The recording of “Velocity Girl” last night put me in mind of this catchy little seasonal offering that I recorded towards the end of 2006, as a private release for distribution to friends and colleagues in place of Christmas cards. Given that I was in the final few months of singing with folk group The Village Wakes at the time, it met with some fairly interesting reactions.

The story behind it is this: one evening I was musing idly to myself, and found myself wondering what would happen if doom-metal funsters Sunn O))) tried their hand at recording a Christmas carol. I decided to find out.

Recording this was pretty simple; there are just three tracks: heavily de-tuned guitar, bass, and a Xasthur-inspired vocal performance that makes me sound as though I’m being burned alive at the bottom of a well. You’ll no doubt be pleased to know that no recontructive throat surgery was required in the days immediately following the recording session.

The lyrics are from a traditional West Midlands version of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”, although as befits the genre, you’ll be lucky if you can make any of them out. Around the six-minute mark you should be able to hear the words “We wish you a merry Christmas”, and the dementedly-repeated phrase at the end is in fact “A PIE! A PIE! A PEPPERCORN! A PIE!”

Nobody said that all Black Metal had to be miserable, after all.

Download Black Christmas MP3 (10 MB approx)

They are, of course, perfect pop.

Armed with an array of distortion pedals of different shapes and sizes, I set about a marvellous evening’s entertainment bludgeoning this song to within an inch of its life with noise and feedback. It emerged beaten, bruised, but ultimately with the tune intact, if nothing else.

No wonder the Stone Roses nicked it for “Made of Stone”.

Download my version of Velocity Girl (3 MB) – I take no responsibility for hearing damage caused by this recording…

The album’s press release reads:

A compilation of original artists from around the planet.

This global release has been made available on the winter solstice
(21 December 2008)

Music, culture, sounds and experiences express this diverse collection of unique (with a capital U) artists on the compilation.

Ranging from Portugal, India, Uruguay, Japan, and France to name a few, the artists are specially selected by Invisiblegirl from the MySpace social networking site.

A Place In Space is a truly fascinating listening experience.

A Place In Space is available online from iTunes, by following this link  

There are a few CD copies available in the award-winning independent record store Piccadilly Records in Manchester

Download The Elf Princess (be warned, this is a big file as it’s encoded at 256kbps)

So, here’s a very rough electric version of Sam Hall, a traditional song of a foul-mouthed murderer who’s about to swing for his crimes. Beware, if you’re sensitive about strong language, there is some swearing in this song. Sam isn’t a particularly nice character, after all. Damn his eyes.

I’m out of practise with mixing distorted guitars, so you’ll have to bear with me.

Download Sam Hall (5MB approx)

The album will be an iTunes release; here’s a trailer featuring all the artists.

“Something I Can’t Have” is possibly my favourite Jesus And Mary Chain song. The original is a glorious storm of pop-noise, confrontational and touching in the way that only Jim and William Reid ever really manage to be. You just know that behind the arrogant, disinterested posturing, there have always been a couple of sentimental old fools who love a good tune.

I’ve recorded it very simply indeed – just acoustic guitar and acoustic bass. I might start playing it live – something I’ve never got round to doing, despite having learnt it (ahem) about 15 years ago when the Sound Of Speed E.P. first came out!

Download Something I Can’t Have (3.3 MB)

As this recording is now out and about “in the wild” I thought it time I put it up on here too. As I mentioned before in the previous plug for Brumcast, there’s some blurb about the song in this post. I’ve edited out the mildly incomprehensible verse I wrote about the modern art sculpture of a swing that used to adorn the St Chad’s circus roundabout, as most people I played it to hadn’t a clue what I was on about!

The instrumentation on this one is strings-only: acoustic bass guitar, mandolin, acoustic rhythm guitar and acoustic lead guitar. The lead guitar part was played on a Nashville-strung guitar (i.e. the bottom four strings are an octave higher than normal, giving it a really luminous quality) and it’s got loads of reverb on it.

Any of you who are avid fans of The Jesus And Mary Chain might notice that some phrases in the guitar solos are “inspired by” the Mary Chain song “Why’d You Want Me?”

Download I Can’t Find Brummagem (4.9 MB)

The debut album, on Swainsthorpe Records, is now available to buy. Go to the “Buy CDs” page to hear samples and order your copy now!

This is a song I wrote a couple of years ago, which, now that the Telecaster has been dusted off, I thought I’d revisit with guitars turned up to 11. I normally play this song on concertina, but this version is just electric guitars, a drum loop, and plenty of reverb to make it sound like it was recorded in a cave. I was trying to get it to sound a bit like “Anorak City” by Another Sunny Day. You can take the boy out of 1986, but you can’t take 1986 out of the boy…

But, even though it’s loud, it’s still a folk song. A murder ballad in fact, albeit a very compressed one. There’s a shotgun wedding in the offing, and our none-too-heroic narrator decides he’s having none of it.

My source for some of the lyrics was actually a poem by A.E. Housman, from the collection “A Shropshire Lad” – in particular that’s where the line about “my bloody hands and I” comes from.

Download Head For The Country (about 3.5 MB)

HEAD FOR THE COUNTRY

I have to run
Even after all we planned
Best head for the country
I took her love
But I would not take her hand
Best head for the country
Where the air is clean
And I can wash the stains
From my soul

I took her love
But I would not take a bride
But her father he insisted
And he would not be denied

I must be gone
I have said a sad goodbye
We’ll do no more harm
My bloody hands and I