The State Broadcasters – Trespassers

Some bands seem to have been a part of the furniture for so long that you sort of forget to hear them. That sounds a bit glib I know, but having had the privilege of being bombarded with new music these past couple of years there are bound to be bands which fall by the wayside. But if fate deals the right card, you’ll encounter them later and have one of those forehead-slapping moments where you wonder why you weren’t listening earlier. The State Broadcasters caused me just such a moment, and the reason they’ve sprung to mind now is their addition to the ever eclectic roster of Olive Grove Records who continue to judge the timing perfectly with their slow and steady release of new Scottish music. Having arrived on the scene during my period of musical disillusionment, there is some catching up to do as The State Broadcasters already have pedigree – a single and album on Electric Honey, some high profile support slots and an award at Celtic Connections not least among their achievements.

Emerging as a taste of a forthcoming second album, “Trespassers” is a curiously formal waltz, sparse at its outset with Graeme Black‘s melancholy voice and a piano doing all the work. As the narrative unwinds, the benefits of being a six-piece band of multi-instrumentalists become apparent with a reassuringly solid double-bass marking time, while dashes of piano and ukulele adorn the track. The lyric is a tale of disassociation and longing, which builds to a chorus drenched in chiming guitars and dramatic key changes. The highlight for me is the entrance of the lush, beautifully arranged strings which carry the song away to new heights. Overall, there is an atmosphere of regret and heart-aching sadness, but those uplifting strings bring things back from the brink. In an era when everyone is suddenly a folk musician, this is unashamedly heart-on-sleeve pop music which misappropriates all the wistful, dark honesty from that contested – and somewhat devalued – genre. Make no mistake, The State Broadcasters are coming after your heartstrings with this stuff – and they won’t rest until they’ve seen grown men cry.

“Trespassers” will be available as a free download on 11th June, in anticipation of The State Broadcasters second album “Ghosts We Must Carry” which will arrive in September. The band play The Captains Rest in Glasgow on 14th June with Randolph’s Leap as part of the West End Festival. You can find their debut album “The Ship and The Iceberg” on iTunes.

Jesus H. Foxx – So Much Water

Whilst Jesus H. Foxx might seem a world away in terms of sound and approach, there are some remarkable similarities with The State Broadcasters. Also emerging from a host of other bands in the heady years at the end of the last decade, where the internet was making all kinds of things possible for small bands, they too have left a big gap between releases. They’ve left a huge hole in the Edinburgh music scene too during this time, because as I’ve remarked elsewhere, there just haven’t been good guitar bands coming through at all in the last few years. A ramshackle, delightfully messy single “Tightt Ideas” preceded an EP in 2009. Since then, Jesus H. Foxx have officially been recording their debut album for Song, By Toad. This process has become one of those legendarily protracted experiences, up there with My Bloody Valentine and The Beach Boys – and for a long time we’ve had to be content with the assurance that “it’ll be ready soon…”

Well, the album is here – and it’s purely down to my laziness and lack of organisation that it hasn’t had a full, over-wordy exposition here on this site. I might yet get around to it if real life gives me the time and the space. For now though “So Much Water” – a free single available for immediate download – captures the spirit of the record perfectly. Declaring it’s intentions early with a glorious splash of colourful, ringing guitars, the song settles into a pensive and jittery rhythm. It’s almost obligatory to reference Pavement when writing about Jesus H. Foxx but to be honest, the similarity – at least here – starts and ends with Michael Hunter‘s downbeat drawl and the phrasing of the vocals. A sudden explosion of competing voices and chiming guitar lines heralds a chorus which explodes again and again throughout the remainder of the song. This has much more in common with the familiar British indie-pop sounds of the last couple of decades than anything from across the pond. The band – numbering seven at full strength – uses it’s multiple vocalists to excellent effect here, with chorus of backing voices appearing to support the long, blissfully jangling outro. There is a sunny, upbeat quality to “So Much Water” which is tempered by the laconic vocals and near-defeated lyrics. While elsewhere on their album you’ll find strings, brass and all manner of rather wonderful cleverness this is the band at their simplest and most direct. Somehow Jesus H. Foxx manage to fuse together that scratchy, punky sense of urgency with lush summery guitar pop in ways which very few bands seem interested in attempting now. The fact that there is now a whole album of this awaiting your listening pleasure is something to be very happy about indeed.

You can download “So Much Water” right now, for absolutely nothing from Song, By Toad Records where the album “Endless Knocking” can be purchased too, and comes highly recommended. News of a launch event will follow at some point we are assured, but once you live in the world of Jesus H. Foxx you learn that the anticipation is all part of the fun.

This five track EP opens with the distant, sparse “Yellowcraig”, apparently and appropriately named for a stretch of unspoiled, windswept coastline on the Firth of Forth, and which couples the familiar nagging, hollow guitar jangle from the first EP to a distant, disembodied vocal. It’s all willed back into line via a rumbling bass line which prevents everything from unravelling into the ether, and gives it an oddly sinister edge. The strangeness of the atmosphere is ramped up via weird chirps of distorted tape noise which herald a sudden but sure-footed gear change into the closing section of the song, built around a satisfyingly crunchy guitar with melodies layered over noise to spectacular effect. There is more haunting themed fun with “Ghosts” – musically more upbeat but equally hollow-eyed and strung out lyrically. Focused on a chiming guitar line and half-whispered vocals which unfurl a tale of being unable to shake off a memory. Mid-song, a shimmery, shoegazey note familiar from the first EP is added to the insistent rhythm section as guitars lines tangle and overlay to form a sonically complex mix. A down-shift in tempo heralds an utterly beautiful mess of noise and feedback which ebbs away leaving just an acoustic guitar. It’s usually around this point in a review that I realise my efforts to describe music like this are largely pointless – it’s just utterly lovely and you should listen to this free download at the earliest opportunity.

If there is a Plastic Animals manifesto, it’s summed up by a post on their Tumblr – simply a picture of Bilinda Butcher and the word “YES”. This influence is perhaps most evident on the sprawling, distorted “Sundowning”. This is a hazy spectacle, sounding blissed out but bittersweet. A gorgeous drone of guitars and vocals which erupts into a sudden, earsplitting squall of noise with what sounds like an overdriven organ drone to my untrained ear, adding an oddly jaunty counterpoint to the vocals which resignedly accept “guess we’ll all be dead before the summer“. Unexpectedly though a tempo change propels the song into a joyous, anthemic closing section. There are various points on this EP when any sense of a repetitive formula to Plastic Animals‘ muse is shattered by these impeccably performed shifts of time signature, reliant on the self-assured rhythm section which underpins these hazy and sometimes seemingly chaotic bursts of energy. But the absolute highlight of the EP for me is “Pirate DVDs”, kicking off as shamelessly straightforwardly sludgy garage rock with stuttering, urgent drums and distorted vocals. I’d be happy with this continuing, but it all unexpectedly gives way to sweeps of undulating surf guitar and screeds of static. There are more changes of pace and tone in a single song here than in entire albums by some bands, and it’s Plastic Animals ability to perform these shifts with jawdropping suddenness but still keep the sense of a song which is one of their most remarkable skills. Whilst there are ideas aplenty here, it never ever feels like stray bits of writing bolted together. As the song winds back into life after a soporific lull its hard not to get swept along with the feedback crashing and echoing around. This track clocks in at an eventful six and a half minutes, but surprisingly commands attention all the way. Finally, the sepulchral “Slow Song” returns to the spectral theme with it’s woozy, clamourous organ and distant vocals. There are hints of Grandaddy in the delivery here – and it feels achingly sad, hopeless even. But there is a note of defiance in the lyrics, and something comfortingly narcotic about the droning, fading glimmer of a tune.

There are some bands I find myself mentally willing to succeed, despite realising with some embarassment that I know relatively little about Plastic Animals beyond these two EPs. In a week when there is a huge amount of attention focused on Scottish Music and in particular the list of remarkable albums from the last year, its easy to understate the importance of the EP as a tool for a band to lay out an agenda. Across the five expansive, often lengthy tracks here Plastic Animals accomplish far more than an album’s worth of ideas and sounds, once again pinning it all together via a sense of conscious design and thoughtful construction. This is despite the sense that the spiralling, dizzy sounds here are sometimes wayward, threatening to burst free and overwhelm the songs in static and noise. In the confines of a not-very-widely-read blog, it’s remarkable easy to fall into the trap of trotting off comparisons and analogues for bands. However, Plastic Animals manage the trick of incorporating back-references to some of the finest elements of guitar music from the past three decades, but remaining resolutely of their own time and place.

Plastic Animals – Sundowning

The “Automaton EP” will be available on June 2nd from Bandcamp. “Ghost” is available now as a free download, and you can watch the video here. By way of launch gigs for the EP, Plastic Animals will play at Henry’s Cellar Bar in Edinburgh on 3rd June and The Old Hairdressers in Glasgow on 8th June.

The album opens with the spirited, twanging country-pop of it’s title track, which I wrote about here recently. It signals something of a shift in Tierney‘s palette on this second album as Lonely Tourist which allows the full band sound to dominate a little more. There’s certainly more variation in tone and texture this time around, and this has allowed the subject matter and lyrical preoccupations of these new songs to broaden too. However, they never stray far from the Lonely Tourist canon, and there is comforting familiarity in the themes of “A Lonely Tourist” which concerns itself with encroaching middle age and resentment for the opportunities and irresponsibilities of the young. Reflecting on a “bowl of fruit/bought and left” this lands at just the right time for me and I’m able to share in some of Tierney‘s frustration. The song builds, growing with his indignation before it suddenly slows to a waltz and he reasons “I can’t go back/i’m a lonely tourist now“. It’s of course equally dangerous to assume that this is all completely autobiographical, but those little touches of local knowledge, and the focus on familiar places evident in Lonely Tourist‘s songs is always a source of delight to me. On “Rattling Around” the title refers back to “a lager can on the top deck of a 41“, the revised route of this old stalwart bus now plying its trade between Avonmouth and Old Market. Not since Sarah Records featured catalogue number appropriate routes on their 7″ labels has the local transport network found a musical outlet. But significantly, it’s a little bit of Bristol registering in the songs of this expat-Glaswegian songwriter who elsewhere professes not to miss his city. But stylistically and lyrically it still looms large over “I Live Where You Are”. This striving for recognition, becoming part of the “street furniture of this town” and this battle against indifference is echoed by the song’s ending as it drifts away into bar chatter and clinking glasses. It’s a fate many a musician will have experienced, and I sense that perhaps eulogising this in song is Lonely Tourists‘s way of dealing with it.

Shuddering in with a gnarled, fuzzy guitar line and reverb washed vocals “Jesus, The Don and The Dee” is a bitter break-up song, where once again travel and distance loom large in Tierney‘s story telling. Staged in the West End of Glasgow and involving a desertion to Aberdeen, metallic guitars kick this along at a steady pace towards a killer chorus. Swooning vocals and knots of agitated guitar provide a wonderfully bitter, resigned tone to this gem of a song which just won’t shift itself from my head at present. Also memorable, I recall “The Greatest Ever Lines” from the recent set at The ABC in Glasgow. Played a little slower here, and with surprising tenderness given the subject matter, this is a dramatized first person take on plagiarism. Uncovered as our hero crashes into success and is deified as “the new Neil young“, there is a paranoid dreamlike quality to this curious tale, but in another sense it’s just another opportunity for Tierney to add to the unnecessary apologia for his craft as he takes on his own “fake sincerity“. There’s something about this lyric, and indeed the Lonely Tourist ethic which summons up for me B.S.Johnson’s poem “The Short Fear” where observing that everything’s already been said by someone somewhere, “The short fear is that even saying it in my own way is equally pointless“. It’s not the first time that Johnson and Lonely Tourist have aligned in my mind either.

“(they are on to you)” is a curious thing – a fragment which drifts in and out of the middle of the record. A bass-heavy, circular melody which reels around a scratchy electric guitar provides room for a regret tinged vocal delivery. It wheels prettily, with a shimmer of backing vocals, tangles of bright guitar and subtle beats. The lyric, a collection of observations about escape which unusually don’t have a connecting narrative, slips away and then the whole thing is gone, fading into silence. For his next trick Lonely Tourist channels the spirit of George Harrison, and in the plaintively echoing vocals on “Oh My Father” he manages to create a maudlin reflection on family life. The drift of guitars and a classic pop melody allows Tierney‘s voice more space to reach notes his more urgently delivered songs just don’t. The tale here hints at domestic strife, regret at missed opportunities, and a wish for final reconciliations. This part of the album hinges on a trio of more traditional Lonely Tourist songs where things get a little gloomier perhaps, and the poor guy gives himself a hell of a battering. On “Sick of This Winter” it’s the Glasgow weather which doubles as the villain. Exploring the idea of being a stranger in your home town, Tierney resolves that the trick is in never looking back, and this song explores the merits of drifting and wasting time alongside upping sticks and moving away. It’s delivered in the form of an urgent, up tempo stomping pop song which in common with the other upbeat pieces here, is incredibly infectious. Next up, opening with slurred, sampled vocals and sonorous piano chords “The Last Glass” tackles excess and willpower through the lens of a New Year’s Eve promise. The stirring, organ driven chorus has something of that resolve and a sense of striving for change which hogmanay brings, but there’s an unhealthy dose of fatalism in there too with the observation that “it’s four deep at the bar/that’s six feet down“. Finally “Found Out” takes Lonely Tourist directly back to his roots with an urgently strummed, scratched out dose of bitter self-examination. It’s a one-man character self-assassination which finds his own weak points, and once he has declared that he is found wanting as man and musician, he proceeds to stick the verbal boot in. Ultimately the message is that everyone will disappoint you – not least yourself – as he muses that “I wouldn’t trust me“. But “Found Out” hints at a redemptive character in the background keeping him on the straight and narrow. If these songs are snippers of autobiography, then for his own sake I hope there is just that.

But things aren’t quite done yet – and the album comes to a close with the unlikely soundscape of “Viking Jazz” – essentially a rumbling, full-bodied post-rock anthem which turns expectations on their heads once again. Sampled voices drift around the mix, while a nagging bass melody urges the piece towards an explosion of guitars and static. This squarely challenges the idea which has been built over the course of this and his last album – namely that Lonely Tourist is just a mild-mannered, darkly self-deprecating guy with a guitar – and makes us reconsider this in terms of what “I Live Where You Are” perhaps really is: an album of wonderfully executed, classic pop songs with thoughtful if sometimes pithy and self-immolatory lyrical preoccupations. The simple fact that this is all done with grace, quick wit and ready humour prevents a descent into uneasy voyeurism or tiresomeness. While the trials and tribulations of going it alone in the cruel jungle of the music business don’t perhaps loom quite as large over this second collection of Lonely Tourist songs, this time the process is turned inside out and the craft of the songwriter is exposed. It’s still strangely compelling stuff.

Lonely Tourist – Jesus, The Don and The Dee

Lonely Tourist will launch “I Live Where You Are” at the Stag & Hounds in Bristol on 25th May. The album will be available from 28th May on CD or as a download from various sites, including Bandcamp.

Given my policy of generally not writing about things I don’t completely enjoy, I’ve struggled with describing my experience of the previous act, and also more surprisingly with watching We Were Evergreen play tonight. On paper at least, they ought to appeal to me but I’ll start with the obvious – this band is perfect. Uncomfortably, irritatingly and mind-numbingly so. The three faultlessly pretty people which form We Were Evergreen take to the stage and with an air of studied geek chic, to produce shiny, clean folk-pop which I have to confess the audience in The Fleece appears to adore. The sounds hinges on the electronic backdrops provided by Fabienne who hunches over her kit for long enough to get things going before joining in the twee dancing on stage. Singer and ukelele player Michael croons and strums between his own outbursts of joyful jigging, and it all fits seamlessly together. When they aim for Beatles-like harmonies, they land perfectly. When they add a little hint of europop fizz, it bubbles through the audience just how they wanted it to. The songs begin to blur into one for me mid-set, and I realise that this music has no edges – no peaks and dips to give me a journey to travel with the band, no surprises or twists to make me sit up and listen. Its a long, slick stream of beautifully designed but ultimately anodyne pop. There are elements here which, taken alone are fun and interesting – some of the cheesy beats which underlie the songs are infectious and I spy a little dancing at the front, and occasionally when they harmonise it makes for a pleasantly folky sound. I pick up hints of Even As We Speak but not their knack for writing engaging lyrics sadly. Ultimately I feel like I’m being conned here, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. I also feel like I’m being hugely unfair, like I’m kicking a puppy which was only trying to make me happy. But this just wasn’t for me. Live music is about the clicks and buzzes, spilled drinks, broken strings and false starts. It loses it’s soul when it’s this unblemished. We Were Evergreen are talented souls I’m certain, but I feel like they need to have their hearts broken before they’ll ever truly reach mine.

I’ve written a great deal about Slow Club before, and I wondered how I’d add anything to my previous feverish declarations of love for the band’s music. But one of the most engaging and endearing things about Charles and Rebecca‘s take on things is that sometimes it appears to all stumble together quite accidentally, and anything could happen on the way. Augmented tonight by their now practically full-time band comprised of Avvon and Stephen of Sweet Baboo, they take the stage with Rebecca arriving last to a huge reception. It’s around now that I realise that Slow Club are reaching a much wider audience, and a glance around the now much increased all-ages audience shows a truly bewildering range of punters. It’s here that as someone writing about music I should probably get sniffily elitist and suggest that these people weren’t there at all the best gigs. But it genuinely never feels like that with this band – it’s just really inspiring to see people listening and loving the music, and I want everyone to see why I bang relentlessly on about them. The band are also in that strange position where they are touring between releases. With last year’s “Paradise” figuring heavily in the set, there are also several new songs which will form an as yet unrecorded EP. These songs are a little darker, a little slower perhaps, and interestingly Rebecca‘s voice is remoulded again when she sings them – switching character to become a wounded, country heroine this time around. Despite her professed “funny tummy” she is completely on form tonight – her voice reaching wonderful high notes and gravelly lows, and her between song jibes at ever-suffering Charles as barbed and witty as ever. It’s really encouraging to hear these new songs get a boisterous reception from the audience alongside older material.

The highlight of the set is a truly beguiling “Hackney Marsh” where Rebecca and Charles come forward from their microphones and let their unamplified voices fill the room. The Fleece can be a pretty noisy space at the best of times, but there is pin-drop silence as they strip the song back to its roots. Even a false start and a fit of giggles can’t break the spell, and neither the band nor the rapt audience are quite ready for what happens next. As the song moves into the section which is normally adorned on record by a saxophone solo, a bit of a clatter behind us signals Stephen Black clambering onto the bar and blasting out that solo as he crabwalks his way unsteadily towards the stage with a strange echo of Lisa in the opening credits of The Simpsons. Watching the surprise and delight in the room – in the audience, in the normally stoic Fleece bar staff, and up on stage – I realise it’s one of those moments that you know you’re going to talk about for years, and that you’ll never quite do justice to in your description. With audience now hanging on every note, the set closes with “Giving Up On Love” delivered in riotous, triumphant style by the whole band again. Sometimes Bristol gigs feel a bit like a battle of wits, with the band determined to win over an audience who are doing their utmost to repel all boarders. Tonight, Slow Club had won from the moment they struck the first note, and what started as a fairly inauspicious night turned into perhaps my favourite show of the year so far.

That is until now. This five-track EP is again completely self-released but as ever in the Doogan camp, it has been done professionally and with attention to detail. While there is charm and honesty in those home made sleeves which I treasure so much and endlessly bang on about, there is something pretty inspiring about seeing an artist striving for professionalism like this too. The EP begins with a with a slightly menacing melody picked on the guitar which becomes “Diamonds” – a surprisingly dark song which has featured in Julia‘s live set for a while now, dealing with fear – and more specifically the fear of loss. In her wonderfully dexterous voice Julia spins a tale of submission and redemption. The addition of a delightfully mournful cello and piano gives the track a curiously cinematic quality. “Those Things” is somewhat more upbeat, Renata Pilikinaitė‘s cello here altering its personality entirely to provide drive and momentum alongside the shuffle of drums. I’ve heard Julia referred to before as a ‘folk singer’ but she has always been insistent that she sings pop songs. This piece supports her assertion completely, with Julia‘s ear for a well-constructed pop tune deployed faultlessly to provide memorably sweeping choruses and an impeccable, addictive vocal melody. I’ve tried to describe Julia‘s voice previously to no avail, and I’ll probably fail again here. The key is its range and agility, and the ability to switch between a folky rustic delivery and these swooning pop chorus. Never far from her Glasgow roots, the intonation doesn’t adopt that weird transatlantic drawl so beloved of singer-songwriter types – but manages to stay rooted in the Central Belt.

The last couple of years have seen numerous demos and covers sneak out of the Doogan camp, and “Answer” first surfaced as one of these, with Doogan‘s legendary downplaying of her abilities suggesting she’d remove the download soon because it wasn’t good enough. Luckily I managed to grab it before it disappeared, and the surprise is how little needed to be done to what was already a gorgeously constructed track to turn it into the version here. Jennifer Hamilton provides a little piano embellishment and this along with a skiffly tap of drums are all there is aside from Julia‘s voice and guitar. The lyrics describe a promise of unending support and fidelity – surely a positive declaration, but even here there is just the hint it may not be returned in kind and that it’s all in vain. There is something about this quiet, resolute delivery which invites a deliciously maudlin interpretation. With its more formal song structure and picked guitars “Bound” is likely the closest Julia‘s brand of songwriting comes to the contested area of folk music. Appropriately the lyrics explore commitment and entanglement, and not for the first time the song’s narrator is sleeplessly pondering relationships, a theme which seems to thread through this EP. Finally, employing just the piano and cello, the closing “Down The Line” provides a space where Doogan‘s vocals can echo and soar unrestrained. It’s delicate and almost fragile, but the strength and clarity of the voice is very apparent here. And with that echo of relationships transcending distance and a lonely glockenspiel melody picked out against the moans of the cello, Julia urges us not to worry. It’s easy to be lulled into a sense of security by her voice, but the dark corners of these songs remain part of their allure.

This EP is the culmination of a tremendous amount of hard work for Julia Doogan, writing, playing live and bringing together The Doogans in their current, incredibly talented form over the past two years. At the same time it represents maturing songcraft and a developing ear for melody which has resulted in this absurdly catchy and addictive release which still manages to explore complex emotional landscapes and some pretty dark spaces within the confines of short, direct pop songs. Recurring throughout this record are themes of commitment, submission and loss which sometimes set the lyrics darkly at odds with the pretty, beautifully played tunes. It’s true that there are a lot of people out there with their guitars, doing the heart-on-sleeve singer-songwriter thing in a fairly adequate way. But this is something rather special, and the approach here hinges on the quality of the musicianship and songwriting and the ability to hook you in with a deft chorus or heartachingly neat turn of phrase. I’ve no doubt that this EP will sell out just like it’s predecessor, and I can only urge you to get in quickly and not miss out like I did last time around. Let’s not leave it two years before the next one folks!

Julia and The Doogans – Those Things

You can buy the “Diamonds EP” from Bandcamp or from Julia and The Doogans own online store where it comes bundled with all manner of other items.

Tonight’s opening act harked back to Bristol’s past too in some ways, invoking something of the guileless honesty and simplicity of the city’s indie-pop past and the spirit of Sarah Records. The Middle Ones are Anna and Grace tonight, although I understand there are sometimes others too depending on where and when they convene. For this evening, their set-up is simple – a single guitar, two voices and lots of nervous giggling. As one of the duo hails from Bristol, there is something of a local following and it’s good to see their set getting a great response from the small but growing crowd. The charm of The Middle Ones lies in those little off-mic whispers, the occasionally fluffed guitar chord and the sometimes wayward vocals. Because, when these two start to get comfortable within a song, when their voices manage to do the strange, twisting and turning around each other thing, and when suddenly it all shifts into focus this is really rather good. Bands just don’t sound like this just now, perhaps because it’s not hugely fashionable to – or perhaps because this kind of exposed, heart-on-sleeve artistry is actually pretty hard to get right? The short set touched lyrically on just the areas that perhaps you’d expect – love found, love lost, love unrequited – but it did so in a surprisingly frank and down-to-earth way, that managed to avoid contrivance and cringing. That’s no small feat for this embattled old hack, and there is something refreshingly uncomplicated about The Middle Ones which makes me feel both much younger and much older all at once. They just don’t make music like this anymore.

I wondered if seeing Seamus Fogarty performing twice in the space of a week would detract from the experience, but I’m happy to say it didn’t at all. A quietly polite, unassuming gent, it’s sometimes easy to forget Fogarty‘s fund of tales and experiences. Far from that straightforward and woefully inadequate description singer-songwriter, once again he used this to support a set of beautifully spun songs which seemed to emerge from chaos and confusion, coalescing into mesmerising, quietly beguiling pieces of music. Despite having set up a complicated mess of electronics, he once again decided to focus on his guitar and voice. While he told his strange, sometimes almost surreal stories to the rapt, silent audience he would tune the guitar. Sometimes this would go on for quite a while, but suddenly without even realising it had begun and the song would emerge slowly and quietly from the tuning. Fogarty‘s storytelling skills were effortlessly extended into his songs, and while some familiar material from last week’s Eye o’ The Dug performance re-emerged, there were new delights too. This included a hark back to his “country phase” with a curiously misogynistic ballad which he assured the audience wasn’t representative of his views these days. Seamus was keen to promote his new album “God Damn You Mountain” which had arrived just hours before the show – but perhaps not for the self-gratifying reasons you’d expect. Rather, he was dreading the experience of persuading Ryanair to carry even a gram of extra luggage without him parting with a huge fee. This meant the hugely frustrating experience of seeing, touching and very much wanting a record but knowing that my own copy is still winging it’s way to my home from rural Fife. So near and yet so far, and made all the worse by the fact the album is a very beautiful artefact in itself. Tracks from the tantalisingly close at hand album made up much of the rest of the set with “The Waterside” forming a surreal and lovely highlight with its curious images of “birds with dinosaur bodies“. On record this is a jittery, busy shuffle of a track, but here it’s delivered slowly and reflectively, with Fogarty‘s voice no less brimming with emotion and gravity than when he’s tackling darker lines. While you hope Seamus got his albums home safe, it’s hard not to wonder if that story too will crop up sometime, buried in a song and delivering the little moments of light relief which pepper this warmly and genuinely appreciated set.

Headlining tonight, and due to the manufacturing delays sadly minus the Fence “Chart Ruse” EP that he was here to launch Delifinger took the the stage with his stony-faced but highly effective band of musicians. Looking much more relaxed in this more intimate setting Matthew Lacey began a set which pulled off exactly the remarkable trick he manages on record – that is, to take the popular music of the last four decades, throw it into a blender with a little of the oddness of his other project OLO Worms and some vintage electronics, and to turn out something much greater and far better sounding than the sum of these varied parts would suggest. The new “Escapes EP” was aired in full with “Take It Slowly” becoming a collision of easy-listening, country, pop and strange, warbling synth sounds which worm their way dangerously into your consciousness. In fine voice, Lacey switched moods and delivered the sinister “It’s Not Going To End Well For Me” against an ominous rumbling bassline provided by Paul McGuinness who quietly patrolled the back of the stage. The title track, “Escapes” is as edgy and pensive as on record with weird shudders of electronica supplied courtesy of Rich Amino who emerged from behind the worlds tiniest electronic drumkit to do the honours. It’s sometimes hard to determine whether this is a futuristic take on music from the past as filtered through a fine record collection and an ear for a cracking melody, or whether perhaps this is what they seriously thought music would be like in the future? I can picture Delifinger on Tomorrow’s World, representing how life will change by 2012. But the star turn here is the songwriter, with his simple but atmospheric tunes and mildly disturbing but always affecting words. If there is ever a Delifinger album – and mid set I’m almost convinced I should start seeking the finance to make sure there is such a thing – it will, just like tonight, sound like a time machine. An odd, clattering and whirring thing which once it has reached the correct operating frequency hums and sings wonderfully through the ages of pop. Timeless is an over-used word in the reviewer’s lexicon, but for Delifinger tonight it’s a highly appropriate one.

Sadly, all too soon it was time to pick my way through the seething mass of humanity which Stokes Croft had become during the time I’d spent in the strangely soothing bubble of Hooops!. Leaving folks chatting about Record Store Day, and then seamlessly moving on to obscure heavy metal picture discs and classic local gigs of the past, it was very tempting to stick around and miss the train – but I’m getting too old for sleeping in subways, even if it is now part of an art installation. Whilst this was a quiet, relaxed and understated sort of evening it was also a chance to witness some musicians who seemed to be enjoying absolutely doing something a little different from the norm. If these nights have a guiding philosophy at all, then that’s probably the part that appeals to me. Gigs that no-one would ever dare put on, here in Bristol. You’d be a fool to miss this…

Today’s events were to take place in The Younger Hall, from the outside a vast grey Greek temple of a place sitting on North Street amongst the tight knot of attractive, ancient university buildings. Inside it had a strangely reverential air – the venue for graduations and classical recitals, it was covered in wood panelling and huge gleaming organ pipes, save for a huge, strangely abstract Eye o’ The Dug banner which adorned the back of the stage. Somehow it felt a little more like the mixture of halls and spaces in Anstruther which are appropriated for Homegame use, and once I’d got my bearings in the sprawling building it felt like a fine place to see some of the acts on the bill today, which would likely be a little less energetic than last night’s performances. However, openers Randolph’s Leap had absolutely no intention of lacking energy – bursting into life with the gusto and pomp of a headliner rather than an opening act, Adam Ross was accompanied by an expanded bunch of co-conspirators, including trumpet, trombone and strings. From the outset this was pretty special – fresh from public opprobrium regarding ‘tweeness’ and the whole Briangate affair, this band was resolutely not that – going as far as a hilariously poor Josh T. Pearson impersonation in their efforts to prove the case. There was no need at all, with the big, bold sound suiting Ross‘s compositions perfectly. Rollicking through a set including highlights from recent cassette release “The Curse of the Haunted Headphones” along with some unfamiliar new material, there were even outbreaks of spontaneous onstage dancing. Finishing up with a triumphant big band recasting of early relase “Crisps”, the audience stomped and yelled for more. What a way to shake off the last of yesterday’s cobwebs. With more of the audience beginning to drift into the hall following the excesses of last night, latest Fence signing Seamus Fogarty took to the stage. Having not managed to catch his performances previously this was something of a revelation to me, as he unravelled strange tales over gentle guitar backgrounds, strange echoing electronics or sometimes almost acapella. His voice, a gentle but emotion-cracked wonder, soared over the silent crowd and into the hall – all the more amazing as it came from the distant figure on the big, churchlike setting of the stage. Some of the material was familiar and bodes well for the imminent album – not least “The Wind” which has recently seen a haunting Geese remix, and the compelling semi-autobiographical storytelling of “Christmas Time on Jupiter”.

We shuffled downstairs next to the strangely shaped and rather cramped Stewart Room, which seemed to be directly underneath the main stage above. It was perhaps the perfect intimate space in which to witness Barbarossa – an artist from the early years of Fence who has been involved in all manner of other musical outlets over the years. Recently reactivated, James Mathé‘s own singer-songwriter project drew a huge audience from among the faithful for his beautifully soulful voice and simple, guitar and keyboard arrangements. I’m not ashamed to admit that this was new to me, and I was slack-jawed in mute appreciation along with many of the other casual listeners who hadn’t known what to expect but were now hushed and reverential. Some gentle backing vocals from Rozi Plain just added to the sense of quiet wonder in this fantastic set. I can’t wait to hear the forthcoming EP, which an informed guess might suggest will be a future “Chart Ruse” subscription effort. After struggling back up to the main hall – and realising just how awkward the building was to get around was despite it’s great acoustics and atmosphere, we were treated to a set by The Pictish Trail. Johnny Lynch confessed a little later that with all the work to get this event up and running, he’d not thought a great deal about what to play. In the event, he turned in a warm and memorably emotional solo performance which will remain with me as an Eye ‘o The Dug highlight, making this look impossibly effortless in the process. Mixing older tracks like “Words Fail Me Now” with the existential angst of new material like “Of Course You Exist”, Lynch worked the audience like a consummate showman. Amid the heartstring tugging though were plenty of laughs, and a little audience participation was called for on “Not To Be” extended greatly from it’s brief appearance on the “In Rooms” LP last year. As the song ended with exaggerated Pictish Trail vougueing and the audience yelling responses back at the stage, it wasn’t hard to see why this essentially one-man-and-a-guitar act can pack the main hall here. There was just time before scattering off to find refreshment in the short break to catch James Yorkston performing with the lightning-fingered Jon Thorne accompanying him on double-bass, though sadly visa issues prevented Sarangi player Suhail Yusuf Khan from joining them. As ever, Yorkston was grimly humourous and darkly self-aware and his anecdotes and observations alone could have made up a suitably entertaining set. He too chose to use this opportunity to showcase new material, and the songs which made up the set varied between self-immolating guilt ballads to spirited rants, all of them accompanied by Thorne‘s dizzying playing. There were genuinely affecting, lump-in-throat-moments aplenty too, and as I cast an eye around the hushed Younger Hall, I could see I wasn’t alone in being transported by James‘s muse. It was magical stuff for sure, delivered humbly and almost apologetically.

Suitably refreshed after a variety of hostelries and eateries had been rapidly besieged by Dug-goers, people began to drift back towards the venue and there was for a moment, a rather pleasant lazy feeling to proceedings as musicians and festival-goers alike sprawled in late afternoon sunshine and waited for things to start up for the last session of the day. If there was one tiny hitch in proceedings it was the extended soundcheck in the main hall which kept people confused and waiting to know quite what to do. As entrance to the Stewart Hall was also via this room, there was no clear idea where to queue. Eventually, some of us were lucky enough to be directed out of the building and into a mysterious door leading downstairs, just in time to catch Monoganon‘s set. Their set commenced with a couple of new songs which continued in the vein of last year’s “Songs To Swim By” album, combining passages of delicate folky loveliness with crashing walls of noise. In the confines of the smaller room, Monoganon in full flight were a force to be reckoned with and happily, as the soundcheck issues upstairs resolved themselves albeit with a huge delay incurred, a steady stream of people managed to get down to catch the blistering end of their set. Another unintended consequence of the delays was that it was possible to stay downstairs for much of Kid Canaveral‘s set. My deep, near embarrassing love for this band has been detailed here before and the prospect of them clashing was a difficult one to consider, with the logistics occupying a bunch of us all weekend. With the room now full to bursting they struggled up to the stage with Dave MacGregor posing briefly as KT Tunstall. This interest should probably have been predicted by their triumphant set at last year’s Homegame, as they proceeded to induce instant dancing in the already uncomfortably packed room. Beside the occasional bob of a Canaveral‘s head, I couldn’t see much but I could hear new songs effortlessly tumbling out of this talented foursome, and on this basis the new album is going to be packed with the kind of moments which once again today induce involuntary smiling in even the sternest audience member. Even some of the security staff looked mildly entertained, and that was no small feat!

With upstairs still rather behind schedule, we were able to make the final ascent in good time to pitch up directly in front of the stage. The choice here had been terribly difficult – with Withered Hand and FOUND closing things downstairs. However, I’d been gently persuaded over the past few weeks that it would be good to see KT Tunstall. I’d never seen her play live, and my only contact with her work in recent times had been via the radio. Contrary to popular myth, I don’t think there is any great rift between Fence fans and KT at all, but the rumour persists and there are some I think who like to keep it running. But, tonight at least, back on a familiar stage in their home town KT and some old friends were going to play together again. Whilst I regret what I didn’t get to hear downstairs hugely, I am very happy I stayed for this. Like others, Tunstall had elected to play a set of new material – so new in fact that this was the first public airing for these songs. Accompanied by the simplest of band set-ups, including a fantastic steel guitar player, she picked her way through a set of bewitchingly beautiful songs. The tunes were often dark – countering her self-confessed “perky mofo” reputation – and far more anchored to place too, with several of the songs seemingly about the area and in fact the town where we were hearing them. The security guards’ burly image had now slipped entirely, with a pair of them jostling each other at the side of the stage to get a good shot of KT on their camera phones. I’ll confess that despite my reservations and probably some vestiges of inverted snobbery, I was utterly spellbound by KT‘s voice. Recalling only hearing it belting out big radio-friendly things – which she is, it must be said very very good at – it was a genuine pleasure to hear this, her more considered side. And any sense that the audience wouldn’t be up for this was dispelled by the huge reaction the set garnered – and a quick glance over the shoulder showed that there were a fair few regular Fence folks up here too. Despite any concerns Tunstall had managed the never easy trick of delivering an entirely new set of songs and still pleasing the crowd. It was another of those Eye o’ The Dug moments no-one will forget in a while. The news that she will soon be recording in Arizona with Giant Sand genius-in-chief Howe Gelb was also very significant, and the results could be very interesting indeed. The songs performed tonight, stripped back and delivered in the dry desert air, could be some of her finest work yet.

It will probably surprise regular readers to hear I had reservations about King Creosote and Jon Hopkins too. Having heard “Diamond Mine” performed a few times, and having played the record until it was almost worn through, this album has sort of absorbed itself into me – and oddly I’ve found it strange and difficult to listen to live. However, this was going to be something special. For starters it was the first time that it would be performed in full in the Kingdom of Fife – the geography which inspired and runs inextricably through the songs. Secondly, the band which assembled to deliver this was pretty special – with Geese providing strings and drums and KT Tunstall assuming additional vocal duties. Kenny Anderson shuffled on stage to a tremendous, warm reception, hushing the crowd as Jon Hopkins began to pick out the notes of “First Watch” on the absurdly large grand piano which had been shifted onto the stage for the occasion. What followed is almost impossible to explain in words… With no breaks for between song banter, and with an audience showing the utmost respect for the quiet, delicate nature of the songs the album was reinvented. Anderson was in fine voice, stretching for notes it was surely not possible to reach and lifting onto tip-toes to catch them. Tunstall‘s counterpoint vocals were utterly beguiling too, and the moments where she and Kenny harmonised and made eye contact should have melted the hardest heart – there is no animosity in Fife, just a genuine love for the craft of musicianship. As the other musicians left the stage, Anderson and Hopkins were left to deliver perhaps the most wrenchingly lovely versions of “Your Own Spell” and “Your Young Voice” which I’ll ever hear, before an absolute explosion of appreciation from the rapt audience. Mercury Prizes, even Scottish Album of the Year Awards might be important – but this kind of immediate, emotional feedback must surely transcend all of that critical acclaim?

It was left to King Creosote and Jon Hopkins to close things, and they did so via a clutch of non-”Diamond Mine” material which delighted a crowd which probably didn’t think it could be any happier, including a storm through “Spystick” and a superb take on “Home In A Sentence”. It could have gone on all night, but as they left the stage again to a thunderous reaction Eye o’ The Dug was all over, bar the post match drinking and the mournful “I don’t want to go home” tweets, of which more than a few were going to be mine. During his set earlier, Johnny Lynch had asked the audience if this event had “killed the spirit of Fence?”. With tongue perhaps firmly in cheek, he reasoned that yes, it had a bit – but that was OK. As scores of happy faces straggled along North Street heading for the after party or their much needed beds, I don’t think anything died. In fact, this weekend, something might just have been reborn in this quiet corner of Fife.

“I don’t want to go home…“

My own Eye o’ the Dug experience began on Saturday, having skipped the pre-party due to being an old fart and not reckoning I’d make it through the trials and tribulations of the next couple of days intact if I started too early. I’d enjoyed a day of lounging around, revisiting old haunts, drinking coffee and watching the curious and ancient university tradition of the Kate Kennedy Parade taking place in St. Andrews. But another parade was under way too – as the crowds drifting along Market Street began to feature more familiar faces… This was going to be a big event – indeed huge by Fence standards. Rather like press reports of protest marches, estimates seem to vary about the total number – with some sources suggesting as many as 1200 attending. As the weather took another bizarre flip from soft evening sunshine to snowstorm, I entered Venue 1 – part of the sprawling Student Union building – not quite knowing what to expect. In the event it was a fine venue – spacious, plenty of bar staff and lots of opportunity to catch up with people in comfort. The security guards were a bit bewildered by the odd mix of people I think, but aside from some curiously fastidious crowd-control they left everyone mostly alone and concentrated on looking fearsomely detached. Meanwhile, Dewars were concocting evil tasting whisky-based cocktails and dishing them out mostly for free. Hence, a lot of people were in party mood from the outset. They were rewarded with Conquering Animal Sound, who delivered a icily cool set of new material which added new layers of complexity on the brittle, crystalline sound which defined “Kammerspiel”. I’d never seen the band look or sound more confident, and it was interesting to note Anneke Kampman relying less on effects and sonic trickery and often letting her voice do all the work. Skipping effortlessly from a whisper to a howl, she was accompanied by some frenzied sound manipulation by James Scott who spun between his various instruments without ever letting his ever-secure top button slip. As the relatively lesser known act on a fairly high-profile bill tonight, I think Conquering Animal Sound won a few hearts among the student population and reinforced the reputation they had garnered at last years’ Homegame with the Fence folks. What was also increasingly apparent was that with copious alcohol consumption and outbreaks of spontaneous dancing, it was getting harder and harder to evidence the ‘two crowds in one place’ theory of Eye o’ The Dug. It seems the gamble had paid off!

Next up were Frànçois and The Atlas Mountains, and I was forced to confess that I’ve never quite got this band completely, and I’ve found it equally hard toput my finger on why not. However, it also occurred to me today that I’d never properly watched them live – and I was struck right away by the sheer energy which the band pour into their art. It was a set packed with shimmery, ecstatic washes of noise and sudden twists and turns. As Frànçois spun and jerked around the stage, squeezing seemingly impossible notes from his guitar, I finally understood what people were seeing here. They’ll never be my favourite band I’m sure, but this was an incredible, intense performance which managed to whip the crowd into near frenzy. And that perhaps is what these Fence events do best – presenting you with something new, different and unexpected when you’re at you most receptive. Things were getting a little hazy by the time Dutch Uncles arrived on stage. A band I knew virtually nothing about, but had heard discussed in hushed tones earlier in the day. In the event, they deal in a strange brand of synth-pop with sudden jitters and crunches of big, meaty guitar. Musically, they were interesting and had a neat line in turning-on-a-sixpence shifts in pace and time, but I never quite came to terms with the vocals which were a strange mix of buttoned-down, white boy soul and Bryan Ferry. The audience however, loved them and it was impressive to look out across Venue 1 and the sea of bobbing heads and actual, proper dancing going on.

Doing this also made me feel strangely queasy however, and I became aware that once again I’d been led off the straight and narrow by a Fence event. My physical and mental condition degenerated further during the extended DJ set by Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard of Hot Chip fame. Somewhere in the middle of this, the fire alarm sounded. Potentially the slowest evacuation in history followed, and squished into the narrow space leading from St.Mary’s Place into the building, it became apparent just how many people were here. Despite the minor inconvenience, and thankful for the virutal face-slap of fresh, cold air I plunged back into the building for Django Django. I’d been looking forward to this after falling unexpectedly under the spell of their delightfully odd, eponymous debut album a few weeks back. Dressed in dizzingly matching shirts, they stood behind their machinery coaxing out remarkable noises. Again, it seemed to perfectly hit the spot for both of the sections of the audience, which had in any case mostly melded into a single, sweaty mess on the jammed dancefloor. All thoughts of this event being somehow outwith the ‘spirit’ of Fence, or too big to be as intimate as usual had entirely fallen away. In the midst of the shuddering beats and deleriously proggy sounds emanating from the stage, old acquaintances were renewed and new ones made. Even the stoney-faced security types were managing a smile by the end of the Django‘s set.

However, for me I realised that food and sleep beckoned. Having seen Errors fairly recently, and given that I was pretty much incapable of coherent speech I decided to leave it to the younger and fitter ones. As I surveyed the carnage for one last time before stumbling out into the cold night air, I was struck by how well all of this had melded together into an incredible event. The floor was filled with dancers, a conga led by a wheelchair wound it’s way through the crowd, various musicians who were due to be performing in mere hours were comprehensively enjoying the evening, and would surely never be up in time? It looked, sounded and ultimately felt fantastic to be a part of this.

Delifinger – also known as Matthew Lacey – is part of the OLO Worms. That curiously complex Bristolian collective which is going to be responsible shortly for one of the most dizzyingly varied debut albums of the year. As one of the songwriters which provide some form and structure to the otherwise strangely scatter-gun approach which the OLOs take, Lacey‘s craft needs to be subtle and versatile – and this EP showcases this very ably indeed. There are hints of his other work here too, as title track “Escapes” edges in gently with ominous beats and strange electronic noises. Lacey‘s delicate multitracked vocals take on a strangely traditional, madrigal-like quality in the claustrophobic atmosphere of the track. Somewhere in the midst of this, the droning equipment comes to the fore and the guitar takes centre stage. Since there is just a hint of summery west coast pop buried in here too, it ends up being both ancient and modern all at once. Meanwhile the more upbeat “Take It Slowly” is a gorgeously odd nugget of country pop, complete with a bassline borrowed from a Johnny Cash hit and a swooning chorus reminiscent of Gene Clark at his lyrical finest. Harmonising effortlessly with both his own rebounding voice and that of Anneliesa his wife, Lacey‘s simple but effective guitar is augmented by charmingly low-budget organ sounds in these sections too. Again I’m struck by the timelessness of Lacey‘s writing – and this could just as easily be some late-sixties psyche pop single spinning on the deck. It’s simple, direct and incredibly enjoyable.

When we reach the portentously titled “It’s Not Going To End Well For Me”. Delifinger has entered the strangely reflective zone where he is often at his best. The musical backing here is perhaps more reminiscent of his work in OLO Worms with fractured sound fragments sliding in and out of a soundtrack constructed from rumbling bass sounds and synthetic drums. Lacey sets out the dark territory he’s going to explore with the opening couplet “There’s too much on my plate/my bones deserve a break“. This is a tale of being stretched too far, and the danger of being on the edge of your patience and tolerance. As the hiss of tinny percussion sounds slides in, the vocals slip even further into the background and start to shatter and fragment. Clipped, weird yelps and spectral moans echo around and everything becomes just a little bit disconcerting, as somehow this is the soundtrack to an inner monologue which you get the sense you really shouldn’t be hearing. While this reflective approach bewildered me a little in the live performance at The Fleece, it makes much more sense here, reverberating spookily in my headphones. The organ which heralds the coming of closing track “Mining” rumbles equally ominiously, and rather surprisingly that is just about the size of it – a brief, strangely gloomy drone fading out as the needle lifts.

Atmospheric and far more complex than the simple instrumentation might imply, Delifinger has turned in a strange, sometimes impenetrable but always compelling EP which is a very worthy addition to this series of Fence releases. It will of course come with a remix by another Fence type by the time it reaches subscribers, and will be subject to the witheringly defiant approach to digital releases which means a download code might follow, at some unknown future occasion. Until then, the rare pleasure of lifting a real, tangible audio artefact out of it’s beautifully designed sleeve and placing it onto the deck should be celebrated. The fact is that Delifinger will transport you to a place where formats just don’t matter.

In deference to the concept behind the “Chart Ruse” series, there will be no audio preview at the end of this review. You’ll just have to take my word for what strangely subdued pleasures await with the “Escapes EP” – though you can watch the video for “Take It Slowly” here. Non-subscribers can pre-order the EP from Fence Records directly here. Delifinger shares a launch with Seamus Fogarty at The Wilmington Arms, London on Thursday 19th April, and in his native Bristol at Café Kino on Friday 20th April.

This, the third collection of IBCM material, develops the simple premise which Joyce established on “A Month of Lost Memories” and last year’s “The Spectator and The Act”, delivering perhaps even more emotionally charged narratives via sparse instrumentation focused on his acoustic guitar playing and underplayed, sometimes almost spoken vocals. This is of course a world away from the massive, near-orchestral post rock compositions of The Gothenburg Address where Joyce‘s talents have previously been put to work, but there is easily as much drama and tension bound up in these simple but often battle-scarred vignettes. The title track opens proceedings, beginning with gently strummed downbeat chords which support Joyce‘s sometimes laconic but always enigmatic voice. As he almost whispers “this will be my last song for you” there are hints of American Music Club at their damaged, intoxicated best in the delivery. Notably briefer than the sometimes extended tracks on the two previous releases, things shift a little more uptempo if not lyrically upbeat on the appropriately swirling “Carousel”. This one is for all of us who’ve ever been in, or perhaps more frustratingly watched from the sidelines those relationships which endlessly repeat and recycle the same barren ground. There are points in these songs which are almost too graphically, personally harrowing and there is a particularly voyeuristic element to “The Method Actor” where a refrain of “with skin pale and hope lost/you burst like nails in me” is painfully near the bone. Echo-laden percussion is drafted in to sustain the fragile tune through to its ending, as if it too might just expire without urgent assistance.

Some of the most poignant moments here are the simplest and lowest in fidelity. With just a gentle picked guitar and a raw vocal echoing in an empty room “An Exit” is briefly, quietly gorgeous – an unravelling tale of uncomfortable conclusions with “not a word spoken for days now“. But there is some wonderfully complex, proficient guitar work here too, especially in the playful and explorartory end section of “Stressing for Midnight” which is a breathlessly dizzy relief in the midst of the record, with delivery not dissimilar in style to RM Hubbert. “Double Dares” is a hark back to more expansive, traditional structures and songwriting, and as such is a reminder of the brace of collections of music Joyce has already released under the IBCM moniker – both like this one quietly, almost apologetically slipping out into the world. Detailing a range of painful trade-offs typified by the line “your beauty is the punch I take“, there is a perversely gleeful turn to the melody and even a tinkling of mocking glockenspiel. And then the realisation hits that this is about as backhandedly positive as “Songs From That Never Scene” becomes. But things soon return to type, and my personal highlight “Promenades” is something very special – a bass rhythm beaten out on a single string and flecks of sparkling guitar mark out a sparse, gentle and lovelorn lament, charting the minutiae of a long and convoluted relationship. Joyce starts already battered and broken and slips further from our grasp as the song unfolds. Then when all appears utterly beyond redemption, the track closes with a short burst of joyously complex, almost flamenco guitar playing.

As the album slips away with the repeated refrain of “lets go to the sea” which closes “Swan Song”, it seems Luke Joyce and IBCM are at something of a crossroads. With The Gothenburg Address emerging from a couple of years on hiatus, it’s possible that this dark, lyrically rich outlet for his songwriting may possibly take a back seat once again. Whilst making us choose between these two fine projects seems deeply unfair, “Songs From That Never Scene” sits as a testament to some of the most vivid, emotionally intelligent songwriting I’ve heard in a very long time.

You can buy “Songs From That Never Scene” exclusively via the I Build Collapsible Mountains Bandcamp page, and its predecessors can be found via US label Burning Buildings Recordings. Luke Joyce is currently in the midst of a number of Scottish live dates, taking in Ediburgh’s Pleasance Theatre on April 11th, The Captain’s Rest in Glasgow on April 12th and Dundee Doghouse on April 29th.