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Scratchy Records
The Volunteered 'We Fall Apart' Vinyl LP
£18.99
Scratchy Records
The Volunteered 'We Fall Apart' Vinyl LP
£18.99
Debut album from US indie rock-influenced uber-tunesmiths
Old school friends and long-time collaborators, Mark Rowland and Paul Webber formed The Volunteered at the tail end of 2019 when they started working on new songs channeling old indie rock heroes such as Built to Spill, Guided By Voices, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Belle and Sebastian.
They put out the 'We Fall Apart' EP in 2020 as a modest self-release and now, what started as a way to keep busy during lockdown has been expanded into a full-length vinyl and digital album, out on Scratchy Records this February.
It's a varied listen, from the pounding, tuneful fuzz of lead single Going to Amsterdam to the atmospheric heart-string puller The Lights. Everywhere you look there are hooks waiting to pull you in and some great pop songwriting recalling everyone from Sparklehorse, GBV and Buddy Holly to The Triffids and Pearl Jam.Tracklisting:
Side A
1. Going to Amsterdam
2. Win is Easy
3. Bless the News
4. The Lights
Side B
1. Fall Back
2. Old Life
3. Bottleneck
4. Tell Them What They Want
5. Something New
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Visit product page →'Lost' third album from enigmatic Americana songbirds
"One day, people will wake up to the Hank Dogs, a gem from the heyday of my Hannibal Records label. It's so great that they're back!” Joe Boyd
Hank Dogs – Andy Allan, his partner Piano and Lily, Andy’s daughter from a previous relationship - started out at folk clubs in London in the early 1990s before going worldwide in 1998 when legendary producer and late 60s Folk Rock guru, Joe Boyd declared them the first British act he'd loved in 30 years.
Their debut album ‘Bareback’ saw them touring the US with Joan Baez and winning fans with their quiet, haunting sound featuring ethereal vocal harmonies, strong traces of blues and Celtic music and Allan’s fluid acoustic finger-picking recalling UK folk guitarists such as John Renbourn.
Another part of their appeal, particularly in the States, was their ‘Carter Family’ image but then, when Andy and Piano split-up in real life, so did the band. A follow up album ‘Half Smile’ appeared in 2002 but this turned out to be their swansong.
However, the story was not quite over yet.. a third unreleased album ‘Fiveways’ had been recorded before they went their separate ways and now it’s finally seeing the light of day on South London label Scratchy Records, plus the band are re-uniting for some long overdue gigs to celebrate the release.
‘Fiveways’ contains much of the Hank Dogs’ trademark English folk/US country-straddling sound. Piano’s voice bounces between early Suzanne Vega, Tracey Thorn and Mary Margaret O’Hara with occasional hints of Dolores Cranberry and Bridget St. John, while underneath the acoustic guitars run freeform tangled and Lily’s backing vocals add sky.
Stand out track ‘Logic’ with it’s pensive lyrics and haunting guitar line recalls the way Suzanne Vega (her again) could sometimes make songs stand still in their tracks but it’s the dreamy ‘Nut’ that really captures the mood “You had me when I was sweet as a nut.. Not sweet enough” sings Piano. This is the sound of two ex-lovers still able to work together but unable to hide the odd dig here and there.. like a follow up album a couple of years later on from ‘Blood On The Tracks’.
Andy sings a few songs too including the raggedy, shwashbuckling ‘Gazetteer’ revolving around a ‘Pre-CBS Maple neck Sunburst bought off The Pretty Things’ and hinting at a whole lifetime of music biz escapades from watching his dad Elkan Allan produce 60s TV show ‘Ready Steady Go’ to a stint on bass in The Professionals along with Steve Jones and Paul Cook.
Next year the story carries on with his long-running South East London ‘Easycome’ club night featuring in US TV queen Lena Dunham’s new Netflix series ‘Too Much’. Towards the end of the album an angelic setting of Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ in the song ‘Nod’ recalls Christmas TOTP number ones from days gone by and captures Hank Dogs ability to transport the listener. This album is definitely one for the dreamers.
FFO Pentangle, The Innocence Mission and William Blake.
Tracklisting:
1. Arrows
2. Logic
3. Fiveways
4. Luki Icin
5. Nut
6. Dipper
7. Margaret Finch
8. Good Bits
9. Gazetteer
10. Well
11. Nod
12. Daddy
13. Buttered
14. Rosebush -
'3rd album from Manc indie-rockers is a twin-guitared lockdown diary tunefest'Visit product page →
Produced by Simon ‘Ding’ Archer (PJ Harvey, The Pixies, The Fall) at 6db studios in Salford, the album title seems to refer to the lockdown period in one sense, a document of that time, but as frontman Tom Long elaborates: “It also harks back to pre-lockdown, when there was actually a possibility of some change on offer. Unfortunately we’re forbidden from talking about that. There were solutions to many of the problems we face now, but that dream was crushed, never to be spoken of again”. Manchester indie-rockers Easter have built a reputation as one of the city’s best-kept secrets. Spurred along by singer/songwriter/guitarist Tom Long with a rotating cast of Manc-underground shredders, they’re a formidable live act who’ve toured the UK repeatedly and provided support for post-rock behemoths Mono, avant-rockers Ranga and Mugstar but also poppier acts such as Canadian shoe-gazers Tallies.
However, for all of Manchester’s illustrious musical history, it’s hard to bring to mind a local act that they compare or aspire to. Instead Easter’s binoculars are fixed on the fuzzy indie-rock of Dinosaur Jr , Guided By Voices and Teenage Fanclub with added twin-guitar weaving recalling the articulate jams of Television, Chris Forsyth and even Wishbone Ash. Only in Tom’s vocals are there occasional hints of their surroundings with echoes of the Mozza and a few junctions away across the M62, Dave Gedge.
They’ve found admirers in Huw Stephens and Tom Ravenscroft at 6Music and garnered praise from Uncut, Record Collector and NYC’s The Big Takeover while building a loyal fanbase across the UK.
“A welcome throwback to the wry, self-lacerating alt.rock of the early 90s” Uncut
“Astonishing” Record Collector
“Lovely bit of noise” Tom Ravenscroft BBC 6 Music
“It devilishly combines a banged acoustic with spiky electric, like Bevis Frond covering A Catholic Education by Teenage Fanclub. If this is “Hell,” give us more!” Big Takeover
Easter are:
Tom Long - Vocals/Guitar
Gavin Clarke Guitar
Paul Flieshman - Drums/Backing Vocals
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Visit product page →New solo album from Bromide frontman Simon Berridge
"From the first sparkling chords, this draws you into Simon Bromide's world where the ghosts of Johnny Marr, Peter Perrett and XTC joust with the psychedelic sounds and neo-folk herein." Vive Le Rock 9/10
“Byrdsian lustre, psychedelic haze, far-flung exotica, gritty northern soul and Kinksy visions of London life on this wide-ranging debut solo album.. it’s quite the trip” Classic Rock 8/10
"Hits the sonic sweet spot.. blending the literate pop-rock craftsmanship of beloved British icons The Kinks with the propulsive punch and fuzzy crunch of classic American power-pop" Tinnitist
The album features drummer Fells Guilherme (Children of The Pope), bassist Ed 'Cosmo' Wright, multi-instrumentalists Dave Hale, Dimitri Ntontis and Stephen Elwell as well as folk-pop chanteuse Katy Carr on piano and Terry Edwards (Nick Cave, Tom Waits, P.J.Harvey) on trumpet. Scottish singer Julie Anne McCambridge joins Simon on the closing track, the William Blake penned 'Earth's Answer'.
Tracklisting:
1. The Waiting Room
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3. The Skehans Song
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Scratchy Records
That Will Be Lunch 'Play That Funky Music / Discarded Things' Vinyl 7" - Green
£6.99
vScratchy Records
That Will Be Lunch 'Play That Funky Music / Discarded Things' Vinyl 7" - Green
£6.99
Visit product page →
Maverick Spetz - not his real name, his real name's Alvin (ha!) - has released two albums as Full English Breakfast - 'a highly eccentric but thoroughly engaging electronic pop debut that aligns him with the Fall and Frank Zappa' (Uncut) - and another as TWBL on Scratchy Records and has been compared to everyone from Yello to Frank Zappa and Stereolab. Play That Funky Music is an inspired and outlandish Year Zero reimagining of that 1970s disco classic that firmly places itself alongside The Fall's unorthodox cover of Sister Sledge's Lost In Music - but with added cuckoo clocks.
Alvin Spetz (aka That Will Be Lunch) has already been compared to the likes of The Fall, Edwyn Collins, Devo and Wire (by the Sunday Times) and with the release of the superb art-pop cover of Wild Cherry's Play That Funky Music' he's likely to add both The Residents and (an albeit dancified) Denim to that illustrious list. Released together with B-side Discarded Things (which was presumably too weirdly contemporary to release on NME's C86 cassette compilation), the single will be made available on 7'green vinyl on Scratchy Records on Record Store Day, Saturday 29th August and then from Friday 4th September in the digiverse for download / streaming.
http://www.thatwillbelunch.co.uk
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