Song, by Toad Records » CD

Cold Seeds

Matthew — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:14:59 +0000

CD only, buy on 12″vinyl: here.

Digital Downloads: iTunes – eMusic – Amazon mp3 (coming soon)

This album was recorded over a couple of weekends at our house last year. Frances from Animal Magic Tricks recorded three songs with Neil and Pete from Meursault, and then Kenny came around for the second weekend to add his songs to the mix. This album really wasn’t planned, it’s just that by the time Frances had added her touches to the three Meursault songs on the second Sunday, everything just seemed to belong together.

It’s all messy as hell, there are clicks and noises and all sorts going on, there’s even a cameo performance from our idiotic cat Floyd in the first song, and yet the resulting album is one of the strangest, most beautiful records I’ve heard in a very long time.

1. Leave Me to Lie Alone in the Ground
2. King
3. Bubble
4. Sleet
5. Crank Resolutions
6. By 11 O’Clock She’d Left
7. The Perfume of Mexican Birds
8. Soil
9. Please Don’t Send Me Home

High res album artwork

Duress Code

Matthew — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 22:52:20 +0000

Duress Code was recorded over three weekend sessions, spanning two years of whisky-like song maturation, and slow-mo WAV file badminton. This time allowed the band to refine their approach to experimentation, dressing inherent Pop suites with innovation while avoiding the socks and sandals of self indulgence. The album is a colourful and dynamic collection designed to move hearts and hinds.

1. Sugar on Your Sheets
2. Yarvil
3. A Fillet of Bozo
4. Sam
5. I am Your Pedigree
6. Grooming
7. Listen With Your Ears, but Look Through a Telescope
8. WCMJ
9. Pherenzik Tear
10. Pegswood’s Day in the Sun

High res album artwork.

Digital download: iTunes – eMusic – Amazon mp3 (coming at the end of August)

All Creatures Will Make Merry

Matthew — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:56:50 +0000

The new Meursault album is being released on the 24th May 2010, but we will be making a limited run of hand-printed copies, which will be available from this site and at live shows from their album launch on the 10th April onwards. If you pre-order from here, you’ll get one of those copies the week of the launch party.

This album is rather different from its predecessor, and I genuinely have no idea what Meursault’s growing army of fans are going to make of it. It’s denser in many ways, dirty and noisy, and yet as sad and heartbreaking as you’d expect from the band.

When we were writing all the press blurb, Neil decided to describe the album as ‘epic lo-fi’ and even though that is an almost totally meaningless term, it still seems to describe All Creatures pretty well. With two new band members joining, there was a danger that the cello or the electric guitar would end up swamping this record, but it’s all been handled very carefully.

I think the first time I heard this album through I pretty much summed up what I felt about it in a single sentence: there’s not so much as a weak twenty seconds on here, anywhere.

1. Payday
2. Crank Resolutions
3. All Creatures Will Make Merry
4. Weather
5. One Day This’ll All Be Fields
6. What You Don’t Have
7. Another
8. New Ruin
9. Sleet
10. Song for Martin Kippenberger
11. A Fair Exchange

High res album artwork

Digital Downloads: iTunes – eMusic – Amazon mp3

Night Bats

Matthew — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:38:11 +0000

This is due to be released on May 17th 2010, so this is only a pre-order for now. However, if you fancy coughing up I’ll send you one as soon as we press them, which will probably be a week or so in advance of the release date.

This gorgeous EP sees Loch Lomond add a new lush pop sensibility to their earlier eerie folk tunes. It was released on Hush in the States a few months ago, and now we’re giving it a UK release.

High res album artwork

1. Ghost of an Earthworm
2. Night Bats
3. Spine (MMIX)
4. Holiday
5. Wax & Wire

He Was Such a Quiet Boy

Matthew — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:12:37 +0000

Jacob from Trips and Falls emailed me this album ages ago, and I absolutely loved it. If it weren’t for this release being on the horizon, it would have been up at the top of my list of albums of the year last year, but in September they agreed to release it on Song, by Toad Records so I have to hold off until my 2010 lists.

This is just a strange album altogether, but it’s full of surprising pop moments. It’s a record with You Should Really Get Yours and Prelude to a Shark Attack back to back – one of the weirdest and one of the prettiest songs on the whole label.

1. How Do You Do…
2. We Were Like Strangers Today
3. And in Real Life He Wears Corduroy Pants
4. Breaking Up With My Mormon Missionaries
5. You Should Really Get Yours
6. Prelude to a Shark Attack
7. Memoirs of a Martyr
8. Thanks for Sharing
9. Damaged Goods

High res album artwork

Digital Downloads: iTunes – eMusic – Amazon mp3

Do You Feel Different Yet?

Matthew — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:31:19 +0000

When I first heard Maxwell Panther’s stuff I remember describing is as being “rough as a bear’s arse but fucking great” and I’m not sure I could do any better today. His stuff is low-fi as can be, but I am as fascinated by his music as ever.

His lyrics have a touch of bitterness without any self-pity, personal without being self-absorbed, and his music is rough but still strangely hummable. Basically it’s just really good songwriting, which will show through no matter what the recording style. Anyhow, for those of you who read Song, by Toad on a regular basis, you’ll already know that I love this particular recording style anyway.

1. Shiver on a Twist of Fate
2. My Ex-Identity
3. Tip of the Tongue (The Quiet One)
4. Three Miles of Expectation
5. The Vacuum or the Void (Do You Feel?)
6. Two Tone Pill
7. Where the Dogs Go Free
8. Lost Soul on a Roll (That’s Me)
9. A Shade Away
10. In and Around On You

Digital download: iTunes – eMusic – Amazon mp3

Matter

Matthew — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:35:18 +0000

Jesus H. Foxx have put together a rhythmic, harmony laden EP with Matter. It’s a perfectly sequenced, nuanced release and after a short self-released run covered in glitter they’ve been nice enough to allow us to give it a full release. To read what I thought about it the first time (ie when it wasn’t on this label, so I could be trusted to tell you the truth) just click here.

1. Oh, Messy Life
2. I’m Half the Man You Were
3. Elegy for the Good Times
4. Trying to Be Good
5. Xa Xa Xa
6. Matter

Digital Download – iTunes – eMusic – Amazon mp3

Nothing Broke

Matthew — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:17:37 +0000

This acoustic EP is a little on the morose side, barring the pop gem William Henry Miller Pt.1, but I love sad music, so there you go. This is only available here and at gigs until the middle of July. Oh, and that’s a hand-painted and detailed egg there on the cover. And I wrote the Nothing Broke bit too. It’s like being back in primary school arts & crafts all over again.

1. Nothing Broke
2. Red Candle Bulb
3. Love or Limb
4. William Henry Miller Pt.1
5. William Henry Miller Pt.2

Digital download – iTunes – eMusic – Amazon mp3.

For the Thoughts You Never Had

Matthew — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:06:02 +0000

Eagleowl define themselves as doing things slowly, but this whole EP was recorded in the space of a weekend during the Summer of 2008. They’re picky buggers though, and the fact that they found a recording engineer they were happy to trust to that kind of level is something of an achievement in itself.

1. Sleeptide
2. For the Thoughts You Never Had
3. Blanket
4. Blackout
5. Motherfucker

Digitial download: via Amazon mp3 – eMusic – iTunes.

Pissing on Bonfires / Kissing With Tongues

Matthew — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:37:46 +0000

This is pretty much my favourite album of this year, and we’ll be releasing The Furnace on 7″ vinyl later in the year, so keep an eye out for that.

1. Salt, Pt. 1
2. Statues of Strangers
3. The Furnace (Alternate version for preview.)
4. Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues
5. Salt, Pt. 2
6. The Dirt & the Roots
7. A Few Kind Words
8. A Small Stretch of Land
9. Ampersand After Ampersand
10. Lament For a Teenage Millionaire
11. Oh, Neighbourhood!

Digital download: via Amazon mp3 – iTunes – eMusic.

The Moth Trap

nonimage — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:13:57 +0000

Recorded and engineered over a couple of weeks over a year ago, this has been doing the rounds amongst my mates as a CD-R ever since. As an exploration of bluegrassy Americana it is just gorgeous, and I’m really pleased the lads allowed me to release it.

1. The Hanging Tree
2. Dancefloor
3. Poor Man’s Son
4. Sweet Annie Lee
5. Lady of the Calico (Album Version)
6. Salesman Song

Digital download: via Amazon mp3 - eMusic - iTunes.

vz.61

Matthew — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:09:25 +0000

This is a demo, so we’re only asking four quid, which I think is pretty reasonable. Scott and his missus are off travelling at the moment, but once they return we’ll hopefully be recording a full album with them. So, please have a listen to the preview tracks and take a chance on the CD if you fancy.

1. Design
2. Fearing Lothian
3. Hidden Forces
4. Skorpion vz.61
5. Crossing off Titles in Books
6. Seeing Ben Lomond
7. Nae Drama, Hae a Dram

If four quid seems a bit steep, or you’re just taking a chance on something, you can download a zip file of the mp3s here for nothing. Obviously we’d prefer if you bought the CD, but we’d rather you gave it chance if you were unsure, so feel free.