Brian’s been distinctly chilly this past week, and the leaves of his oak tree home are slowly browning and making the journey from branch to forest floor. Sad as it is, FFS’s resident owl has sniffed the turn in the seasons. Therefore, playlist #4 is Brian’s nod to autumn – bonfires, harvest festivals, woolly jumpers and conker fights abound, and they’re all things worthy of celebration.
Single: Noah and the Whale – Blue Skies
It’s hard to isolate “Blue Skies” from its album, “The First Days of Spring”, but seeing as it makes such a beautiful single, it’s worth a shot.
Noah and the Whale (namely Charlie Fink) have evolved massively as songwriters since last year. This is something “Blue Skies” optimises perfectly. The track builds up an air of expectant hope, not only in the lyrics (‘Blue Skies are coming/But I know that it’s hard’) but also in the opening bars of music that peak into a soaring chorus and then ebb back into place.
Mumford and Sons unveil Little Lion Man Video
Verge-of-a-breakthrough band Mumford and Sons have released their debut video out into the internets.
The foursome, who FFS interviewed when they were just six months old, play to an empty venue with as much vigour as they played to a packed borderline this week in the video, which is available on their myspace.
FFS Interview: Rachael McShane
FFS talks to Bellowhead’s Rachael McShane about her recently-released album ‘No Man’s Fool’ and we have a link to a free track from the album.
Interview: James Yorkston on…
“Even though I am not a very good singer, my voice is my best instrument, I prefer to sing than to play guitar, to tell stories, I write the lyrics in my notebook and then I put them to music, the lyrics always come first.”
Album: Andy Nice – The Secrets of Me
Andy Nice has played cello with screaming gothic pervs Cradle of Filth and bald techno ravers Orbital, and is currently in string + dance combo Instrumental. He also has a name more suited to a particularly over familiar used car salesman.
Ignoring the fact he’s currently touring with deep-voiced chamber-pop stars Tindersticks and the embroidered patch on the front of the cd, you’d be forgiven for thinking there’s not much here for the good people of FFS. But press play and an entirely different sound to that expected issues forth – arresting, emotional, complex yet melodic cello music. And it really is cello music, pretty much just that instrument, with songs formed from layer after layer of rich string sound.