This month’s podcast is a kind of “twee special” mainly because we’ve got the title track from Camera Obscura’s new album, plus excellent, marginally twee tunes from Je Suis Animal, Men Diamler, Animal Magic Tricks and Panda Su.

This is the 12th podcast I’ve done which means I’ve been doing this for a year, and in that time we’ve featured loads of brilliant bands so please check out previous podcasts too if you haven’t already, and don’t forget you can find us on iTunes too if you want to download them all straight to your computer. In fact I was very chuffed to get the following review on iTunes which I’ve only just noticed, many thanks to Bishop Berkeley, whoever you are!

“brilliant – best way of staying in touch with new music coming from Scotland and interesting music from further afield. Eclectic selections coupled with informed personal opinion are what makes it. Glad it’s there – only bad thing is it makes me wish I still lived in the burgh.”

I Hear a New World April 2009

“Twee” Special!

Pretty girls and cute animals really are the nicest things in the world – FACT. And when you combine them both, plus an utterly mad bloke, you get this month’s podcast – a big furry, slightly unhinged twee-monster stomping into your life and leaving seeds in your living room carpet from which sprout smiley daffodils and the onset of spring. No more bedroom-based melancholy, no more unhelpful unrequited love, the time to rejoice in an endearingly self-conscious fashion has come!

Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career

New music from the not-so-obscure Glasgow band who make twee indie kids’ hearts flutter all across the world. It’s exactly what you’d expect – self-effacingly life-affirming, rose-tinted glasses retro, and bloody lovely.

Je Suis Animal – Fortune Map

Psychedelic dreamy indie pop from Oslo, with more than a hint of Stereolab. It’s actually a surprisingly strident guitar-driven beast which turns into a ferocious, snarling, claws-out carnivore just when you’re leaning in close to rub its tummy. Available this month as a split 7″ with Wake The President from Lucky Number Nine records.

Men Diamler – Black as a Cat in the Morning

Does this count as twee? Perhaps it does, at least the sinister side of it, the lopsided grin of the joke gone too far, the failed attempt at being nice which ends up in tears. Men Diamler is pure mental, he sings about cats and suicide and screams “one of these days you’ll feel much better”. He gets up and runs about like his arse is on fire. He makes us all sing along. Thing is, we feel better right away.

Animal Magic Tricks – Poor Heart

A woman with flaming red hair makes a keyboard sound like crunching rocks. Her voice flutters and flounces round like a ballet dancer. Beeps intrude on our intimacy. Rough recordings only hint at the pleasures of Animal Magic Tricks in the flesh.

Panda Su – Moviegoer

“The problem with myself is that I long to be someone else,” sings Fife songstress Panda Su. But on this evidence, recorded with the Beta Band’s Steve Mason, she’s doing very nicely indeed. At one point some children cheer loudly, which is surely the height of twee, and she and Steve close the curtains and settle down with a big bag of popcorn to enjoy watching home movies from their old-school 16mm movie camera.

Notes

The latter three bands featured this month are all playing the Fence Homegame Festival in Anstruther this weekend, as in fact are a number of the bands previously featured on the podcast and before that on the radio show. In fact the line-up is like a list of my favourite Scottish bands.

I’ve written a preview of Homegame for The Scotsman’s Under The Radar Blog which should be online sometime this evening (Thursday). I’ll be posting a link on Twitter once it’s up.

The blog is being run by my pals Nick and Billy and is shaping up to be an excellent read. Another contributor is Halina from the Glasgow Podcart which is also well worth checking out for all the gossip from Weegieland – they’re doing a great job of covering the upcoming Hinterland Festival being held there later this month.

If you’re going to Homegame yourself please do say hello, and if you have any feedback/suggestions for the podcast let me know. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen, and hope it inspires you to check out the featured bands.

• «Previous Post
• Next Post »

---