Album Review: Conquering Animal Sound - Kammerspiel

Regular readers might recall that I have quite a love for Conquering Animal Sound, with their debut album being rather highly anticipated round these parts. Now the release is upon us it is time to see if it lives up to my hopes.

For those of you short on time that don't want to read this whole thing, the short answer is yes. Hopes lived up to, expectations not only met, but surpassed.

Slightly longer version? If you insist. There's an awful lot going on throughout this album, layers upon layers of instruments, electronics, vocals and all sorts of other noises, but at no point does anything sound cluttered or messy. In fact every single sound seems totally organic and essential. Even with a million things going on the songs can seem sparse and bare, like a tree stripped of its leaves, or full and warm, like a hug from that friend you are seeing for the first time in ages. Previous single Giant is a great example, sounding at time huge, almost overwhelming, before swiftly and beautifully changing into something tiny and minimal.

Put quite simply this is pretty much an astonishing, beautiful sounding album that shows that the previously released singles (Giant, Wildthings and Bear, all included here) were far from flukes. There is nothing on the album weaker than those singles and the word filler doesn't appear to be in the Conquering Animal Sound vocabulary. Kammerspiel is a fantastic album to get lost in.

Everyone has their songs and records that come in useful after a bad day, when needing to clear their head, or to put them in their happy place. This is one of mine now. Worth the wait? Goodness yes.

Oh, I almost forgot to make the required comparison between Anneke Kampman and Bjork's voices, which it seems all Conquering Animal Sound reviews must contain. They aren't really that similar, but would probably overlap somewhere on a Venn diagram.

At the start of last year The Unwinding Hours came along with an impressive debut album and threw down a gauntlet to everyone for the rest of the year. With Kammerspiel Conquering Animal Sound have done the same. If there's many debut albums better than this, in fact many better albums at all, then this will be a fantastic year for music.

Kammerspiel is released by Gizeh/Mini50 Records on February 7th. Order it from the Gizeh records shop here. The album is also available on eMusic, iTunes HMV and Amazon
.

Conquering Animal Sound: Website - Facebook - MySpace

Listen/free download - Ira

Conquering Animal Sound are off on tour for the next couple of weeks, dates below:

February 2nd - HULL | Adelphi
3rd - YORK | Basement (Tickets)
4th - LEEDS | Packhorse
7th - LONDON | Slaughtered Lamb (Tickets)
8th - NEWCASTLE | Head of Steam
9th - DUNDEE | Doghouse (Tickets)
10th - ABERDEEN | Snafu
11th - GLASGOW | Captain's Rest (Tickets)
12th - EDINBURGH | Sneaky Pete's (Tickets)

Gig Review: Twin Shadow

Twin Shadow

The Captain's Rest, Glasgow

27th January 2011

Review by Stephen Donkin

Sometimes a single song can remind why you spend so much time hunting around the interwebs for new tunes, and drop all your available cash on importing 7” records from Canada, and suffer the dodgy looks from your boss as you slope off early to go to another midweek gig on the other side of the country. The opening song of Twin Shadow’s set at the Captain’s Rest on Thursday was one such song.

On record, Shooting Holes In The Moon is a sleek, wiry little pop song bathed in soft eighties synths a bit of funky bass, and mournful vocals singing a gorgeously nonchalant melody. Live, it was absolutely transformed into something altogether more muscular, loud, fast and…heavy. The tiny sweaty walls of the room were at bursting point, full with people expecting a bit of a bop, a wee singalong and to hear some songs of one of the best albums of the past couple of

months. What they got was an absolute tour-de-force in how to translate your record for live performance.

There was always a bit of suspicion about Twin Shadow, which is essentially one man, George Lewis Jr, that their popularity is as much a product of a massively popular man, who happens to be a great songwriter, than it is a result of a great songwriter becoming popular. However, the humility was written all over his face as he received a rapturous applause after every song from a clearly adoring audience. It became a bit of a love-in to be honest, with George reiterating at

every opportunity what a great gig it was, and the crowd reciprocating with gushing shout-outs.

Of course, there was more to the set than just the first song, as excellent as it was. The rest of the gig played out like a mini greatest hits set, with Castles in the Snow, Forget and Slow superseding their recorded versions in much the same as Shooting Holes in the Moon did. So let it be a lesson to all those bands out there who are obsessed with replicating every detail from their recordings: sometimes the song is just enough. And if it’s not, well….draw your own conclusion.

Twin Shadow: Website

This was a guest post by Stephen Donkin. Stephen is a member of Birdhead, who release an EP, Talons, soon. Thanks Stephen!

This Week's Gigs: 31st January - 6th February

Gig guide time, with a bare minimum of chatter from me.

Monday:

Redwings, Now Wakes The Sea, Ryan Joseph Burns. The Captain's Rest. (Tickets)

Redwings feature The Seventeenth Century's Andrew Truscott, Now Wakes the Sea featured here during our Christmas songs, and Ryan Joseph Burns, also of The Seventeenth Century, is just plain fab. Good way to spend a Monday night.

Wednesday:

So Many Animal Calls, Toy Fires, The Lonely Boy. The Buff Club

Lovers Turn To Monsters, Matt Norris and the Moon. Bloc, free entry.

Thursday:

Friction Burns - The Alternative Burns Supper. Pivo Pivo, £5.

Swing by Facebook for all the details on this one, as the list of people taking part is a lengthy one!

Friday:

Azure Ray, Beerjacket, Quickbeam. King Tut's. (Tickets)

Wooden Wand, Adam Stafford, Kill The Waves. Nice n Sleazy. (Tickets)

Trapped Mice, Echo Arcadia, Precious and Grace. The Wee Red Bar.

Saturday:

Miniature Dinosaurs, Cancel the Astronauts, Any Color Black, Endor (Acoustic). Stereo.

Launch night for the new Miniature Dinosaurs EP, and they've assembled a pretty ace line-up for it.

Zoey Van Goey, Human Don't Be Angry. The Classic Grand

Another launch night, this time for Zoey Van Goey's second album. Support comes from Malcolm Middleton's new thing, Human Don't Be Angry.

How Garbo Died, Cherri Fosphate, Heart Beats, Maximum Bob. The 13th Note.

Aye Tunes Joins The Revolution

Pop Goes The Revolution that is.

Yesterday I was invited along to take part in what was dubbed The Blogger Battle for Pop Goes The Revolution, along with our pals from Song, by Toad, Peenko, Halina from Glasgow Podcart and The Pop Cop. We picked four songs each, and chattered a bit about them and why we picked them.

You can listen to the results here, so if you've ever wondered just how ineloquent I am, now you can find out.

My song choices were:

Loch Awe - The Ocean In Me

Kid Canaveral - Couldn't Dance

Mondegreen - Yesterday-Minded

The Last Battle - Nature's Glorious Rage

In other news, I'm still looking for some guest posters to help me get caught up with a few things, and the regular Sunday gig guide will probably be late this week as I'm off to help a pal move house this weekend.

Be My Guest (Poster)

So, the phrase "I don't have time" is starting to sneak back into my vocabulary more than I'd like. I'm likely to have a lot more time to mess about and do blog stuff soon, but for the next week or two I might struggle to get a lot of new posts up, especially since the review pile is already starting to grow and is a priority to get on top of, leaving other things to fall behind.

This means I'm looking for a wee bit of help in the form of you, dear reader. There's no money in it, nor any glory. No, wait, come back...

Anyway, short version, I'm looking for a few guest posts to run on the site. Rather than me not have time to finish anything and go a week with little but the gig guide appearing I'd like to be able to plug in a guest post rather than no new content.

I'm not really looking for anything in particular. Pick five of your favourite songs at the moment and tell the World (well, the tiny portion of it that reads Aye Tunes) why these songs are awesome. If you are a band it could be a wee piece about yourself, without waiting for me to get round to asking you questions. It could be something about a band you, band members or the general public, like.

Been to a good gig recently? I'll publish your review if you like.

It could even be something about a band you hate, so long as it in constructive and doesn't get me sued or battered.

The people that pop up occasionally to tell me how much the blog sucks, my music taste is awful, or how I'm just generally a terrible person are welcome to write a piece saying these things again, if they can explain them. Be warned though, it won't be published anonymously.

One thing I'm not really after though is record reviews, I've got quite a few of them to deal with on my own.

Now, you may be wondering why writing a guest blog for me would be any good for you, considering I've already mentioned there's no money or anything in it. The answer is, basically, it probably won't be. If you are are a blogger you'd be as well running the article on your own site. No benefit to anyone but me then, but it doesn't hurt to ask, does it?

Anything I'm sent will be run, of course, with full credit to whoever wrote it (this means no anonymous hatchet jobs please), including links back to you and so on if you have your own site.

Oh, and if you are in Glasgow I promise I'll get you a couple of drinks at some point.

Anyone interested send me a wee email at jim@ayetunes.org.uk telling me who you are (assuming we don't know each other already) and what you want to do, or with something already written, and I'll get back to you super quick, I promise.

Cheers!

Playlist: Aye Tunes Presents

This was meant to have been a series of posts between Christmas and New Year, of my favourite songs of 2010 but it never quite worked out.

Anyway, for the Aye Tunes Presents gig just passed I whittled down the number of tracks from around 100 and knocked up a few CDs to dish out in exchange for a donation to charity. I didn't quite have time to supply a tracklist with the CDs though, so I promised everyone that picked one up I'd put the tracklist online.

For those of you that didn't come, or didn't pick up a rubbishy wee CDr (I have have some left, if anyone really wants one) I'll go better and stick up the songs too. Some are downloadable, others are just streaming, since I've violated copyright quite enough in the first place and don't want a kicking.

Since this will be pretty music embed heavy I'll stick in a cut here, so if you are reading the post of the main page click here for the rest of the post.

This Week's Gigs: 24th - 30th January

Hello, how are we all? I'm bloody knackered, I'm getting too old to drink all weekend.

What a weekend it has been though, kicking off with my first solo gig venture on Friday, then the liver damaging Barmellodie gig afterwards, followed up with the Chem19 Showcase at The Captain's Rest on Saturday and rounded off with the launch of Cargo Crate at The Arches on Sunday. I'd quite like to crawl under a rock for a few days to recover, but sadly I have no such luck.

There is, as usual, plenty to do this week, so let's get on with seeing what's on.

Tuesday:

Withered Hand, Woodpigeon. Stereo.

Super Adventure Club, PAWS, Hagana, Rollor. 13th Note.

Rescheduled after adverse weather caused it to be cancelled back at the start of December. We were looking forward to it then, we still are now.

Wednesday:

Glasgow City Scoundrels: Madskull, The Girobabies, The Unstoppable Flying Raincoats, Ghosts of Progress, Portraits. Stereo, £5.

Glasgow City Scoundrels is a new night, with the kind of ethos I can get right behind - promoted by bands, with more focus on having fun than making money. Good luck to them.

Thursday:

Mogwai. Paisley Town Hall.

Oh, yes. To say I'm looking forward to this one would be an understatement.

Friday:

Blank Canvas, Any Color Black, Housse De Racket. Sub Club.

Pin Up Nights - Pirates! The Flying Duck.

The last Friday of the month wouldn't be the same without the most fun club in Glasgow, would it? Along with the usual fun and frolics you expect from the Pin Ups crew there's the standard good selection of bands playing too. This month's live line-up are Ace City Racers, The Plimptons and Jacob Yates and the Pearly Gate Lock Pickers.

Allo Darlin', The Orchids. Captain's Rest

Fiction Faction, Chris Devotion and The Expectations, Evol. The Admiral.

Single launch for Fiction Faction's "Apparitions", the video for which we featured the other week.

Saturday:

Miss The Occupier, Transmanta, Roscoe Vacant. The 13th Note.

There Will be Fireworks, Bear Bones, Galleries. The Captain's Rest.

First gigs in a while from both Miss The Occupier and There Will Be Fireworks. If you can somehow split yourself in two and attend both then do that, and let me know how you do it.

Last Reminder: Aye Tunes Presents

By now you are probably sick to death of me mentioning this, so you'll be glad to hear that the first Aye Tunes Presents gig takes place tonight, so I'll soon shut up about it.

If you've somehow missed the details, then playing tonight live in Stereo are Boygirlanimalcolour, Kochka and Trapped Mice. There's a free sampler of the bands here.

Doors open at 7pm, entry is £5. If you hurry you can stil get a £3 ticket online, but I'll be taking those down soon.

The first twenty or so people through the door will also get free biscuits, so come along at the start of the night if biscuits are something you enjoy.

I've also made up a small bunch of copyright violating CDs for the evening, one of which is yours in return for a donation to Marie Curie Cancer Care. I'll be collecting for the charity tonight, so bring some spare change.

Please come along, and say hello.

I'll now be quiet.

This Week's Gigs: 17th - 23rd January

No prizes for guessing the main focus of this week's gig guide... It is a reasonably quiet week for a change, which is good for me.

Monday:

Graeme Ronald (Remember Remember). Mono. Free.

Tuesday:

Glasgow Slow Club: Miaoux Miaoux, Matthew Scott. Bloc. Free.

Friday:

Aye Tunes Presents #1: Boygirlanimalcolour, Kochka, Trapped Mice. Stereo. £3/£5

I'm putting on a gig, have I mentioned it already? Tickets are £3 in advance, available from me here, or from the bands. There's a free sampler of the three bands available to download here too. Doors are at the early time of 7pm, so swing by early if you can. To encourage early attendance there will be free biscuits on the go for the first 20 or so people that turn up, and maybe other wee surprises too.

Barmellodie: Le Reno Amps, The Douglas Firs, Battery Face. Bloc. Free before Midnight.

Kicking off around 11pm, so you can come to Aye Tunes Presents first, you can find out more here. I'll be there, probably horrendously drunk.

Saturday:

Chem19 Studios Showcase: So Many Animal Calls, Dear Mountaineer, Little Fire, The Young Spooks, Pinky Suavo. Captain's Rest. £2 Advance

I don't think I'm spilling any great secrets if I say that I'd asked So Many Animal Calls to play on Friday, but we had to scrap that plan due to this gig. Go see them here instead then. Dear Mountaineer are also very promising, and the small bit of Little Fire I've heard sounds good too though I don't know a lot about the others.

The Ides of Toad: The Scottish Enlightenment, Johnny Reb, Morris Major. The Wee Red Bar. (Tickets)

Since me and Armellodie going and putting on our own gigs isn't quite enough multi tasking for one week Song, by Toad are getting in on the act too, with the first of the Ides of Toad series of gigs. As you'd expect the line-up is a good one.

The Lowly Knights, We See Lights, Micah Vincent. The Lot, Edinburgh.

Sunday:

The Lowly Knights, We See Lights, Micah Vincent. Nice N Sleazy.

Cargo Crate Launch. The Arches, 3pm.

Not a gig really, but our pals at Cargo Publishing get a mention any time they have something on. This is the Glasgow launch of Cargo Crate, Scotland's first ebook/print on demand imprint. Visit the Facebook page for all the info.

BARmellodie

Normally when there's another gig on the same night I'm promoting one the blog turns a bit of a blind eye to it. No sense in gibing the competition free promotion after all, is there?

Sometimes we make an exception though, like for next Friday's first BARmellodie gig.

Not content with putting out some of our favourite singles and albums of recent years from the likes of Cuddly Shark, Super Adventure Club, Thirty Pounds of Bone and The Scottish Enlightenment, Armellodie Records are taking over Bar Bloc on the third Friday of every month for a six month resident.

The gigs will showcase bands from the Armellodie roster along with other special guests. They've also roped in some local blogger types to play some records alongside the ArmelloDJs till the small hours.

The first BARmellodie gig takes place on Friday 21st of January. Entry is free before Midnight, £2 after. The bands don't start until around 11pm, while my Aye Tunes Presents gig at Stereo will be kicking out at around 10:30pm, so why not go to both and make both myself and the Armellodie crew very happy people?

Playing at the first gig are:

Le Reno Amps

The Douglas Firs

Battery Face

Guest DJ: Phil Elba (Elba Sessions)

BARmellodie #2 follows on February 18th, with The Scottish Enlightenment, Thirty Pounds of Bone and Randolph's Leap playing live, and Halina of Glasgow Podcart on DJ duties.

For more info on Armellodie and to buy the records they release visit the website.

Look, It Moves!

Looking through my inbox I've been sent quite a few videos recently.

Rather than leave them all in there, all sad and lonely and ignored, here's the first of a probably irregular round up of some of them.

The Son(s) - Radar

Serious favourites round these parts, and of quite a few of the other blogs too, The Son(s) release the fan-flipping-tastic single Radar on January 17th through Eli and Oz. An album follows in March, but more on that nearer the time.

Aaron Wright - Trampoline

Aaron Wright has announced a load of tour dates for the rest of January which you can find by visiting the link above the video, and will be releasing Trampolines as a single on February 21st.

Cities and Skylines - Holes in the Snow

Cities and Skylines launch this single with a gig in Bloc on Thursday (13th January). The single is available from iTunes now.

Blinding Sunlight - Let's Just Sit Around

Blinding Sunlight's Particles albums was one of my favourite impulse purchases of last year. Me being me despite loving the album and playing it to death I've completely forgotten to mention them on the blog so far. So here's a look at a video they made with Glasgow based film maker Mark Davitt.

Fiction Faction - Apparitions

Fiction Faction release Apparitions as a single through 17 Seconds Records on January 31st.

Polly and the Billet Doux - Follow My Feet

Finally, stepping out of Scotland for a minute because I like the band, here's a live version of Polly and the Billet Doux's upcoming single Follow My Feet, set for release on February 21st.

Lou Hickey - Minutes, Hours, Days

It is all too easy to sneer at pop music, especially if you ever inflict listening to the top 40 on yourself and drown in a sea of identikit, characterless autotune nonsense.

Thank goodness for people like Lou Hickey then, who in a few short minutes can remind you of the glory of a catchy little pop song.

Minutes, Hours, Days is exactly that, just under four minutes of catchy pop music that neither tries to reinvent the wheel, or compromise itself to fit into any current trend. Poppy, a bit jazzy, unashamedly retro and featuring something that will always make me like a song a bit more - handclaps! - Minutes, Hours, Days is a sweet, cheery song with more warmth and personality than half the charts put together. If you liked the first Pipettes album - y'know, the one that was actually good - then do check this out, there's a similar kind of vibe to it.

Have a wee listen below, and keep an eye out for much much more from Lou Hickey this year.

Lou Hickey: Website - MySpace - Facebook

This Week's Gigs: 10th - 16th January

So much for January traditionally being quiet for gigs.

Monday:

Young Aviators, Pareto, LightGuides, The Gap Year Riot, The Winter Tradition (in the bar). King Tut's. (Tickets)

New Year's Revolution continues at Tut's.

Tuesday:

The Seventeenth Century, Martin John Henry. The Captain's Rest.

Launch gig for The Seventeenth Century's EP, which I gushed about a little on Saturday.

Park Circus, Fiction Faction, Michael MacLennan, Dante, Yusuf Azak (in the bar). King Tut's. (Tickets)

Wednesday:

Penguins Kill Polar Bears, Carnivores, Flood of Red, .Scores. King Tut's (Tickets)

For a chance to win tickets enter my competition.

Thursday:

Trapped Mice, The Ketterleys. Bannermans, Edinburgh.

Cities and Skylines, Vukovi, Fatherson (acoustic). Bloc, free entry.

Simon Doherty, Duck Hunt, Borthwicks. The 13th Note.

Washington Irving, Open Swimmer, Blue Sky Archives, White Heath, This Silent Forest (in the bar). King Tut's. (Tickets)

Oooh, very nice line-up there.

MakeThisRelate, Aspen Tide, Broken Indigo, Another Option. Classic Grand.

Jamie Cameron, John Condron. The Liquid Ship.

How To Swim, The Paraffins, The Sundancer, Mike Nesbit. Captain's Rest.

Very nice line-up there too. Damn you Thursday!

The Whisky Works, The Darien Venture, El Dog. Stereo.

With this gig Thursday establishes itself as the first "taking the piss" night of the year.

Friday:

PAWS, Johnny Reb, The Dirty Beggars, Donald McDonald and the Islands. Captain's Rest.

Saturday:

Supermarionation, Steel Rose, Fireproof Match, Deco Arcade, Augustalia. Maggie's Chambers, Edinburgh.

Moon Unit, Frams Torners, Small Scale Collisions. Nice N Sleazy.

edRock.net Acoustic: The Fourth Wall, Jonny Downie, Angie Clark (Scrap Brain), Garry Hall. The Forest Cafe, Edinburgh.

Sunday:

Noma, Guanoman, Messiah Complex, Imperium, Public Spaces. The Liquid Ship. Free Entry.

Not one for the faint hearted this. If you like your music off kilter, challenging and basically noisy this is worth checking out. I'm only familiar with Noma and Guanoman, but both of them do good stuff.

The Seventeenth Century (Part One)

Haven't done a review in ages. Let's make the first one of the year a band which I can be accused of bias towards on several levels then, shall we?

On second thoughts... I can't write an impartial review of The Seventeenth Century, really. I've long been a fan of the band, and that fact along with the similar feelings of good old Peenko meant that we somehow managed to talk them into bringing down the curtain on the first run of Aye Tunes Vs Peenko gigs back in November, a task they achieved in some style, leaving us with massive grins on our faces.

The Seventeenth Century finally release something this Monday, January 10th, after ages of me having to dig around for random mp3s , radio sessions and live recordings on the internet.

The Seventeenth Century (Part One) EP is released by Electra French Records (strike two for my impartiality) on limited edition - and pretty, I've already got one - 10" vinyl, with a free download included.

The EP really is excellent though, drawing together live favourites Young Francis, Roses In The Park and Countryside along with the short instrumental Amongst Other Things. If you haven't had a chance to hear the band before the EP serves as a perfect introduction, the only problem might be that you'll be like me, and want more. If so, then make a note that The Seventeenth Century (Part Two) is promised to follow in April, and I can barely wait already.

To celebrate the release The Seventeenth Century play The Captain's Rest on Tuesday night, with support from former De Rosa man Martin John Henry.

You can order the EP online here.

The Seventeenth Century: Website - MySpace - Facebook

COMPETITION: Win tickets to Penguins Kill Polar Bears - Carnivores - .Scores - Flood of Red

As part of the New Year's Revolution series of gigs King Tut's plays host to Aye Tunes favourites Penguins Kill Polar Bears and Carnivores, along with .Scores and Flood of Red on Wednesday.

We have a pair of tickets to give away, courtesy of Penguins Kill Polar Bears, so you get a question roughly related to them.

To have a chance of winning, email the answer to this simple question (if you find it difficult, Google is your friend) to competition@ayetunes.org.uk

Question: Penguins don't really kill polar bears, why?

Competition closed, winner picked! The correct answer is that penguins and polar bears live in different hemispheres, so they don't bump in to each other often. I know, children's books lied to me about them hanging out together too.

Aye Tunes Presents - Free Download - Ticket Info

Just under two weeks to go until this, the first gig I've put on myself since I was about 18, so time to start gentle nudging you, my dear readers, into coming along. Give it another week or so and nudging will turn into begging, no doubt.

The gig takes place on Friday, January 21st in Stereo Cafe Bar, with doors opening at 7pm.

Playing on the night, and giving us an animal theme, are Boygirlanimalcolour, Kochka and Trapped Mice. Three bands I love and three bands that deserve to be heard.

Boygirlanimalcolour are an energetic bunch of youngsters hailing from Whitburn - so pretty much the polar opposites of my old, lazy self - with a fine line in infectious punky power pop. Perfect to get the head and feet moving on a Friday night.

Kochka are a band who I've long admired who after being quiet for a while started to kick it up a gear towards the end of 2011. They've been working on their debut album recently, so get yourself along to see them for a taster of what you can expect from that. Kochka describe themselves as "fucking art rock weirdness" and who am I to argue? Also, their cat related name, and song Black Cat, endeared them to The Tidal Wave of Indifference, who said "[Kochka] may well be the feline-loving Tidal Wave of Indifference’s favourite band of all time, just edging out Pussy Galore" which is good enough for me.

Trapped Mice hail from Edinburgh, and I think this is their first Glasgow gig. The fools, trusting me with their début. Unusually I've asked Trapped Mice to play without having ever seen them live for myself, so I'm every bit as curious about what they have up their sleeves as everyone else is. Trapped Mice have a quite folky influence, but don't be fooled, they are more than comfortable with bringing the noise too.

All the bands offer something a bit different from each other. Not so much that your head will spin in confusion, but certainly enough that you won't get bored by hearing the same style of song from every band playing.

To help with the "being heard" aspect in the run up to the gig I've put together a free three song sampler, which you can listen to down at the bottom of this post and download from Bandcamp.

Tickets are now on sale too. £3 in advance will get you a little something made by my own fair hand. Paying on the door will cost you a wee bit more, £5, so if you are a fan of saving some of that money for a beer go buy yourself tickets here.

Facebook users can find an event page here, while last.fm users have one here, let us know if you are coming!

Beyond Scotland - On Volcano

I get as many emails about bands from outside Scotland as I do ones hailing from our wee country, which more often than not tend to get ignored as far as the blog goes. Some fairly, some a bit harshly.
Without losing focus on what I'm here for - Aye Tunes does sort of have a point, and that is dealing with bands in or from Scotland - one of the things I'd like to do this year is pay a bit more attention to some of the bands that get in touch with me, even if just quickly.

First up is On Volcano. The email they sent me was pretty much the exact opposite of the best way to get my attention, since it simply told me that On Volcano are from Tampere, Finland and gave a one line summing up of their sound. Short and to the point, I'll give them that.

They describe themselves as "embracing modern indie-pop with shoegaze and post-rock", which regardless of country of origin appeals to my tastes enough that they were worth a quick listen. What do you know, their new EP is actually pretty swell. That short, one line description does a pretty good job of summing up how it sounds too.

I say new, but New Blood came out way back in November of last year, but I'm only just hearing it now (which may get me kicked, since it was featured by our pals at Ride The Tempo, but I missed it...) and is available as a free download from the On Volcano website. Hop on over there to get it, or listen & download below.

01 On-Volcano-The Explorer by larsbogel

02 On-Volcano-Mission by larsbogel

03 On-Volcano-Acceleration of Heartbeat by larsbogel

04 On-Volcano-Ume Blossoms by larsbogel

On Volcano: Website - Facebook - MySpace

This Week's Gigs: 3rd - 9th January

Ooh look, it is the return of the gig guide. However did you survive last week without it?

What's that? You managed just fine? Suit yourself then...

The first few weeks of January are likely to be dominated by King Tut's New Year's Revolution gigs. Kicking off tonight and running every night until mid January, this is a follow up to the Summer Nights thing they had back in, funnily enough, the summer. I'll be picking and choosing what ones to stick in the gig guide, but on most nights there's at least one band on that I quite like.

If you plan on going to a lot of them then a Golden Ticket which provides entry to every gig might be worth buying, you can get those here.

Monday:

Endor, Little Eskimos, Verse Metrics, Iona Bain. King Tut's (Tickets)

If you get down to Tut's for 7pm you can also catch Blochestra playing in the bar for free.

Tuesday:

She's Hit, Marco Polo, Sing-Kill-Worth, Suplex The Kid. King Tut's. (Tickets)

Wednesday:

Monsters on Movie Posters. BOX. Free entry.

Ooh look, a gig that isn't at King Tut's! There will probably be other bands playing, but I don't know who.

Thursday:

French Wives, Cancel the Astronauts, Galleries, Poor Things. King Tut's (Tickets)

Probably the pick of the New Year's Revolution bunch for me.

Saturday:

F. U. January - Colour Cells, Phlox, Sleepy Eyes Nelson, Homesick Aldo. Pivo Pivo.

A little something put together by Traffic Cone Records.

Sunday:

Skies Fell, Toy Fires, Jack the Wolf, Fires Attract. King Tut's (Tickets)

When Skies Fell played their debut Glasgow show towards the end of last year it was a pretty impressive affair, so they have a lot to live up to for this gig. Somehow I don't think they'll disappoint.

Spotlight: Loch Awe

Time to get back to the business of blogging, I suppose. Christmas holidays from the blog lasted a wee bit longer than expected, but I'm sure you didn't miss me that much.

Anyway, since it is New Year, we better have a first foot. Enter then Loch Awe's Matthew Healy to tell us a bit about the band.

Who are Loch Awe?

Loch Awe are Jack, Joy, Oliver, Daniel and Matthew; four Edinburgh University students, and one college student, who started a band as a form of procrastination.

What do you sound like?

Imagine the worst band you've ever heard, ever. Good, now that your expectations are suitably lowered, go have a listen to us, and we should definitely sound better than you thought we would.

How did you all get together, and what made you stay together?

Jack and I (Matthew) recorded a few songs together back when I still played solo under the (now-dead) moniker We, the Plural. We asked Joy to sing on a few of the tracks, and Oli to drum and liked the sounds so much we decided to 'make it official'. More recently we added Dan on bass to fatten the sound out nicely.

Debut EP was written and recorded in just two weeks, was the short timescale intentional, or did it just work out that way?

It started out more as a joke than anything. After finishing up 'Lullaby for a Digital Sea' (the first song we recorded) in one afternoon I said to Jack "if we keep going at this rate we'll have an album in two weeks". And lo and behold, we did.

Loch Awe are more popular on Facebook than Keith Chegwin, and the album is amongst the most popular for things tagged Scotland and Edinburgh on Bandcamp. Happy with how things are going then?

Very happy! And, to be honest, surprised. We did the record on my laptop and, as you mentioned, to a very tight deadline, so for so many people to have downloaded it is absoltely fantastic. The Keith Chegwin thing is probably the best part, though.

What or who do you have in your sights to become more popular than next?

Konnie Huq, everybody's favourite ex Blue Peter presenter, only has 434 fans so I think we've got a pretty good shot at being more popular than her within the next few months.

Since we've stumbled into a new year let's go all "year in review" style and ask, although the band was only been around for about half of 2010 what have been Loch Awe's highlights?

Certainly our first (and, until March, only) gig is up there. Reading the reactions to the album so far has been a bit special, too. I think I'll be a bit soppy though, and say the real highlight is the amount of fun we've had hanging out, writing and playing music together

And any moments you'd rather forget about?

Not really, but I guess they've got to come eventually. Maybe we can have a wee update this time next year and I'm certain there'll be something embarassing to go here.

Any other bands around at the moment you'd recommend?

A list of our band-friends: Andrew Lindsay, Reverie, Shambles Miller, So Many Animal Calls. Ooh, alphabetical! (Also, apologies if I missed anyone...)

Any you'd avoid like the plague?

Kings of Leon. I don't know what it is, as there's nothing particularly offensive about their music, but I just get very angry when I hear it...

What do you have planned for the next few months?

We're recording a few demos for our second album within the first week of the new year, and we're doing them IN A STUDIO! We're awfully excited about that. That aside, however, we've got a show with Trapped Mice at Wee Red Bar in Edinburgh on March 5th that I think should be rather good, and we're supporting Andrew Lindsay at his EP launch, although we don't have a date for that yet.

Finally, quirky interview questions, fun and harmless, or generally a bit of a waste of time?

It depends if the interviewee gives interesting answers. Ultimately it's for the reader to decide, though, isn't it?

Thanks Matthew for being the first person through the Aye Tunes door this year. If we have an awful 2011 we know who to blame.

Loch Awe's Artificial Life from a Digital Sea was one of our favourite releases last year. If you haven't heard it yet go and get your ears round it. You can listen below and download it for free here.

Loch Awe: Facebook - Bandcamp - Twitter

Readers' Poll Results

The polls have closed, the votes have been counted, and the winners according to the Aye Tunes readers have been worked out.

Not much chatter from me on the results, my head is still bursting from counting everything.

An elaborate points system was used to judge things, with 5 points for #1, 3 for #2 and 1 for #3, no ballot stuffing took place, hardly anyone voted for themselves and I didn't give myself a vote.

A surprising number of people took part, so I'd just like to quickly thank all of you that took a bit of time to join in.

Drum roll please, your winners are...

Best Band:

1. The Phantom Band

2. Kid Canaveral

3. Frightened Rabbit

=3. The National

5. Meursault

Best Solo Artist:

1. King Creosote

2. Emma Pollock

3. I Build Collapsible Mountains

4. RM Hubbert

5. Edwyn Collins

Best New Band/Solo Artist:

1. Admiral Fallow

2. The Last Battle

3. Kid Canaveral

4. Mitchell Museum

5. The Scottish Enlightenment

=5. The Burns Unit

Best Live Band:

1. The Phantom Band

2. Meursault

3. Frightened Rabbit

4. Kid Canaveral

5. The National

=5. Mogwai

Best Album:

1. The Phantom Band - The Wants

=1. Kid Canaveral - Shouting At Wildlife

3. Meursault - All Creatures Will Make Merry

4. The Scottish Enlightenment - St Thomas

5. The National - High Violet

6. Mitchell Museum - The Peters Port Memorial Service

7. Admiral Fallow - Boots Met My Face

8. Edwyn Collins - Losing Sleep

9. Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks

Best Single/EP:

1. Randolph's Leap - Battleships & Kettle Chips EP

=1. The Scottish Enlightenment - Little Sleep EP

3. Miaoux Miaoux - Blooms EP

4. eagleowl - Into The Fold EP

5. Trapped in Kansas/Yahweh - Split 7"

Best Music Blog/Website:

1. Song, by Toad

2. The Pop Cop

Despite me saying Aye Tunes wasn't eligible enough people ignored me that I'd have been in third place here. Woo.

3. Peenko

4. The Vinyl Villain

5. Glasgow Podcart

Best Music Radio Show/Podcast:

1. Vic Galloway (Radio 1/Radio Scotland votes were all counted together)

2. Glasgow PodcART

3. The Toadcast (Votes for The Toadcast & Song, by Toad on Fresh Air were counted together too)

4. Mark Riley

5. Jim Gellatly

Best Venue:

1. Glasgow Barrowlands

2. The Roxy, Edinburgh (Now dearly departed)

=2. King Tut's Wah Wah Hut

4. The Captain's Rest, Glasgow

=4. Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh

=4. Stereo, Glasgow

Despite fewer and fewer bands choosing to play there, we still love The Barras apparently. Even the Weegies loved The Roxy too.

Best Gig:

1. The National. O2 Academy, Glasgow, November.

2. Frightened Rabbit, Glasgow Barrowlands, 3rd December.

3. French Wives, The Seventeenth Century, Washington Irving, Rachel Sermanni. King Tut's, July.

=3. Aye Tunes Vs Peenko: Kid Canaveral, Mitchell Museum, Campfires in Winter. The Captain's Rest, April.

The hardest one to count, since practically every vote was for something different. Beyond the three above Homegame and Awaygame were the most popular, if they'd been counted together they would have made the top three.

I'm wishing I'd included the Smash Hits style Sexiest Male and Female questions, but I worried that if I had the blogging community would disown me. They still might.

Thanks again to everyone who voted, it was popular enough that we'll be doing it again next year.