I Hear a New World Podcasts
In association with www.theskinny.co.uk and www.freshair.org.uk
Podcast 4 (featuring Kazoo Funk Orchestra, Dirty Summer, Ulrich Schnauss and Lach)
Read the Skinny column accompanying this podcast
Podcast 3 (featuring Errors, Stanley Brinks, Gummi Bako and Wounded Knee)
Employee of the Month – Brainwave Corrupted
Call it jazz or post-rock if you like, and it’s true that Edinburgh band Employee of the Month bear comparison to the likes of Boards of Canada and Tortoise, but their hyper-modern aesthetic is all their own. What’s even more striking is how well the band recreate their recorded sound live. From the pristinely produced Brainwave EP, this track is crying out to be used to soundtrack a film with similarly innovative, mind-blowing visuals.
Stanley Brinks – Stanley Brinks
The artist formerly known as Andre from the band Herman Düne no longer plays live with his brothers, though he contributed a number of gorgeous tunes to their last album Giant. Since leaving he has reinvented himself as Stanley Brinks, a self-proclaimed 'enemy of society' and an amusingly unlikely moniker for a Frenchman. This song is an autobiographical statement of independence, detailing his life right up to the transformation into his new persona.
Gummi Bako -I’m Depressed
Let’s face it, without the odd dose of depression most songwriters wouldn’t have produced half of their output. Here, Gummi seems to have the bakery-related blues (“too much hot-cross loving”), but then things take an abrupt turn for the positive as he sings “I wanna go ballooning, right up past the Moon and Mars, and get lost amongst a million billion drillion, zillion super-shiny shooting stars” and you realise he has the ability to free himself from adversity through sheer, glorious absurdity.
Wounded Knee - Anthem for the Call Centre Worker
Some might say that it is the shortsighted economic policy of the past that has led to a large proportion of Scotland’s workforce being qualified to do little else other than man the phones. Working in a call centre is, on the whole, low-skilled, low-paid work with an extremely high staff turnover - due to the fact it is soul-destroying in the extreme. Edinburgh’s Wounded Knee takes the corporate-speak of the robot voices that greet us on the other end of the line and reclaims them as a call to arms for all downtrodden customer service representatives. Using his sublime skills with repeating vocal loops, he transforms a common depression into a perversely uplifting anthem.
First published in the May 2008 issue of The Skinny and on their website.
Podcast 2 (featuring Errors, Withered Hand, Cheer and Paul Hawkins)
Inspired by the cosmic concept album of the same name by pioneering producer Joe Meek, this brand new monthly column will highlight a selection of unique and essential tracks by groundbreaking artists from Scotland and further afield, all of which can be heard on the accompanying podcast.
Errors – Salut! France
Errors’ seemingly effortless, organic blend of live instruments and laptops makes for a stupendously good live show. An updated version of Salut! France is due to feature on their long-awaited debut album (almost finished at time of going to press), but in the meantime this single version, released on Mogwai's Rock Action label last year, has lost none of its uplifting, blistering modernity.
Withered Hand – Religious Songs
Not many religious songs contain the line “I beat myself off when I sleep on your futon” but the title track from Withered Hand’s new EP (released on new label Bear Scotland) combines themes of faith, doubt, sex and inexplicably uncomfortable furniture without blinking an eye. A key member of the delightful but short-lived anti-folk outfit The Love Gestures, he’s also recently played at the Fence Collective’s Homegame festival in Anstruther and at a special Scottish Hobo Society event as part of the (sob) last ever Triptych.
Cheer – Every Forest Has Its Shadow
Alec Cheer is a Glasgow-based artist, animator and experimental film-maker, and he brings this same accomplished, avant-garde sensibility to his gorgeous ambient compositions, available from Benbecula Records. The evocative title suits this hypnotic track perfectly, its subtly spliced sounds like shafts of sunlight illuminating dense treetops.
Paul Hawkins - I Like it When You Call Me Doctor
A highly disturbing tale of an underachiever with a burning need for the kind of approval only proven medical authority can bring. From his album The Misdiagnosis of Paul Hawkins, and also available on the first compilation CD from Antifolk UK, it really begins to get weird when the protagonist admits, “I got myself a uniform and hung around in hospitals looking round for patients who looked lost.”
First published in the May 2008 issue of The Skinny and on their website.
Podcast 1 (featuring Adam Gnade)
Adam Gnade was an Unsung Hero on the radio show. This podcast features his fantastic song "The Winter, Their Apartment." For more info see www.myspace.com/adamgnade
