Musicologists With no Chance of Seeing a Vinegarroon,

The Bellyaches oft has been referred to as “a poor man’s Yer Mam” or “not the guy with the hearse” and today’s article will change nothing. I haven’t related the recorded music that I’ve been buying to The Bellyaches massive for a while.

Simple Kid 2 is the follow-up to the marvellous Simple Kid 1. The album was recorded mostly on 8-track C-60 cassettes at Simp’s house before being various bits were added to it and tidying in the studio. The album generally ambles along and it’s quite nice but the songs lack the simplicity and the clarity of the greats on Simple Kid 1. lil’ King Kong sounds like Beck or Beta Band with all its loops and sound effects. Everything else is very lo-fi and gentle. I don’t think many of the songs could stand on their own as singles as many of Simple Kid 1 could, there’s nothing that really betters any of Simple Kid 1. Love’s An Enigma (pt II) is a bit of an enigma and quite disappointing in comparison to its forerunner.

Costing 1800 Nectar points and 3 weeks of wasted complaining to the online bandits that are CD Wow, The Art of Fiction by Jeremy Warmsley features the artist himself clutching a canary on the front cover. It’s a very bad album cover. I’ve put Jezza down as someone who is ploughing the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah furrow (Dirty Blue Jeans is a prime example) but that doesn’t mean that he stays rigidly within its depths because he also does much slower piano-tinkling ballad-type songs. Some songs, like I Believe in the Way You Move are a mixture of the two styles. This album features excellent arrangements; it’s littered throughout with tinkles of percussion as if second of this album has been optimised to its fullest capacity. My favourite track is Modern Children, the variation in intensity of the dance-type drumming backbeat moulded around the piano stuff, underneath a glorious string section is just superb.

Brakes’ first album, Give Blood, didn’t remain true to one style and that disappointed some people who purchased it after the dance-style single, All Night Disco Party, or the short rock’n’roll number, Ring a Ding Ding, weren’t interested in the country style numbers. Their latest album, Beatific Visions, is slightly refined but still manically varied. The album lasts 28 minutes. The first two tracks are punchy rock’n’roll, the next two have country leanings. Spring Chicken is next, it’s like Chicken Payback done by Americans. Isabel is a quiet, delicate homage strummed out on the acoustic guitar, it only lasts 206 seconds before we’re back to more pop music. Following the title track is the nonsensical debate over which is the spikiest: Porcupine or Pineapple. The album finishes with more songs that are all different. It’s another fine album with a rotten cover – a bunch of blokes standing back from a poker table.

I bought Adem’s album, Love and Other Planets, from Evilbay. I realise Adem will see no benefits from my actions except from the publicity that he will receive in the next few lines. I live in the Kingdom of Fife and creosote will always be my favourite fence covering of choice, so for all its merits, when I listen to this album, I know I’d be better spending my time listening to King Creostote, although I do acknowledge that Launch Yourself is great and is not by King Creosote.

I finally decided that the Young Knives are really brilliant, it was that “If all else fails, I am the Prince of Wales. I’m your monarch...” lyric that finally did it, Voices of Animals and Men is a good’un. Kerfuffle by Ladyfuzz is quite loveable too.

After hearing the single, Oh to Say on 6music’s MINT programme, I bought Let’s Kill the Summer by The Singleman Affair. The single was a perfect antidote to all the noisy things that had gone before it, and at that time of night, in the dark, it sounded quite soothing. The Singleman Affair is mostly just the work of Daniel Schneider, the album has a sort of gloomy feel that reminds me of some of Grandaddy’s more morbid numbers. It’s full of reverb and echo and it’s quite eerie.

The album, Violence and Birdsong, by Union of Knives is very Scottish. The comments on the label reference Aphex Twin, Radiohead and Massive Attack, I’ll lob in Mogwai and Boards of Canada. It’s good ethereal electronica. The vocals are incidental but definitely necessary. With all the technology available today, it’s difficult to know what instruments have been recorded. For example, Midlake didn’t have a violinist with them at that gig I attended but they recreated the violin part on Young Bride perfectly by pressing some buttons and twiddling some dials – I did feel a bit cheated. Anyway, Violence and Birdsong that can be listened to or left on in the background, it’s versatile like that.

I’ve heard the band on various Scottish alternative music radio programmes and I’ve also heard Ian Rankin recommend them on several radio programmes too so when I thought I needed to buy some new CDs I bought Happy Healthy Lucky Month by Saint Jude’s Infirmary. I’m glad I did. It’s another varied album and it owes its flavours mainly to the sharing of vocals between 4 band members. It’s littered with invention; the first song, The Church of John Coltrane, has beautiful vocal harmonies, melodica, a speech from a play being read out and a train being sampled. Remember Dresden starts of in a 80s indie pop-stylee but then fades into a quiet, piano-led song with isolated vocals like those of Sarah Nixey of Black Box Recorder. Good-bye Jack Vettraino gives prominence to one of the male vocalists, it’s quite dark with sparse drumming and a solid yet hushed bassline. Shrouded in feedback, All My Rowdy Friends are Dead could be by The Fall, but it’s better than that. There’s also a guy on the inside front cover who used to get on the same train as me, but that doesn’t make the album; it’s the music that counts.

Mates of State (or Makers of Steak Bakes as I like to call them despite the fact Gregg’s make cheap rubbish and Mates of State don’t) seem to be getting a bit of airplay for this record, Bring it Back, just recently which is odd because it was released in 2005. They’re like a two-man Polyphonic Spree but one of them is a woman. They sing “You will surely buy this, pleasing to your ears” in Fraud in the ‘80s and I can’t argue with them.

I must acknowledge my purchase of the double A side Nazi Girls/Painting New York on my Shoes by Poppy and the Jezebels. I don't usually buy vinyl but I bought this, I ripped the songs from the accompanying mini-disc before I packaged it all away in the cupboard. Someone will dig it out in 30 years from now when it's worth a fortune.

I've been working on appreciating Ys by Joanna Newsom, I know it’s all great but I haven’t found the time to give it undivided attention. I’ve tried listening to it on the way to work in the car but usually I lose track of what’s happening in her tales as I swerve to avoid some lorry that’s not keeping to its own side of the road. She does sound like Noddy Holder when she sings “meteoroite”. The songwriting seems pretty fine but the vocals won’t be liked by everyone, just special people like me.

I'll also be looking out for a band called The Twilight Sad who I heard whilst listening to KEXP online. I've yet to hear them through my own radio yet. I don't want to call the BBC corrupt but it might just come to that.