to eleven here.

10. United Fruit - Fault Lines

Noisy? Check. Frantic? Check. Awesome? Double check. Fault Lines is an adrenaline rush in music form. Full review from earlier in the year here.
Buy: Bandcamp - Bigcartel

9. FOUND - Factorycraft

One of the year's more fun albums, Factorycraft saw a slimmed down FOUND take a less experimental approach to their music, thought there was that edible 7", and deliver a pile of cracking pop songs in the process. Jam packed with hooks and sing along lyrics, Factorycraft does the simple things very well, and makes the difficult things seem easy.  It still goes a bit wonky and off kilter at points, and never gets dull. The end result is about as addictive as whatever drug is particularly addictive these days, but much better for you.
Buy: Chemikal - Amazon - iTunes

8. John Knox Sex Club - Raise Ravens

I can't tell you if I agree or not with the regular description of the John Knox Sex Club as "the best live band in Scotland" since I haven't seen them since some time last year - I know, poor show Jim - but I can tell you their second album, Raise Ravens, was one of the best released this year. Although folk is the simplest tag to apply, the music is regularly much more muscular and powerful than the folk label usually implies. Gentle laments trade places with growled vocals and distorted guitars, before the growls turn melodic, all with a sinister, menacing undercurrent. This is an intense and at times downright creepy album, blending the tradition with the modern, steeped in atmosphere. It is almost impossible not to get lost in, absorbed by Raise Ravens.
Buy: Bandcamp

7. You Already Know - Petrol Money

The first You Already Know album made my Best of 2009 list, and anyone that has been unfortunate enough to have put up with me talking about the band any time since won't be all that surprised that second album Stop Whispering is one of my favourites this year. More glorious noise. Also in The Gush/Meatshield.Into And Over You/It Comes In Waves this is the album with the filthiest sounding track progression of the year. Full review here. You Already Know have split now, but Petrol Money was a fine parting gift.
Buy: Bandcamp

6. Nicola Roberts - Cindarella's Eyes

Come ahead, I'm ready for you. A damn fine leftfield pop album, good lyrics, more effing, blinding and anger than you'd expect and much more interesting musically than some weedy indie nonsense. A regular listen, and a thoroughly enjoyable one too.
Buy: Amazon - iTunes

5. Monoganon - Songs To Swim To

My, that's a handsome cock. I've been a fan of John B. McKenna for a while, admittedly in part because he used to sell me beer while working in the pubs of Glasgow, but also for his music. Songs To Swim To is, by a distance, the best thing John and his band have released I think. Also, despite all my protests, proof that I've not entirely shunned folky poppy stuff this year.
Buy Vinyl/Free Download: Winning Sperm Party

4. Kochka - The Entropic Biopic of a Quixotic Psychotic

Still not sure about the title, but everything else about this album I love. Coming on like a demented funfair, complete with Markk Donnelly's attempt - a worrying successful attempt at that - at channeling a mad carnival barker, this is pretty much unlike anything else I've heard coming from Scotland this year. Addictive, fun, and nigh on impossible not to dance to, it took ages to get a debut album from Kochka but the result made the wait instantly forgivable.
Buy: Bandcamp

3. Conquering Animal Sound - Kammerspiel

When Kammerspiel was released at the start of the year I'd been looking forward to it a lot on the basis of what I'd heard from Conquering Animal Sound on record and on stage before, and the album didn't disappoint. Roughly a full year on from my first listen to the album I'm nowhere near tired of it yet. More blethering in the form of a review here.
Buy: Gizeh -  iTunes

2. Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat - Everything's Getting Older

I wasn't overwhelmed when Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat collaborated at Chemikal Underground's 15th anniversary gig back at the start of 2010, things verging a little too close to The Fast Show's jazz club at times for me, so I wasn't too sure what I'd think of the album that eventually followed. Teaser tracks A Short Song To The Moon and The Copper Top immediately dismissed any fears I had, and made me wonder if my ears had been working properly that night at the ABC.
The collaboration seemed to bring out the best in each other. Arguably Aidan's best work as a lyricist, finding new ways to break your heart and make you laugh, allied with Wells's subtle, measured compositions add up to something a wee bit special. Although as filthy as you'd expect from Moffat in parts, a lot of the album provokes genuine emotion and is mature and measured, the end result is pretty damn great.
Buy: Chemikal - Amazon - iTunes

1. Adam Stafford - Build a Harbour Immediately

I got a copy of Build A Harbour Immediately quite early last year from Adam Stafford, after I'd half joking complained to him that Lloyd from Peenko wouldn't shut up about how good it was having received a copy before me. I then spent several months trying not to annoy everyone I know by telling them how brilliant this album was, but no they couldn't buy it yet and no they can't have a copy off me. I think eventually Matthew Healy from Loch Awe was about ready to kill me.
Having alienated all of our friends that just left Peenko and myself repeating to each other how bloody marvelous an album this was. Then, one night in April, we were drunk together, and hatched a plan. One more Aye Tunes Vs Peenko gig, and we'd beg Adam to make it his album launch. He agreed, and then we had the fun of having to not annoy people by telling everyone about the launch gig for this amazing album that was still two-three months away. Anyway, the gig came round eventually, we spent a night with massive smiles on our faces, and we finally had people to agree with us that yes, Build A Harbour Immediately is indeed a pretty ace album, and we smiled some more.
It was at the album launch that I heard a description of the album far better than any I could come up with when Julian Corrie - Miaoux Miaoux - described it as "starts off fairly normal, then it just melts". Can't put it any better than that really.
At the halfway point of the album with Shot Down You Summer Wannabes - which was one of my favourite songs of 2010, and sold me on Adam solo in the first place - things take a turn for the unconventional. The guitars drop out, replaced with vocal loops, layers of noise, beatboxing, and all manner of lunacy. And it's brilliant.
That was all a terribly long way of saying "best album of the year" but yes, Build a Harbour Immediately is the best album of the year.
Buy: Bandcamp

That concludes our best albums of 2011, you may now begin pointing, laughing, disagreeing, or swearing never to return.

You can buy some, if not all, of these records from Monorail and Love Music in Glasgow too. Shops are nice, you get to talk to people in them. Some shops and some people are rubbish though, so you can also buy a lot of these from Insularis Records from the comfort of your own home, without even putting on clean clothes.

Best Albums of 2011: 20 - 11

MORE LISTS! Yes, list season continues, as I fight with borderline obsessive compulsive disorder and an overwhelming need to rank things using a system that makes no real sense and changes every ten or fifteen minutes.
Two disclaimers

1. best just means my favourite, you are allowed to disagree without either of us being wrong.
2. I've not heard every blooming album released this year.

Onward then, to the first batch of my twenty favourite albums of the year. You can find a bunch of other albums I liked that didn't quite make the cut here.
In reverse order, like some kind of fancy countdown, here's numbers twenty to eleven:

20. Fay Wrays - Strange Confessor

Noisy Americans. This was another one that came from the random blog submissions pile that i listened to loads, but never really did anything about writing up. We've long established that I'm useless though. Not quite sure why Strange Confessor ended up clicking with with me, but it did.
Fay Wrays - Paper Tiger Meets The Straw Man
Download Strange Confessor: Bandcamp

19. Zoey Van Goey - Propeller Versus Wings

I've had a wee bit of a Zoey Van Goey bandcrush thing going on this year, as they've generally done a bunch of stuff that has left me smiling like a fool. They started off that trend early in the year with their second album, Propeller Versus Wings. Playful, witty, fun, and with more hooks than the average fisherman, it's a pretty easy album to fall for. Also "I am drunk and on a ladder" is the finest opening line in a song in ages.
Zoey Van Goey - My Aviator
Buy Propeller Versus Wings: Chemikal - Amazon - iTunes

18. King Post Kitsch - The Party's Over

I'd been looking forward to this album for ages, such was my enjoyment of the first, and following King Post Kitsch EP. The Party's Over didn't disappoint. At times a fuzzy garage rock album, at times something more psychedelic  sometimes dreamy pop, occasionally all and none of these things, all excellent.
King Post Kitsch - Fante's Last Stand
Buy The Party's Over: Song, by Toad - Amazon - iTunes

17. Sparrow and the Workshop - Spitting Daggers

Picking up where they left off with Crystals Fall, Sparrow and the Workshop remain one of the more interesting sounding bands around. They are a bit more muscular sounding and in your face this time round, and none the worse for it. An album with swagger and stomp, balanced with moment of graceful calm and tenderness.
Sparrow and the Workshop - Snakes In the Grass
Buy Spitting Daggers: Sparrow and the Workshop - Amazon - iTunes

16. Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

You pretty much know what you are going to get with Mogwai, and this was the best thing they've have done in years. Up until they released the Earth Division EP later in the year, which was also excellent, but isn't an album. George Square Thatcher Death Party is the best song title of 2011 too.
Buy Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will: Mogwai Shop - Amazon - iTunes

15. Remember Remember - The Quickening

This is an album I can never quite find the words to properly describe, so I'll leave it at this: blooming gorgeous.
Buy The Quickening: Amazon - iTunes

14. Take A Worm For A Walk Week - T.A.W.F.A.W.W.

As I've mentioned before, this year I've mostly been enjoying loud things. T.A.W.F.A.W.W. delivered in spades. A brutal and aggressive half hour of music that left more of an impression than the metaphorical Mouldmaster to the thigh on a frosty morning.
Buy T.A.W.F.A.W.W.: Bandcamp - Bigcartel

13. Martin John Henry - The Other Half of Everything.

I still miss De Rosa, but getting an excellent solo album from Martin this year lessened the nostalgia considerably. As I said when the album came out, if you can listen to Ribbon on a Bough without your head bobbing check your pulse, you might be dead. Martin is one of the best songwriters in Scotland, and it is a joy to have him back on record.
Buy The Other Half of Everything: Bandcamp

12. Doctors & Dealers - Every Sinner Has A Future

The second Sparrow on the chart, Doctors & Dealers being mainly the work of Sweden's Sparrow Lindgren, Every Sinner Has A Future balances light and shade wonderfully. Tales of heartbreak and depression lurk behind pop songs, with a playful sense of humour lurking round the corner to save things getting too dark.
Doctors & Dealers - Carpet Burn
Buy Every Sinner Has A Future: Amazon - iTunes

11. Black International - In Debt

Internal debate ahoy over whether to include this album or not. In the end it came down to the same old thing, I became quite friendly with Black International and got them to do a gig for me after falling for their music, not before, so In Debt can go on the list for the right reasons. Every song has something that catches my attention, and the whole album has been subjected to more listens than just about anything else to come my way this year. Also good and noisy, with some properly excellent drumming.
Read more about the album in Black International's track by track guide here.
Buy In Debt: Bandcamp


We'll be back tomorrow with the final countdown, the top ten Aye Tunes albums of 2011.

Best Albums of 2011 - Bubbling Under

It is December, I write a music blog, that means it is list season. That time of year when the blogging community spend too long trying to remember what albums came out this year, which ones were good, which ones were rubbish, which ones it is cool to like, which ones we haven't heard but have to pretend we have, and so on.
It is also the time of year that we all suppress a snigger while looking at other people's best of lists while saying to ourselves "REALLY? That album was SHITE!", and silently judging each other's taste in music.
It's a fun time of year.
I've been obsessing over my list for too long already, trying to cut it down into a manageable length, and having the nagging feeling that I've missed something out.
Eventually I decided to pick a Top Twenty to run as my best of, but since I liked more than twenty albums this year, and since I don't know what the difference between #33 and #45 in a top 50 is, here's a bunch of albums that I want to mention somehow, and on a different day could easily have swapped places with something in the Top 20. Go ahead and start judging me, just remember that "best" always means "favourite" really.

In no particular order, The Aye Tunes Best of the Rest Albums 2011

Scroobius Pip - Distraction Pieces
Quantum Leap reference in the first song equals instant inclusion. That and Death of the Journalist, which has been one of my favourite songs of the year, even if I'm one of the targets. The rest of the album is pretty swell too.
Dad Rocks! - Mount Modern
Suffering slightly from only having been released fairly recently, Mount Modern is an album that started off good, and grows on me a bit more with each listen. Had it had more time it would rank higher, but as it is still a gorgeous thing, and worth a few of your pounds.
Eureka Machines - Champion The Underdog.
Power-Pop Punk from Leeds. Their first album won an Aye Tunes award back in the days when no one read the blog (no, not yesterday you cheeky bugger) and this, their second album, is no slouch either.
The Antlers - Burst Apart.
Never quite fell in love with the whole thing, and less taken with this than I was with Hospice, but there's some really great bits on there.
Le Reno Amps - Appetite.
We've swapped some pandas for Al Nero now I think, but before the band went on hiatus they gave us a new, really good, album.
Something Beginning With L - Beautiful Ground.
A right good debut album, this .Fuzzy, poppy, shoegazey, and fragile all at once, tis a lovely wee thing.
the douglas firs - Happy As a Windless Flag.
It was a good year for releases from Armellodie Records really, this was another fab album from their stable
Milk Maid - Yucca.
Scummy sounding lo-fi rock that sounds like it cost about a fiver to record? Yes please. Not as good as PAWS but.
Edinburgh School For The Deaf - New Youth Bible
Album opener Of Scottish Blood and Sympathy gets things off to a great start, from there it gets a wee bit rough in spots, but ace in others, certainly a good enough album to be included in here.
Comply Or Die - Depths.
One of far too few albums that I actually got round to reviewing this year, and one of several that took advantage of me being a bit sick of acoustic folky stuff - though there's plenty of that in my end of year lists too - by making an almighty exciting noise.
Loney Dear - Hall Music
Fragile, melancholy, and quite gorgeous. Not the most immediate of albums, but a good one.
The Moth And The Mirror - Honestly, This World
The Sons(s) - The Son(s)
I may have mentally marked The Son(s) and The Moth and the Mirror down slightly in the year end ranking because both were released by my pals, Olive Grove Records. Both are smashing albums.
Piet Haag - Countryside Walks With Piet Haag
Very little amused me this year as much as this did, so it's in.
The Great I Am - Real Capital
Another I actually remembered to review. Real Capital is a very schizophrenic album, swapping from electro to folky from song to song, but that just endeared it to me even more. The Great I Am have switched names to Machines In Heaven now, but are still making wonderful noises.
Evil Hand - Huldra
A bit dreamy, a bit shoegazey, entirely gorgeous. One of the hardest albums to omit from the top 20 really. Ask me again another day and it would be in there.
Tiny Birds - Hymns For the Careless
"Sad songs with happy music". I touched on Tiny Birds a bit (that sounds slightly wrong) in one of my wanders down south earlier in the year, and the album is still one I keep going back to regularly.
The Wiggle Room - I Presume
Really, really enjoyable pop. One of my favourite albums that randomly popped up in my inbox this year that I'm kicking myself for glossing over until now.
I Build Collapsible Mountains - The Spectator & The Art
In a year when I largely got bored of "man with guitar" music, I Build Collapsible Mountains still produced something good enough to remind me that there are tremendous artists out there doing that thing.
Trips and Falls - People Have To be Told
Song, by Toad Records released an awful lot of good stuff this year. This Trips and Falls album is awfully good. Smart, witty, and sounds great, what's not to like?
Veronica Falls - Veronica Falls
It's a bit jangly and twee at times, but that's fine with me. It's a fun album, and there's some lovely boy/girl harmonies in there, which I'm always a sucker for.
Jacob Yates and the Pearly Gate Lock Pickers - Luck
Imagine Glasvegas weren't shite. That doesn't have a lot to do with this album, but imagine it anyway, just to make yourself feel better. Anyway, filthy sounding doom-wop from a man and band that sound like they could crush you like a paper cup and thoroughly enjoy doing so. Brilliant then.
Zombie Girlfriend - Music For Porn
MORE lo-fi noise pop? Oh go on then. I know virtually nothing about Zombie Girlfriend other than there is two of them, they come from Hungary, and they please my ears. That's more than enough information for me.
Loch Lomond - Little Me Will Start a Storm
Chemikal Underground released a lot of good albums this year, including this one from Portland's Loch Lomond.
Luke Haines - 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations On British Wrestling Of The 1970s & Early '80s.
I like Luke Haines, I like wrestling, how could I not like a concept album about British wrestling in the '70s and '80s? There's plenty of ways I could have hated it I'm sure, none of them came to pass though. It's a weird beast, but a good one.
Come On Gang! - Strike a Match
Quite willing to admit to the inclusion of Strike a Match being one tinged with bias and nostalgia, since Come On Gang did an Aye Tunes Vs Peenko gig, then had Peenko and I along to DJ at their last gig. Not entirely a nostalgic entry though, as there's some right good stuff on the album anyway.
Dead Boy Robotics - Dead Boy Robotics
A very late entry to the list, on account of it having only just been released. If I'd sepnt more than a week or two with my copy it might have ranked higher, but as it is it deserves inclusion somewhere. I particularly like it when they get all shouty.

So, there you go. Most albums are available to buy from Amazon, HMV and iTunes.
My twenty favourite albums will follow in a few days.