Musicologists of the Anticyclone,

News reached me via last week's East Fife Mail of a local band called B Raymond & The Voicettes. Their achievement has been to secure a contract to provide the backing music to the latest Brylcreem television advert (YouTube).

I don't know how far such an occurrence can propel a band. I'd like to see someone from the local area gain some success and draw attention back to the Kingdom of Fife, then we can maybe host some better gigs, the kind I sometimes can't be bothered going to the city for.

The song is Old Man Marley. It surprises me. Allowing all their songs to be downloaded at no cost from their website is silly - unless they're raking it in.

Producers of Hollow Wavelengths,

Gravenhurst, a band from Bristol, fronted by Nick Talbot, are new to me. I first heard them on KEXP Seattle before that man, Gideon Coe of BBC 6music started playing new songs from the album, The Western Lands.

I do like a comical MyArse site; on this one, their music is described as being of the “Victorian Dancehall Horror-tronica” genre. The tracks are largely instrumental; Gravenhurst produce a sound that is large, dark and brooding. I like it because it doesn’t antagonise me. The vocals are classic indie vocals and although the songs mostly about death, largely by murder; the songs are somewhat relaxing. Keeping the murders on record and not on the streets must be a principle aim for the polis.

One of my favourite songs is the opener (so often the case for me, because that’s when I usually decide whether I will like something or not), Saints. It’s quite gentle in sound but I suppose it could be interpreted as being about taking drastic methods to enforce your religious heritage upon others, ‘murder ten to save a hundred, drown the whole world in my faith’ supports my argument.

Song Among The Pine is sparse in lyrics and music, just an acoustic guitar and some atmospheric effects. The lyric, ‘cold ash smother the fire’ is the main feature of this song as our protagonist wills his fire to die as he hides in his forest camp from the city life. I love the simplicity of the melody, despite the fact that it’s a bit foetal.

The lyrics of the songs probably stand up fairly well as poems. I especially like the words of Grand Union Canal:

I’ve walked every street in this city
I can’t find a way out
beyond these walls a clarion call
‘find a way out’
I have burned every bridge in this city
trying to get to you
while you are waiting for me
by a copper-blue sea
I am fading in this room

Outside of these words, the music is pondering time.

Gravenhurst are a band that I should have known about before now, they are quite magnificent and they deserve some decent sales on the back of this latest release.

Unwanted Sparrows of Solipsism,

“Behind every filum is a better book”, this is the mantra that I used to believe in. This changed after reading Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick. One of my favourite filums is The Truman Show; I’ve heard people dismiss this filum as rubbish because it isn’t as funny as other Jim Carrey titles but that’s not the point. The Truman Show should make the more discerning viewer question their mortality and their purpose in life. If all our destinies were controlled by some greater being, could we ever know? Anybody can be Truman Burbank. I might have walked passed him today, I might be him.

The Truman Show is believed to be based on themes from Time Out of Joint. The book follows the life of Ragle Gumm, a war veteran who spends each day using statistical methods to win the 'Where is the Little Green Man?' newspaper competition.

With knowledge of the filum in mind, I read as he detected idiosyncrasies in his reality and waited for him to discover that his reality was totally synthetic. The only mystery that I needed solved was why this life was constructed for Ragle. For Truman, the answer was reality television. For Ragle, the answer was crazy. Perhaps I should have known what to expect, this is a science fiction novel. I don’t really life science fiction. Although the reason for the construction of Ragle’s environment was difficult to accept, I must admit there was a fair degree of suspense and drama before the answer was revealed. It’s a decent book but I didn’t really have that same feeling of bewilderderment about mortality that The Truman Show gave me. Right now, I’m probably the exact opposite of Truman or Ragle, the centres of their worlds, I could disappear from the face of the planet and no one would notice.

Could a Ragle Gumm situation occur in real life? I’m sure something similar has been tried.

Overblown Fragile Minstrels,

After all that festival nonsense, it’s good to get back to the bread and butter of musicology.

I read or heard that it would be released in July; a July release wouldn’t have made much sense. Bombshell by King Creosote was worth waiting for. The previous album, KC Rules OK, was fantastic but Kenny had some issues with it, admitting some songs were too long. It seems that those glitches, those debatable glitches, have disappeared. Many reviews say that KC is reaching out for the mainstream, if that’s what this is, if the mainstream exists, if that’s where the money is, then very few artists are more deserving of a few more pounds. However, I don’t see it happening. KC hasn’t betrayed the folk scene, he hasn’t dropped the instruments that have made previous works so brilliant and he hasn’t started writing songs about big fat girls, umbrellas or that kind of thing. And mostly importantly, and also most sadly, the radio stations haven’t started playing his songs more often (BBC 6th Music is best placed to do so and they haven’t so, they must be held accountable). The genius of this work is that KC, perhaps along with his producer (Jon Hopkins), creates amazing auras with the accordion, keyboards, acoustic guitars or whatever, that perfectly showcase stories told by the most emotive voice. I was won over by this album after 30 seconds of the first track, Leslie. It’s an album to spend some time with in order to work out the story of each song, the lyrics are good enough to allow this to be done. There is an excellent and novel review in the Guardian that is worth reading.

The other album that I’ve spent some time with recently is The Fragile Army, the latest offering of The Polyphonic Spree. I understand many people have written them off as a novelty act; numbers (everyone will know someone who knows someone who was or is in The Polyphonic Spree) and outfits do that. I also understand that their live performances and festival appearances don’t really equate to album sales. I’ve always liked them, I have nothing bad to say about them. The Fragile Army is still happy, the orchestration is still epic, but on the whole, it’s less happy than before. There will always be happiness in numbers for this lot. Get Up and Go (Section 23) is perhaps where this new found dourness begins, “waking up to a sad note, delivered yesterday, you might like to think you’re in love” is one of the lines of the choruses, the song is about taking blows. However, by Section 25, Younger Yesterday, they're exulting their strength, “now we know, we’re beautiful”. Arcade Fire have shown that these are dark times and musicians have to react to them, for me, The Fragile Army is better than Neon Bible, it may not be so politically motivated, but it does not have the few blatantly rubbish songs that Neon Bible does. Their cover of Nirvana’s Lithium is sublime, I look upon Nirvana unfavourably and it has taken this lot to show me that there have been something in that Nirvana thing after all. The Polyphonic Spree is worth sticking with, all those people can’t be wrong.

Ruminative Huggers of the Coast,

The Fife Coastal Path: the coast was there before the path.

Recently, I’ve been bogged down with a glut of desk work. I can’t really handle being fixed to a desk with a computer in front of me for long. Reaching for the coast offers some respite. Some is not enough because the Fife Coastal Path has its perils.

During a recent lunch break, I drove along to Kingsbarns, a small village situated a short distance along the coast from St Andrews. It has a nice beach and it doesn’t appear to be an overly busy part of the coast. Arbitrarily, I followed the coastal path clockwise from the car park. Kingsbarns has a golf course; from the outset, it appears this course has clientele of a certain class. Almost all the groups I saw had a caddie, that doesn’t happen on the bog-standard courses around our way. If choosing not to walk along the beach (because not everyone likes sand), the path must be taken through the edge of the golf course. Now, I’d have thought that given the class of the golfers, I wouldn’t have to loiter, pretend disorientation and try to look like I’d lost the path as up ahead one of the golfers had chosen to relief himself on the path. Usually, walkers have to acknowledge other path users with a simple “Hiiiiii” or a nod; there is no documented etiquette for coping with rich urinating golfers. Once past the golf course, walkers are instructed to walk along the rocky beach to stay out of the mucky cow field – it’s always the cows. I felt that this stretch would be somewhat hard-going for older walkers. I continued on the rocky beach for a while before heading back, I hadn’t the time to walk to a proper destination. The danger posed to walkers by the golfers was confirmed on the return to the car; I waited patiently whilst one of the wealthy golfers went to the tee. She swung, smacked the ball, only for it to rebound off a tree straight back at her and those behind the tee (the caddy and I). They say the playing of golf is wasting a good walk; at Kingsbarns, it might not just be their own walks that they ruin.

Another stretch I undertook recently is from Kirkcaldy to Kinghorn. It’s a decent walk, one I do quite often (I sometimes used to get off the train one stop early and walk back into Kirkcaldy). There is a colony of seals that resides around the ruin of Seafield Tower, although they do suffer terrible abuse from the local neds. I trekked right through and onto Pettycur Bay, where I read for a while. Pettycur Bay is a small, secluded beach, a cliff provides shelter from prevailing westerlies. The problem I encountered on an afternoon where the temperature was 25 degrees C (blistering) was a local numpty. Despite the temperature, the first thing he did when he arrived on the beach with his brats, dogs and bags of glaur was start a fire.

I had never covered the distance from Anstruther to Crail, even though these are two good places (although Anstruther is deteriorating). At first, it’s a nice walk, it’s quite smooth with large stepping stones providing adequate means of traversing the marshy bits. However, walkers then stumble into cows – it’s always the cows. Cows are unreadable creatures. I don’t know if I can trust them, I don’t know if I can outrun them. As the path entered the field, the cows were all lying down, then, one got to its feet quickly and looked menacingly straight at us. We retreated. Instead of following the designated path through the cows, we headed onto the rocks and scaled our way around the final inlet into Crail, I suppose with a higher tide, this could have been much slippier or even impossible. There was no guarantee the rock traverse would have been successful as it was impossible to see what was around each inlet of the coast, it would have been mightily embarrassing to fail. A watching couple on the beach would have pointed and stared. Thankfully, the beach landing was completed. Crail is nice because the water bashes off the rocks there and makes a good sound. After a bottle of Lucozade and packet of Starbust Choozers (or whatever those great new things are called), the cows were faced head on for the return to Anstruther.

The Fife Coastal Path is great at times, but it has its dangers. Walkers should not expect it to be a path; they should be prepared for it to be a golf course, a cow field, a beach or even an A road. Sometimes, they must have the nerve to overcome cows. It’s anarchy out there.

Those Primed for the Glitz,

The best of those who weren’t saving themselves for a big 2008 and bothered to spit out an album gathered in the Rennie Suite of East End Park stadium, Dunfermline for The Bellyaches Music Prize 2007 awards ceremony hosted once again by the legendary Bryan Burnett.

The standard this year was very poor and the 12 nominees faced little competitions. The albums in contention for the award, a £5 book token (redeemable at WH Smith before September 30) are as follows:

Year of the Leopard by James Yorkston: Every track is endearing and beautifully composed. The Fencemeister and Domino man deserved wider recognition for this inventive album that was more than “just a folk album”. Its inaugural airing of BBC 6th Music was ruined by the hourly burp.

Octopus by The Bees: Many artists lined up this year to record something new that felt old. The Bees managed to achieve that special vibe as Candie Payne and Amy Winehouse failed miserably whilst making more money.

The Magic Position by Patrick Wolf: Pop can have some wonderful orchestration as Patrick demonstrates. He changed his style for several songs in order to capture a new audience; it caught the ear of the judges.

Voices of Animals and Men by The Young Knives: The Young Knives say more about society than many others, they highlight foibles over and over again in the way the vastly over-rated Kaiser Chiefs manage to do only 5% of the time.

No Shouts No Calls by Electrelane: An excellent motivator of an album, it has a great beat and top keyboards. Vocals like this are so rare since the C86 era. This band should have been allowed the chance to prevent “new rave”.

The End of History by Fionn Regan: Bella Union goodness is mandatory and these songs are lovely.

Make Another World by Idlewild: Roddy Woomble is a marvellous lyricist and this album sounds a bit angry.

Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters by The Twilight Sad: Towering auras of sound with baffling lyrics sung in an unashamedly Scottish voice.

The Art of Fiction by Jeremy Warmsley: A lad with braces and a canary has taken the time to write some fun songs.

Show Me How The Spectres Dance by Liam Frost & The Slowdown Family: The songs have that quality of being melancholic yet uplifting. The instrumentation is superb.

The Beatific Visions by Brakes: it’s a bit of everything in less than half an hour.

A Brighter Beat by Malcolm Middleton: There’s a dark humour on this album that needs to be appreciated. It has many a brighter beat.

Bryan Burnett welcomed Pat Nevin to the stage to present the award. After a short speech where he urged Camera Obscura to release some new songs quickly, he presented the award to Verity from Electrelane. She has pledged to put the book token towards the Iain Banks one when it comes out in paperback.

The awards ceremony was swiftly interrupted by Sid Collumbine and Willie Gray as they arrived to survey East End Park as a possible venue for their CIS cup tie against Rangers.