Out Feb 2016 on Drifltess

http://www.stereogum.com/1839978/matt-kivel-janus-stereogum-premiere/mp3s/

www.driftlessrecordings.com

Matt Kivel - Janus

Taken from Modern Studies' debut album 'Swell to Great', out on 12" LP, CD and digital on Song, by Toad Records on the 12th September 2016.

songbytoadrecords.bandcamp.com/album/swell-to-great

Modern Studies are a chamber pop band from Glasgow-via-Yorkshire. Their quietly experimental landscape songs are played on analogue synths, cello, double bass, drums, guitars, a wine-glass orchestra and, at the creaking centre of things, a Victorian pedal harmonium.

The band came together in early 2015, when Glasgow songwriter Emily Scott recruited old pals and collaborators Pete Harvey (King Creosote, The Leg), Joe Smillie (boss of Glasgow’s The Glad Cafe) and Rob St. John.

Working throughout the year at Pumpkinfield – Pete’s rural Perthshire studio – the band shaped a set of Emily’s skeleton songs. This communal arts-und-crafts-werk resulted in their debut LP ‘Swell to Great’ (named after a stop on the wheezing old harmonium), which will be released on Song, by Toad Records of Edinburgh, Scotland in September 2016.

Modern Studies will play a selection of UK shows and festivals throughout 2016.

modernstudiestheband.com

Divebombing

On 26th September 2016 Song, by Toad Records will release the debut EP by Edinburgh artist and songwriter Faith Eliott on cassette and download.

The majority of the songs on this release were written over the course of three months, whilst Faith was living in rural Nebraska. Much of the dense and often-surreal lyrical content reflects this landscape, which is pancake-flat and dotted with collapsing barns, rotting farm machinery and teeming with insects. 

The EP consists of a diverse set of songs. The opening track ‘Pyrite Ammonite’ is poppy and dynamic, whilst the closer, ’Possum’, is a five minute spoken word track, awash with drones and the sound of screeching cicadas. The baritone guitars, mellotrons and vocal harmonies hint at something grandiose, but the songs retain a lo-fi quality. 

At its most raw, the EP includes the song ‘So Do I’, which was recorded in a barn in Nebraska using a dictaphone, with howling wind audible in the background. The remaining tracks were recorded by Alan McCormack (of Now Wakes the Sea), who also plays on the record, and whose experimental approach to recording and composition brings unexpected layers and textures to Faith’s acoustic/folk sensibilities. 

Faith grew up in Minnesota and moved to Edinburgh just over 10 years ago. Though they (Faith prefers gender-neutral pronouns) have taken part in numerous creative collaborations over the years (The Sea Is Salt, Withered Hand, Supermoon, etc.), this is the first time they have put together a release exclusively of their own songs. This has in part been down to the process of exploring outwards from visual art and poetry before fixating on songwriting three or four years ago. 

These days, Faith continues to make visual art and exhibits regularly around the city. They are also part of Edinburgh’s Far Yella Collective, a loosely collaborative collection of visual artists, musicians and writers

Faith will be playing a launch night in September in the Happiness Hotel, our new warehouse recording space down in Leith, as well as at our annual label Christmas party on the 2nd December.

Insects

Buy on cassette

Faith Eliott - Pyrite Ammonite

Written June - Sept 2016.
Sung in Bristol, 15 Sept 2016. 
Text: Supported by the word by John Newton, 1778.

Lightwater

Brico-la-di-da-ge Pop.

Emily Scott, Rob St. John, Pete Harvey and Joe Smillie.

Fire Records // Listen Collective Booking (UK / EU)

Divebombing

Modern Studies

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