unpopular

7 & 7 is

Some of the WIAIWYA singles club subscribers have been indulging in a mix swap recently. I have been terribly late with putting mine together but the arrival of a splendid mix from club member #88 in some lovely hand made packaging made me determined to get my act together this weekend. So, despite my workflow being disrupted somewhat by a burst pipe in the attic at lunchtime, today has been spent bringing the project to fruition. You can see the complete mix package in the photos above and below, and if you are really interested in how it all came together you can see the Flickr set in which I documented the whole process here. Initially intended as a one-off for #89, I decided to follow through on the whole seven theme and do a print run of that number. Each one is subtly different of course thanks to the hand-pressed print and painting of the wee gouache circles. First five people to hit me up on twitter (@unpopular) get a copy. Here’s the tracklisting:

7 Days - Acid House Kings
The Girl At Number 7 - Would-Be-Goods
Quarter To Seven - The Fairways
Seven Clubs - The Pines
Seven Days In September - Ginger Snaps
Tram #7 - Pants Yell!
Seven Days - Animals That Swim

Seven Kinds Of Sin - Sad Lovers And Giants
7th Generation Mutation - St. John Green
Martin, Doom! It's Seven O'Clock (Stereolab mix) - The Boo Radleys
Seven Years of Letters - The Twilight Sad
Seven Years - The Fallen Leaves
Seven Years Old - The Chills
Soul Seven - The Undertones

The Rolling Stones

Pictures on my wall. Grab 'em before they've gone.

Face A:

Glass - Field Mouse (Bandcamp)
Just for fun - Alpaca Sports (Soundcloud)
Thanks For Letting Me Stay - My Darling YOU! (from 'Sorry' 10" on Luxury)
Liquid Summer - Diamond Messages (YouTube)
I'm Not An Antidote - Happy Hands Club (Soundcloud)
Picking Holes - The Machine Room (Bandcamp)
Painted Room - My Lady of Clouds (from 'Your Name In Secret I Would Write')
Emmylou - First Aid Kit (YouTube)

Face B:

Summer - Audrey Ryan (Bandcamp)
Muffled Manor - Sunshower Orphans (Bandcamp)
The End Of Silence - Porcelain Raft (from The End Of Silence)
Half Light - RM Hubbert with Emma Pollock & Rafe Fitzpatrick (from Thirteen Lost & Found)
Swim Up Behind Me - Amen Dunes (YouTube)
The Rolling Stones - Hello Shark (Bandcamp)
Colorado - Guy Capecelatro III & Craig Werth (Bandcamp)
Our Cat - Advance Base (Soundcloud)

longshot for your love

It's a longshot I know, but if any of you happen to be in KL this weekend and are at a bit of a loose end you could do a lot worse that pop along to this album launch party for Ferns' 'Fairweather Friends' album. I included the album opener on the first Unpopular mix of this year and if you haven't investigated it yet then hey, take a minute to check out their Bandcamp or Soundcloud pages. Me, I'll probably be drinking a Belgian beer and watching the last episode of 'The Rotters Club'.

In the half-light

RM Hubbert first came to my attention via my good friend Graham who had seen him play in support of Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells in Copenhagen. He pointed me at the fine ‘First & Last’ album; an accessible yet complex and challenging set of guitar instrumentals. Perhaps I should have known about Hubbert through his work with Glasgow post-rockers El Hombre Trajeado and indeed it’s possible I did. Their 1999 ‘Shoplift’ EP spins as I write this and sounds strangely familiar. Perhaps the Appliance lads played this for me all those years ago. It is too long ago to remember.

Whatever, the new ‘Thirteen Lost & Found’ collection on the legendary Chemikal Underground label sees Hubbert hook up with a range of friends as collaborators, and it is stranger and stronger still. There is a gorgeous track that shows off Aidan Moffat’s unparalleled storytelling skills, to which Hubbert’s intricate yet restrained picking is as eloquently suited as Bill Wells’ instruments on last year’s ‘Everything’s Getting Older’ triumph. Another highlight is ‘Gus Am Bris An Latha’ with John Ferguson on banjo. It’s a beautiful number that resonates with the spirit of the Western Isles and is for me the best of the instrumental pieces on the record. 

Elsewhere, well, I could pass on the collaboration with Marion Kenny & Hanna Tuulikki, and Alasdair Roberts never did float my boat, but such is often the nature of pick and mixes like this. Everyone has a different opinion on the coffee cream after all. 

The choicest selection for me then is the appropriately titled ‘Half Light’, on which the always wonderful Emma Pollock turns in a typically affecting vocal performance over a beguilingly bleak backing provided by Hubbert and Rafe Fitzpatrick. It’s all icicles and chilling air winding around dying embers; a perfect February moment.

Now it frankly shocks me to realise it is nearly eight years since I came across Tibi Lubin. When Joe Foster unveiled their ‘I Don’t See You As A Dead Girl’ collection I wrote that they joined lines between the likes of Claudine Longet, Slumber Party, Marine Girls and Young Marble Giants. Given that My Lady of Clouds is effectively former Tibi Lubin singer songwriter Katie Stewart in solo mode, its no surprise then that I once again summon the spirit of those greats to help pin down ‘Your Name in Secret I Would Write’. It really is a lovely contemporary folk pop album, blessed with simple strums and such a charming vocal delivery that is both deliciously warm and cooly distanced in the same breath. The splendid cover of Jean Ritchie’s ‘Now Is The Cool Of The Day’ gives you an idea of where Stewart is coming from, but it’s on her own numbers where she really flourishes. So for example there’s a six minute tale of an encounter with a firefly sent by Orpheus that’s as strange and strangely beautiful as anything by Joanna Newsom. Or what about a playful pop moment that makes reference to the Sufi poet Rumi whilst musing on body language? Not that you need to be a well-read intellectual to enjoy this album. The fact that it has been working its way into the corners of my heart is surely proof of that.

Alpaca Sports - pre-order your 7" now!

Following my post the other day about the ever so fab Alpaca Sports, here's the skinny on how you can snag yourself a copy of the 7":

Great news! New Luxury artist Alpaca Sports will release a very
limited 7″ (300 copies) on Luxury in March 22. Two tracks. Co-released
with wonderful Dufflecoat Records (100 copies Dufflecoat, 200 copies
Luxury).

Pre-order by sending money through PayPal to info@luxxury.se (write
Alpaca Sports and your address in the message field). You will have
the record in your post box on the release date.
More info within a week or two.
Sweden: 49 kronor
Europe: 6,5 euro
World: 9,5 dollar
Shipping included.

Lost in the mythical canyon (again)

I do not remember exactly when I first heard First Aid Kit but I do know that I picked up on their ‘Drunken Trees’ debut in 2008 (and before, I am sure, their Fleet Foxes cover went viral...). I say this, of course, to illustrate how hip and on the pulse I am; to show that I am no Johnny-come-lately who just read about them in Q, Mojo or The Guardian. Me, I’m down with the cutting edge of the underground, man. Way ahead. You know it’s true.

Not that it matters a jot. I’d still be loving their new ‘The Lion’s Roar’ set and in particular this ‘Emmylou’ cut. Some may be tired with the whole Laurel Canyon, California sixties aesthetic but I admit I find myself drawn to it still. The packaging of the album is very much rooted in that era; the Söderberg sisters as flower children exploring the canyons, blissfully unaware of Charlie’s nightmare just around the corner. 

And if a part of me wants to sneer and bitch about corporate nostalgia, about that endless recycling of Rock’s most obvious mythic past, another part says just give into that irresistibly charming chorus of ‘Emmylou’ with it’s oh-so-knowing but oh-so-sweetly-loving references to the greats of country and cosmic American music. Part of me reminds myself that I too have made the pilgrimage to Joshua Tree and to Gram’s memorial; that I too was touched beyond words. Emmylou and June. Joni and Michelle. Wendy and Bonnie. There are worse things to be dreaming of after all.

 

Pink Carnations

I just spotted this on the Animals That Swim blog. Only six months since the last post on there, but this is a peach. I had never seen this before; did not know there even was a promo film for the song. It's long been one of my favourite Animals That Swim songs, and in such a canon of greatness that is really saying something.

Now, can someone tell me if Hugh Barker, author of the forthcoming 'Hedge Britannia' is the same Hugh Barker who co-authored the fabulous 'Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music'? In other words the same Hugh Barker from Animals That Swim? The Amazon authors description of him as "a hedge fanatic who lives in North London, surrounded by a small hedge that he can call his own." makes it sound highly likely...

 

Silvery lathe-cut goodness

This little beauty arrived in the mail this week, and I guess it must be one of the rarest records I own. Limited to 88 copies, it's a lathe cut single on mirrored acrylic with a hand screened sleeve on off-cut drum-covering. It was created by those fascinating folks at People In A Position To Know, from whom you can still pick up the digital download for 99 cents...