VARIOUS ARTISTS - 8 FOLK SONGS

Released September 2012

TOR31

Sometime in 2007, I stepped into Carlisle's best book shop, Bookcase. Down the stairs, where the vinyl and sheet music is stored, I found a pile of books. '104 Folk Songs' is a book of songs recorded by popular folk artists on the Folkways record label. It included lyrics, as well as guitar and banjo chords. The book is from the mid sixties and the songs, as you can imagine, are as old as the hills.

My initial idea was an E.P. of songs taken from the book and recorded by the band I was in at the time, with a facsimile of the cover as artwork. The band broke up before the idea could be fully realised but demos were recorded and some finished versions found their way onto Harbourcoat's final release. 'Bury Me Beneath the Willow Tree', 'The House of the Rising Sun' and 'Naomi Wise' can be found on the '12' mini album among other original songs.

I put the concept to the back of my mind, knowing that eventually I would see it through and last month, the final song was recorded.

The first track to be recorded was my own, 'The Ballad Of Mary Hamilton', recorded in August 2011. I was listening to a lot of acid folk at the time as well as the soundtrack to 'The Wicker Man'. Every folk album needs a murder ballad.

Next up is 'A Horse Named Bill' by Cat Of Tomorrow. Recorded sometime in the Spring, I can recall a boozy evening in Dave's cellar and this was the result, rough edges still there for maximum Harry Smith effect. Mandolin, Banjo and Vocals recorded live on open mics.

Shane was in town for one day in February. We headed to Alastair's house and recorded 'A Hundred Years From Now'. In two takes we got the Guitar and Banjo live track, Shane then added a vocal but the body of this track was put together by Alastair over the summer. Industrial noise, effected birdsong, feedback and other noises make this Whirlaway track a long, strange trip.

Hills! Werewolves! Run! completely abandon the idea of a 'traditional' sounding folk song and '900 Miles' is given the fuzz and speed drum treatment. Desperate, ramshackle, heavy and very nearly derailed. This was recorded in winter 2011.

British Space Program momentarily swap the folk for country on 'Blood On The Saddle'. Another track that was recorded live (apart from Dave's wonderful Harmonica solo) in the cellar. Recorded shortly after I lost my job and was recording like crazy.

The Nightowl Sings take on 'Shady Grove' is probably my favourite track on this release. Kind of experimental Americana, this is sad, slow and sounds just a little fucked up. Recorded in between the albums 'By the Light of the Fallen Moon' and 'Tip the Maps'.

'Bay of Sacremento' finds Old Weird before their recent transition into electro-velvets-kraut, and recalls the hauntology spirit radio of their first release. More ghost than song, a melody dances with the shipping forecast, a mandolin comes in and out of focus and the protagonist expresses his desire to make it to Californ-i-o.

The final song on this release, and the final song to be recorded, is 'Rio Grande' by The Dead West. By now, the notion of 'Folk' is completely forgotten as the band give some real garage psych before a saxophone and effects freak out at the end. Recorded a few weeks ago in August, exactly one year since the first. Dig the symmetry.

This album kills fascists.

- Stephen.





Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/8-folk-songs

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?0ls39bzg4uiclos



THE DEAD WEST - BE MY BOOBY TRAP/SKYE

Released September 2012
TOR30

Be my booby Trap. Trip wire tumbler net pit lion, mushroom cloud on the horizon. Be my Armageddon. Roadside mine or letter bomb, a coma I won't wake up from.

Be the cause, the cause of my downfall.

Be my nemesis. Little big horn, Waterloo, the day they always said I'd rue. Be my cup of hemlock. Man-trap open underfoot, the big hole in my parachute.

Be the rocks, the rocks I'm shipwrecked on.

I don't want to escape or to second guess fate. When the fuse starts to burn, I'll just sit here and wait. Should the sirens call, no, I won't resist at all. And if I chance to fall, don't catch me.

Be my lookless leap. Ton of bricks banana skin, a game that I don't want to win. Be my coup de grace. Little death I can't stop chasing, fatal lapse in concentration.

Be the end, the end I'm heading for.

***

Well, folks, we're at the three-quarters stage in our 'We Dream In 45' project, and we celebrate September with a new platter from The Dead West. "Be My Booby Trap" is the purest pop song I've written for a while. I was aiming for a glam rock stomper in a kind of Super Furry Animals style (and that's how I sold it to Marc and Ste) but it actually came out more like XTC, if they were a garage band. It's a masochistic love song, which is a more common sub-genre than you might think. The longing for someone who you know is going to be bad news for you in the end. L'Amour Fou, if you like. And of course it's also a shopping list song and, let's face it, an excuse to metaphor like crazy.
 
"Skye" is an indie pop tune with a country heart (or is it the other way around?) Difficult to tell and, anyway, it doesn't really matter. Let's just say hip-hip-hooray for the hybrid, the sui generis, the goddamn musical equivalent of a chimera. "Skye" is inspired, in turn, by the Band's "Music From Big Pink" and, like that great album, it demonstrates a freshness, vitality and willingness to ignore the rule book whenever it feels like it (while knowing exactly what those rules are and actually being quite fond of them, when all is said and done). Let's just say this tune wastes none of its 2 minutes and 50 seconds (just right, but still not long enough), mutating as it goes along to surprise you every time you listen to it and - I'll bet you what you like - when it ends, you'll just want to listen to it again. Which is exactly what I advise you to do. - David.





Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/be-my-booby-trap-skye

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?liqoncjcvqhgh94

THE NIGHTOWL SINGS - TIP THE MAPS

Released September 2012
TOR29

I hope y'all like your music with a layer of scuzzy distortion because that's what you'll get with The Nightowl Sings. You'll get a lot more, of course, but the dirty, grimey, garagey sound is what hits you from the off. Yeah, maybe it does sound like someone's Fall-en onto the Pavement but there's no denying the power of the songs, three minutes (give or take) of no-fi grunged-up garage rock that aims for the gut and the throat simultaneously. You can almost hear the dirt crunch under their boots as they plough through these golden nuggets.

This is the scuzzbuzz-buzzing-in-the-eardrum end of the Treehouse oeuvre, songs that were recorded in less time that it takes to listen to 'em, guitars distorted beyond all recognition, the vocal takes done by shouting in a tin can with a string attached to the 4-track. Probably. The drums are sloppy as all get out, but that's OK too, they propel the tunes with a certain devil-may-care swing. And it's all about capturing a moment rather than perfection.

But it's not all fuzzfuzzfuzz by any stretch, oh no, particularly in the second half of Tip The Maps. The atmospheric piano pieces “Dukebox Ghosts” act as moments of calm throughout, and there's a whole bunch of Marc-at-the-guitar-late-at-night songs. “Black Medicine” and “You Can Talk To Me” find him in wracked fine voice, all the fancy sounds put to one side, a touch of world-weariness hanging around the songs like cigarette smoke in a jazz club in the 1950s. On the closing “Stars” the multi-tracked choir swirl around like so many broken angels trying to claw their way back upstairs. At which point it's tempting to go back to the beginning and get a refreshing blast from the electric guitar of doom.

The disparate sounds on Tip The Maps are pulled together into the lengthy centrepiece “10 Minutes from Olympia” which manages the trick of sounding languid and frantic at the same time, the varied movements unified through the spirit of the radio. What starts of like a swingin' little tune morphs into a percussive free jazz blow-out, those drums getting a crack at the centre stage whilst a sax parps desperately in the distance. There's no recovery here, just the laughter of a band comfortable in the knowledge they've pushed an idea as far as it'll go, and then a bit further just to be sure. Excellent music all round, and a tip of the cap is the least they deserve. - Jeremy Bye.




Here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/releases

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?auwbyd9c2qq1jul

Hey everybody.

Treehouse Orchestra Recordings now has a Bandcamp page. All of our releases are there for free download, although now you can have your lo-fi classics in flac, wav etc.

Check it out : www.treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com

From now on each new release will be posted on both sites simultaneously.

In other news, the most recent We Are The Wooden Houses release, Island Of Death / Halloween Haarp, has had an independent review over at A Closer Listen.

Read it here : http://acloserlisten.com/2012/08/28/we-are-the-wooden-houses-halloween-haarpisland-of-death/

Ste.