other KC tunes on the album are the sprightly ‘Your Psycho Boyfriend’, and the more mournful ‘All I Ask’ and ‘Well Done’. Then we get some extremely lo-fi action from Mr Hand himself, with Panda Eyes, before No Cigarettes kicks in, and what an awesome version it is. 

Next we get Takeaway Food from the Religious Songs EP, a wee instrumental number and then three more KC tunes: ‘Only This Exam’, a demo version of Rims in which those DISGUSTING chorus lyrics are much more audible than on the album version, and ‘I Fall At the Last Hurdle’.

Oh and the last song will remain a secret because I’ve got the feeling KC would prefer it that way.. but I will tell you, it’s a lovely wee collection of songs by two of my favourite songwriters.

Though predominantly a Scottish label, Fence Records seem to have found a rich vein to mine in Bristol, with OLO Worms, Rozi Plain, and now François Marry all being signed to the label. Marry is, as his name suggests French, but came to the label’s attention through playing with Rozi Plain, and clearly has excellent credentials having also toured with Camera Obscura. 

Plaine Inondable (which translates as flood plains), is a rich, piano-based album with some shades of Herman Dune in the likes of the trumpet laden French language lament ‘Moitiée’, whereas the upbeat-to-the-point-of-daftness ‘Be Water (Je Suis De L’eau)’ is Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot frolicking in a ball pool after eating too many smarties. 

There is plenty of the expected French tweeness then, but this is offset nicely by some gorgeous instrumentation influenced strongly by 70’s African funkadelia. Marry’s own voice is a low gentle croon, accompanied beautifully by gorgeous harmonies courtesy of Bost Gehio who to quote the press release are “an all-female polyphonic voice group from the Basques country”. He is also joined on the album by a band called Unkle Jelly Fish, from his hometown of Saintes on France’s West Coast, where he recorded the album.

Tracks like ‘Otage’ have a more reflective mood, feeling like a summer afternoon spent writing a letter to a long-lost friend, and Years of Rain is full of archly epic anger and faded grandeur, like an episode of Poirot scored by John Barry. It’s an album with a massive breadth of musical and geographical influences, but which nevertheless feels absolutely natural and genuine – and well worth discovering.

François & The Atlas Mountains – Years of Rain

Buy on Amazon

Read Portis Wasp’s interview with François Marry

Yes I have finally experienced the Fence Homegame in Anstruther and it was well worth the wait. The above video diary shows a few of the bands we saw, a lot of which have already featured on the podcasts. I only had very limited space on my wee digital camera so didn’t manage to capture everything, e.g.Viking Moses leading us in a mass singalong of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Lover Lover Lover’, Pictish Trail doing a lovely cover of Hot Chip’s Boy From School, James Yorkston doing a great live version of ‘Woozy with Cider’ and numerous other perfect moments.

In fact, because so much was going on simultaneously in different venues, we totally missed loads of special events like the Three Craws (the hall was full by the time we got there), Ichi who many said was their highlight, any other secret shows that I didn’t have a ticket for like James Yorkston doing Daniel Johnston covers.. the list goes on. I have to say I would be gutted to miss those things if I didn’t have such an amazing time at the things I did go to. 

I can see now that Fence is all about the Homegame experience, and the rest of the year I will be just biding time for the next one – it has to be the friendliest, most laid back festival I’ve been to. But it looks likely that next year’s event will be a smaller one, so good luck getting tickets if you fancy going…

 The Fence Homegame Pre-season Friendly on Saturday at Old St. Paul’s Church in Edinburgh was a great way to spend Saturday afternoon/evening. We got there just in time to catch the end of Pictish Trail’s set, for some reason he didn’t seem to have turned the mic on and it was already pretty rammed so we didn’t get the full experience but we did get a front row seat for the lovely Animal Magic Tricks and the hilariously insane Men Diamler (whose CDs I bought), and a storming solo performance by Neil from Meursault (which convinced my cousin Lucy to buy their album) all of whom are pictured below.

The highlight for me though was finally seeing Found, who I’ve managed to miss seeing live despite buying their first album back when it first came out a couple of years back. They were superb and the below scenes demonstrate their ability to get people up dancing and have a bloody good time. That was only topped by the next song, a performance of Let Fidelity Break from their new EP (as featured on this month’s podcast).

By that time though I, my friends and a whole load of other people had given in to the irresistible urge to join in the crazy dancing so so no video footage exists. Still, you can buy the record here.

Animal Magic Tricks

Neil from Meursault

Men Diamler

The second part of a two-part special on Scotland’s Fence Collective.

1. King Creosote – Don’t Ask Me How My Weekend Went 
2. King Creosote – Houston Tharoule 
3. Rozi Plain – Stolen Shark 
4. The Pictish Trail – Into the Smoke 
5. Rozi Plain – Roof Rook Crook Crow 
6. King Creosote – On Esther’s Planet

www.fencerecords.com

illustration by Leigh Pearson http://thunderheart.co.uk

Read the accompanying column in the October issue of The Skinny

illustration by Leigh Pearson

From small beginnings, Anstruther-based label Fence
Records has deservedly grown in stature over the last decade or so, and
now boasts a dedicated fanbase and an impressive roster of artists
whilst very much retaining its down-to-earth DIY ethos. I caught up
with label lynchpins Johnny Lynch and Kenny Anderson, otherwise known
as The Pictish Trail and King Creosote for a chinwag just before they
played a blinding gig as part of the Retreat! mini-festival in
Edinburgh.

Not everything has run
smoothly however. Anderson’s last two albums as King Creosote, KC Rules
OK and Bombshell were released through Warners offshoot 679, allowing
him to reach a much wider audience than ever before. But the record
industry being what it is, he’s back to releasing his latest album
through Fence and perhaps not coincidentally it has a more experimental
side, not least the title – ‘They Flock Like Vulcans to See Old Jupiter
Eyes on His Home Craters’. Being back in control must be something of a
relief though, given the hoops that major labels expect their artists
to jump through to justify their investment? Kenny: “Well it is a
relief because we’re at the helm so we’re as busy as we make ourselves.
The difference is when you’re with another label and they make you busy
with all sorts of things that you never expected to have to do, but
you’ve signed up to do it – and they make it quite awkward for you if
you don’t do it. All these things are there to help promote your album,
but it’s just amazing all the weird and wonderful things you end up
doing.”

As well as interminable
interviews that take up entire days (The Skinny not included,
obviously), this involved some major support tours, for the likes of KT
Tunstall and Squeeze. And despite Tunstall’s early links with the Fence
clan, it was playing with Squeeze which paid off. Kenny: “Actually
Squeeze made more sense, in an appreciation kind of thing because it
was an older audience and it was a music buying audience, and we did
better from sales of albums. Whereas a lot of Kate’s audience were
younger and had only heard two or three songs on the radio; it was like
a different gig. As soon as she played ‘Suddenly I See’, the place just
went bananas – even though it’s not a stand-out in the set at all, but
it’s just one that everybody knows. So for us as a support band, can
you imagine? We don’t have anything even approaching her least known
songs.” Johnny however is keen to stress the glass-half-full side of
the arrangement.  “It doesn’t mean it was worthless because the end
product of that was that for other Fence shows that we’ve done since
then, it’s brought in a different audience and it’s made the audience
that was there think of us as a real band instead of just ‘some guys
from Fife’” Kenny agrees that there are benefits to such compromises.
“That’s true, and also playing with Kate did get us that Jools Holland
thing  – without a doubt that was what swung it for the producers.”

But despite the raised profile both are
determined to avoid the label morphing Decepticon style into a
monstrous corporate machine. Johnny: It’s reflective of the audience
that’s there, if the audience that gets properly excited about it gets
bigger then we want to accomodate that, because there’s nothing worse
than putting on something and people who really want to be at it can’t
get to it.” Kenny: “But we’re not in it just to make a quick buck and
escape. the Homegame, for example, is different, oddly enough because
it is different. We’ve made our own rules. Everybody expects you to
want to be bigger and better, but we kind of don’t. We want it to be
manageable, and just to keep people happy.” Johnny:  Because at the end
of the day the Fence thing only has to supply a wage for two people.”
Kenny: “And a lot of kids..”

Fence Club #6 takes place on Wed, 17 Sep at The Caves, Edinburgh and
will feature James Yorkston, Malcolm Middleton and The Pictish Trail. They Flock LIke Vulcans… is available now at King Creosote’s live gigs and will be more widely available in November. King Creosote, The Pictish Trail and The Fence Collective play The Corn Exchange, Cupar on 25 Oct.

As published in the Sept issue of The Skinny and online.

Hear part 1 of the I Hear a New World podcast here.