Rick Redbeard / Adam Stafford Split 7"

The men behind Gerry Loves Records have a knack for getting money out of me. Despite having a barely function record or cassette player, they’ve managed to get me to buy everything they’ve released so far, all on those formats. With their latest split single they’ve got my hand in my pocket looking for a fiver again.

Rick Redbeard, who you may know better from The Phantom Band, takes on his side of the vinyl with Now We’re Dancing. It’s quite gentle, fragile and really rather pretty. Rick’s deep, warm voice is a bit like the aural equivalent of a very welcome hug.

Adam Stafford takes the other side of the single, with Vanishing Tanks. Filled with his now trademark loops of guitar and vocals, with beatboxing thrown in. Add in a storming vocal on top, and a killer hook, and you’ve got one of the best pop songs I’ve heard all year. It’s hardly a secret round these parts that I’m in love with Adam’s stuff, this is just another reminder why, and I’ll keep mentioning it until everyone listens to me.

To celebrate the launch of the single there’s a few gigs on this week:
Thursday 21st June - Henry’s, Edinburgh - Adam Stafford / Rick Redbeard, support from Wounded Knee Tickets
Friday 22nd June - Captain’s Rest, Glasgow - Rick Redbeard / Adam Stafford, support from Yusuf Azak. Tickets
Saturday 23rd June - Cellar 35, Aberdeen - Rick Redbeard / Adam Stafford, support from Debutant. Tickets

The single is available to buy here now. The 7″ comes with a free download, which includes an extra song from each artist.

&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=”http://music.gerrylovesrecords.com/album/rick-redbeard-adam-stafford-split-single”&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Rick Redbeard / Adam Stafford - Split single by Rick Redbeard / Adam Stafford&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;

More Information: Rick Redbeard - Adam Stafford - Gerry Loves Records

Loch Lomond - White Dresses EP

Loch Lomond have a Scottish sounding name, but come from Portland which is over there in that America. Their Scottish connections go further than the name though, it was a couple of releases on Song, by Toad that I first heard the band. Chemikal Underground released Loch Lomond’s latest album over here last year, and now we have this EP, White Dresses, making up their first brand new material for Chemikal.

The songs on offer here share a gentle fragility, and a sense of melancholy. There’s lush, rich instrumentation, but with a restraint that gives everything room to breathe. Allied with Ritchie Young’s show stopping voice, constantly oozing emotion, this is just plain really good music. Rather than throw a bunch of adjectives at you as I try and fail to describe the EP any further, I’ll just leave it at that.

Loch Lomond - Kicking With Your Feet

Loch Lomond make a rare full band visit to Scotland at the end of this week for two dates.
Friday March 9th - Glasgow, Captains Rest - TICKETS
Saturday March 10th - Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete’s - TICKETS

White Dresses is out now, available from shops, straight from Chemikal Underground, Amazon and iTunes.

Dolfinz - Teenage Doom/Nosebleed

This has been out for ages, but it’s good, so it’s getting flagged up, even if I am dead late.

You might not have noticed, unless you paid attention to the amount of it that turned up in my end of year/start of year posts, but I’ve been wandering off into lo-fi scuzzy poppy rock. That’s what Dolfinz make, and they do it rather well.

Both songs on this double A-side single are very rough around the edges, but a Hell of a lot of fun, and at around three and a half minutes each don’t mess about. They make a lovely amount of noise for a two piece, and throw all sorts into their songs, there’s a bit of surf, lots of pop, shedloads of distortion, and a good old handful of rock. Really raw, a bit messy, and really flipping exciting. The single is available from Tuff Wax Records on Bandcamp, you can have a listen below.

<a href=”http://tuffwaxrecords.bandcamp.com/album/twx-005-dolfinz-teenage-doom-nosebleed-7″>TWX-005: Dolfinz - Teenage Doom / Nosebleed 7&quot; by Dolfinz</a>

There’s a load more songs available for free on Soundcloud too, so go have a listen. Much more interesting than whoever the latest cardigan wearing acoustic troubadour of the week happens to be.

Up next from Dolfinz is a cassette release, paying tribute to Mean Girls, on Cath Records, and they’ve also recently recorded a track for a split 12″ for Song, by Toad Records. All of that sounds great to me, even though I regularly moan about buying tapes and vinyl. They are sickeningly young, but I won’t hold that against them.

Dolfinz: Soundcloud - Facebook

Black Books - An Introduction To…

I’m pretty rubbish at this blogging lark, really. Case in point, this post is about an EP I got way back in July, and only now am I actually getting round to writing about it here.

Black Books come from Austin, Texas. How the heck they found me I don’t know, but I’m really glad they did. It may have taken me five months to get round to posting about it, but in the time since first hearing it their An Introduction To Black Books EP has ended up on regular rotation round here, and been a go to recommendation every time someone has told me to give them something to listen to they haven’t heard before. A lot of music hits my inbox, gets a listen, and goes no further, so I’ll invoke the “better late than never” clause when it comes to this, since I’d rather be months late with it than let something I’ve fallen in love with a bit go entirely unmentioned on the blog.

Yeah, I’m making excuses for myself.

The four tracks on An Introduction To… fall pretty solidly into the dreamy pop territory, slow paced, a little bit psychedelic in places, but bit of a rock element bubbling just under the surface at time that pokes its head through the blissed out sounds here and there in the form of a jagged guitar line, or a thumping drum beat.
the whole EP is pretty much perfect for sticking on, putting your headphones in, and getting away from reality for 20 minutes, and let’s face it, we all want to escape from time to time.

There’s a full album on the way from Black Books sometime in the near future, but in the meantime An Introduction To provides exactly what it says, a quick taster of Black Books. Delicious, I say.

Black Books - The Big Idea

An Introduction To Black Books is available to download on Bandcamp, and also available as a limited edition 10″ vinyl. UK/Europe readers, don’t try and buy the vinyl from Bandcamp unless you want to have a heart attack when you see the shipping costs, instead we can order a 10″ from Shifting Sounds.

&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=”http://blackbooksmusic.com/album/an-introduction-to”&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;An Introduction To… by black books&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;

Black Books: Blog - Bandcamp - Facebook

Rob St. John & Ian Humberstone - Split 7"

Split singles can be funny beasts. The Gerry Loves Records team have put out a trio of great ones, yet over in a box in the corner there’s some shockers that I’ve clearly bought for just one of the bands. The Mogwai/Dweeb split seven particularly stands out.

This one though, this falls firmly into the “ace” category. The single features Rob St. John‘s Your Phantom Limb on one side, Ian Humberstone‘s House on the Hill on the other, neither artists that I’m as familiar with as I probably should be. Both songs have a haunted air about them that seems to make them particularly fitting to listen to as the rain batters off my bedroom window, but also a feeling of warmth that makes me glad I’m inside with them.

At a bit over two minutes each this is a quick listen, but a gorgeous one. Best sit near the record player to move the needle back to that start to listen again, and again, and again.

The split single is out now on Song, by Toad Records. The 7″ is available from the Song, by Toad shop, and a download can be bought from iTunes and Amazon.

Rob St. John & Ian Humberstone Split 7″ by Song, by Toad

Martin John Henry - The Other Half of Everything

Let’s get it out of the way right now, as the founding member of De Rosa Martin John Henry is at least partly responsible for two of my favourite albums, Scottish or otherwise, of the last ten years. You can make it three albums if you count the De Rosa Appendices. With that in mind it would be quite a surprise if I didn’t like The Other Half of Everything, Martin’s debut solo album.

There’s no surprises ahead then, I do like the album. Rather a lot in fact. Yeah, ok, let’s throw measured critical analysis out of the window (Ha! as if that has ever existed at Aye Tunes!) and get to it, I bloody love this album.

Breathing Space starts the album off in a fairly mellow, gentle style, before Span comes along and quickly lets you know you are in for something a bit different. Span embraces the electro elements of the album, and ends up being something not far off a big disco floor filler. The album continues to switch between mellow and upbeat throughout, blending the acoustic and the electronic beautifully. If you can listen to current single Ribbon on a Bough without your head bobbing check your pulse, you might be dead.

There’s not a bad song on this album, although since I’ve had various version of I Love Map since it popped up on an Off The Beaten Track compilation in 2007 it does by now suffer from over familiarity, and too many highlights to name. Closing track There’s a Phantom Hiding In My Loft does deserve a special wee mention though, just because it wraps up an excellent album beautifully.

If like me you find yourself missing De Rosa on regular occasions you owe it to yourself to pick up The Other Half of Everything. It is not just one of my favourite things I’ve heard this year, it is one of my favourite things I’ve heard since, well, the second De Rosa album.

If this review was a photograph it would be one of me sitting stroking the album lovingly. I make no apologies. We don’t do star rating at Aye Tunes, but Martin John Henry can have five of them anyway.

The Other Half of Everything is released through Gargleblast Records on October 10th. The album is available to pre-order on Bandcamp.

Before that there is a launch gig at Stereo in Glasgow on October 8th (oops, I’m cutting this review a bit fine) with support from Adam Stafford and The Seventeenth Century.

This Silent Forest - The Fight

Lost in the midst of my gig self promotion last week was this new single from This Silent Forest. It is too good to let pass by without mention, so I’m invoking the good old “better late than never” ruling to mention it this week instead.

Having recently completed the terrifying sounding task of writing and recording a song every day for 30 days - I can’t even knock out a blog post a day and this requires no creativity, unlike songwriting - This Silent Forest have a new single out now through Never Make Friends Records.

The Fight is a grand sounding number. A slow build and storytelling lyrics teamed with rich layers of instrumentation build to a huge climax, resulting in a song that is sweeping and epic, without falling into the trap of sounding contrived that can often follow such things. Straddling the pop and modern folk camps, The Fight is pretty excellent really. The single is backed with a couple of alternative versions.

The Fight is available to download from iTunes and Amazon. A remix by Oh You Dancer is also available at iTunes and Amazon. The 30 songs in 30 days can be found on the band’s Youtube page.

The Fight by This Silent Forest

This Silent Forest: Facebook - Youtube

New Release: Lovers Turn To Monsters - Pandas, Hearts, Blankets & Birds

Back in June Lovers Turn To Monsters, or Kyle as he’s also known, released his first “proper” album in the shape of Beyond Glasgow Howls. It was really very good, but at the time I forgot to say much about it. It seems only right then that I give a proper mention to the new Lovers Turn To Monsters release then.

Recorded between June and September, Pandas, Hearts, Blankets & Birds is yet more proof that you never have to wait a long time for a new Lovers Turn To Monsters song. Unlike many Kyle seems to produce countless songs a year, and none of them are ever something that feels like it was dashed out in an afternoon to pass some time. The ten songs on Pandas, Hearts, Blankets & Birds are very much in the lo-fi indie pop ilk, and much less polished than a “proper” recording would be, but the home made feel to them holds a certain charm for me. Besides, it isn’t as if they sound like they’ve been recorded in a shed with a cheap tape recorded, the sound is lo-fi, but still sounds fab.

10 tracks of indie pop loveliness then, available to download for free. What more do you want? Crudely recorded samples from The Simpsons you say? Well you’re in luck, the album has them too!

<a href=”http://loversturntomonsters.bandcamp.com/album/pandas-hearts-blankets-birds”>Pandas, Hearts, Blankets &amp; Birds by Lovers Turn to Monsters</a>

Download Pandas, Hearts, Blankets & Birds for free from Bandcamp, or pay next to nothing for a home made CD. While you are there poke around the Bandcamp page a bit more and you’ll see what I mean about Lovers Turn To Monsters being prolific, there’s a ton of music up there, lots of it for free.

Lovers Turn To Monsters: Facebook - Bandcamp

Single Review: Cancel the Astronauts - Seven Vices

Edinburgh(ish) five piece indie popsters Cancel the Astronauts are back with a new single. Since they hold the dubious honour of having had me review all their releases to date, all two of them, I better keep up my perfect record and talk a bit about Seven Vices.

Seven Vices is a bright and breezy wee pop number. The intro is a wee bit Frightened Rabbit, before the pace picks up and some gorgeous harmonies kick in. The song does what Cancel the Astronauts often display a fine knack for, just when it seems like it is sailing along enjoyably, but inoffensively, you find that it has sneakily wormed into your brain, and you are still humming the hooks long after it finished. That seems like a bit of a backhanded compliment, but it isn’t meant to be. I like it when a song digs its claws in like that, and it is exactly what I want from a pop song. Not everything has to be complicated or a challenge.

Something Approaching starts off with a lovely downbeat bit, just vocals and a sparse piano refrain, before picking up pace gradually. Sweet, charming, catchy and done in three in a half minutes, once again doing wonderfully on the hypothetical “what Jim wants from a pop song” checklist.

Rounding off the single is Playing Hard to Get - no word on whether this is related to the stalker theme of first release I Am the President of Your Fanclub or not - which doesn’t break from the trend of the first two tracks, but since I enjoyed those that’s just fine with me. Some surprisingly funky bass in there, along with another one of those stuck-in-my-head hooks, and an ending that feels a bit like a hidden track on an album. Splendid.

The single is probably the best I’ve heard Cancel the Astronauts on record. I’m clearly already a fan, and enjoyed the previous two EPs, but it all just sounds a little crisper and sharper here, which is rather pleasing. When I reviewed Funny For a Girl in June 2010 I said “hopefully we don’t have another year for more new material”, 14 and a bit months on I’ll just keep my mouth shut this time eh?

Seven Vices is released on September 12th, pre-order it now from Bandcamp.
Cancel the Astronauts are off on a UK tour to launch the single. They play The Captain’s Rest in Glasgow Friday (the 9th), with support from Over the Wall and Poor Things, tickets are available here, Troon Concert Hall on Saturday, then on Sunday, the 11th, they play in Edinburgh at The Electric Circus, with support from My Tiny Robots and The Bad Books. More dates follow, see their website for details.

Cancel the Astronauts: Website - Bandcamp - Facebook

<a href=”http://canceltheastronauts.bandcamp.com/album/seven-vices”>Seven Vices by Cancel The Astronauts</a>

Album Review: Comply or Die - Depths

We love a bit of noise here at Aye Tunes, so today we are taking the short hop across the Irish Sea for some. Comply or Die are a three piece hailing from Belfast, Depths is their second album, and I’m going to try and get through this without an obvious horse joke.

Depths kicks off with an all out assault in the form of Official Secrets. Loud, frantic and frenetic, it sets out the stall nicely for the rest of the album. The first few tracks on the album keep up the million miles a minute approach, ferocious riffs bludgeoning the ears and rushing the adrenaline, and that’s just how I like it.

After the short sharp shock of the opening three songs comes the sprawling 11 minute long Vermin, which breaks away from the formula set down so far. More doom than thrash in pacing, Vermin uses every bit of its lengthy running time wisely, retaining the skull pounding riffs, but giving them more time to build and breathe. It takes a turn to the dark and sinister, before building up to an aggressive conclusion, and sounds excellent.

After that I’m Sick (of This) and Motives resume the frantic pace, with buzzsaw riffs, filthy bass and pounding drums back to the fore.Viscera rounds off this little trilogy with enough power to rattle teeth, and comes out as my favourite of the albums 6 shorter tracks.

Final track DMT follows the lead of Vermin, not least in run time, clocking in at an epic 12 minutes. At times it is almost dreamy, somewhat apt given the psychedelic it presumably takes its name from, then bursting into a wave of distortion followed by even more juddering riffs, DMT has more hooks than a cloakroom, and brings the album to a glorious close.

All in all Depths is a pretty mighty album. One that will leave you gasping for breath, ears ringing, and in my case grinning in approval. The short tracks that make up the bulk of the album provide good, loud, entertainment, while Vermin and DMT that show off the full range of Comply or Die and make me want to come back for more.

All hurdles cleared and across the finish line, and Depths comes out as a winner. I knew I couldn’t resist a horse reference.

Depth is out now, available from Bandcamp, Amazon and iTunes.

Shanghaied by Comply Or Die

Comply or Die: Website - Facebook - Bandcamp

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