Compendium - The Second Hand Marching Band

Track list:
   
1. Mad Sense
2. Lies
3. A Dance to Half Death
4. Don't!
5. Not Yet
6. We Walk in the Room
7. BonBon
8. Grit and Determination
9. My Gift is Waiting
10. Next Year
11. Bottle of Anger/Lies (BBC Scotland Radio Session)
12. A Hurricane, a Thunderstorm (BBC Radio Scotland Session)
13. Love is a Fragile Thing (Sleazy version)
14. Learn to Love (2007 demo)
15. Bypass (2007 demo)
16. Transformers (2007 demo)
17. Dawn Raid (2009 demo with Benni Hemm Hemm)
18. Alexander and Angela (2009 demo)

Running time: 69 minutes
Released: 2010

I've written about how I came across The Second Hand Marching Band before. This has the look of a best-of and retrospective, including tracks I have elsewhere, but that's alright by me. Twee Scottish low-fidelity amateur charm is OK in my book.

It is a suitably low key starter for 10. Mad Sense's slow tempo, a lone voice, adding another. It's disarmingly charming. Yes, I was biasing myself towards this before I started, but there really is something comforting about the simplicity here. That said, I am happier for the bigger sound and a bit more life in Lies as that takes over, its intro more than half its length before the vocal joins. 

I can't help but feel, though, that I should stop this listen after three tracks, because A Dance to Half Death is undoubtedly the summit. I have loved this track since the first time I heard it. There's some fragility in the voice that endears, whilst the main theme, the twiddling tunes behind the vocal and the pace all strike emotional chords (pun intended) in me.  There is a rawness to it all, a heart laid bare, a pleading appeal. In some ways the song is amateurish, the voice almost fades away in places and it sounds like only an indie-effort could... a little rough around the edges. Yet the earnestness, the genuine intent and belief of the performers and the tones of their strings stir feelings in me, a sort of comfortable loneliness and longing. It is, I think, a masterpiece, albeit one most people will never hear or appreciate.

The sense that everything is slightly off-key can't be as easily brushed off on the more bombastic Don't!, and here the effect of everyone playing and singing together has more of a cacophony about it, and then we hit the first of the tracks on this album that I don't recognise. Not Yet jettisons the noise for a stripped back sound, a female main vocal, it reminds me more of Strike the Colours' less pop-y pieces in places with the intricate little strumming loops, though overall the similarities aren't that great. It builds nicely and I find myself enjoying it a lot.

Of course, my liking this should not be any surprise; The Second Hand Marching Band shares (shared?) some overlap in membership with eagleowl, a lot of their tunes exhibit that very clearly, and eagleowl are the best band no-one ever heard of and the group that I keep going back to when being alone all the time tips over into loneliness. The downside of that is that hearing those sounds when I wasn't feeling lonely (like just now) can tip me over into the very loneliness that I use these sounds to escape. Today is a calm day of not much between two days of hosting people for board games and in the aftermath of family Christmas. The quiet and peace are - or were - welcome, especially as I don't really feel like I have been off work for a week yet!

The album loses its way a bit in the middle. All pace slips from the tunes, and they strip back too far to be interesting. They retain a gentle charm, but it is a detached one, rather than an intimately engaging one.

The combination of Bottle of Anger/Lies brings back the energy. Yes, it is in part a repeat, and I could have sworn it was something I had elsewhere, and a quick search suggests that I axed it! Huh. Context matters - here this combo really worked to bring back something that was lacking as the mid-section drifted. There I found the raucousness abrasive. Odd. I am still not that enamoured of A Hurricane, A Thunderstorm though and I may axe that again (especially as I have other versions).

It amuses me that there is a sleazy version of, well, anything that would be advertised as such, but that is where we are with Love is a Fragile Thing... I can't hear anything immediately worthy of that term, so I guess it is a bit tongue in cheek (or I am tone-deaf). Then we are into a bunch of demos to finish off the offerings.

Learn to Love starts these off with the same trembling vocals that endeared A Dance to Half Death to me. Here there is less to back that up, but it is still plenty pleasant. Actually it may end up being these demos are the real reason to have this album... the search for where I had Bottle of Anger/Lies before laid open how Compendium is less a greatest hits and more the collected works. The first 10 tracks come from two EPs, 11 and 12 from the BBC sessions linked above. Happily thus far they are well worth having. The recording is a little harsher, louder, than perhaps would be ideal but the tone of the songs is right.

My attention wandered, and I find myself suddenly at the end of Transformers without consciously processing the bits in between - nice soft guitars, low key vocal and not a lot to do with the track name as far as I can tell...

Two to go, then; 10 more minutes.

I find my words are gone. My drive to type MIA. Suffice to say I really like Dawn Raid even though I cannot find the lines to explain why. The closing track I am less keen on. Musically its more of the same and OK, but the lyrics are mean-spirited in places. Not a good finish.

Cold Shoulder - Bdy_Prts

Singleton time. This is not so much an album as a tack released on its own. Bdy_Prts are two  female performers from other Scottish acts come together to do something... and with an album due later in the year. One of those is Jenny Reeve (Strike the Colours) - which is what brought them to my attention when I thought to look into what she may have done more recently.  It turns out I also have music from the other Prt(ner), who was in Sparrow and the Workshop.

That said, I don't think I actually listened to this, or the other track I grabbed (I.D.L.U. - which is categorised as another singleton for some years in the future) after downloading them from whichever outlet I got them from. I honestly don't remember if they were free samples or if I bought them. And that was earlier this year... I suck!

Rather than post a bogus cover image and stuff, I'll link to a YouTube of a live performance:

So what do I make of the song?

Bold single strikes to start, that's good. Reeve's voice, always welcome; her American companion brings a different tone, the composition gives both voices space, doesn't over-complicate things.  I am less fond of the chorus. The track is perhaps not what I was expecting, yet it is enjoyable all the same, without being stellar. I would say it heralds promise and an interesting change of direction for the performers

A Brighter Beat - Malcolm Middleton

Track list:

1. We're All Going to Die
2. Fight Like the Night
3. A Brighter Beat
4. Death Love Depression Love Death
5. Fuck It, I Love You
6. Stay Close Sit Tight
7. Four Cigarettes
8. Somebody Loves You
9. Up Late at Night Again
10. Superhero Songwriters

Running time: 45 minutes
Released: 2007

This album is a long-time favourite. I am surprised that it hasn't reached its decade yet because I have listened to it so much. The title track is one of my all time favourite songs too, brilliant and utterly relatable-to.

It starts with the most unlikely attempt at a Christmas single ever... That We're All Going to Die is pretty unarguable, but I'm not aware of it being stated so positively anywhere else. Here it has a catchy rhythm, a high tempo and a harmonised vocal in the chorus to take your mind off the existential angst that the title conjures up. Its a joke track really, but it launches the overall tone of the music on this record well. What follows next is a step up though. Jenny Reeve (aka Strike the Colours) duets with Malcolm on Fight Like the Night. She gets the first vocals, responsibility for the chorus and offers a response to his calls in the verses. Meantime the wailing guitars, pacy drums and general hum of the arrangement sets off their voices really well. There is a drive to the first three songs on this album that is pretty consistent; they all offer different things but that pace offers a touchpoint, a reference. 

A Brighter Beat has a properly catchy rhythm and the hook on the guitar for the lead in is amazing. Seeing Middleton play this live is mind blowing for me, as a non-guitarist. On record he has several of the things to create structure and melody (though he leans on keys a bit for the latter); on stage he creates a decent facsimile of it with just a semi-acoustic. The song itself is about escaping or coping with depressive episodes, a theme that resonates through much of the album, and one that no doubt helps me connect with this record in the way that I do. I think this track is Middleton's best work, solo or otherwise, capturing a state of mind in a 4 minute pop song; giving depression the focus, but never allowing the song to be depressing.

We get a bit of an interlude as the next track opens up lighter, slower, softer. It doesn't last. The same driving pace - rapidly repeating notes with percussive support - arrives and gives a snarl or growl to the song. I find myself not wanting to type out the title for length, but typing this longer sentence instead. The oddness of the human mind. The actual lyrics aren't as dark as the title, and offset the rumbling darkness of the arrangement in their delivery. It all builds and then suddenly crashes shut to be replaced by what I can only describe as a jauntily melodic love song. A simple repeating hook bores into my head on this listen; normally my ear is drawn to the lyrics. I think the difference here is that I don't have engine and road noise drowning out the lower end of the register - this album spends a fair share of its time in the car. There's a crescendo in the middle where it gets a bit more edgy but that is just a passing moment and we return to the longing in the lyrics, where Reeve (I think) is backing up again, harmony this time.

A darker, slower tack next. Stay Close Sit Tight has a bassy start. This song really rams the depression angle front and centre of its performance. What Middleton describes is familiar - particularly not wanting to see yourself, others or speak to people on the phone. It gets more nail-on-head later, with a line about making plans by agreeing with things someone else proposes only to cancelling. Whilst the topic is a difficult one, he crafts around it a nice, noisy cocoon of guitars. The brass that provides backing here is used really well, not something you hear on every composition. Four Cigarettes has one of the most recognisable openings for me - a little keyboard loop that quickly gets replaced by the primary structure of the song, but which does resurface a little way in. The keyboard part is where most of the appeal lies in this number; I used to like it a lot more than I do now. I am not sure why that is. Somehow I just feel a little removed from it these days. I was never a smoker, and never more likely to want to be outside after dark when my moods dipped this low so I don't relate, but would never quite have related at my darkest, either.

Somebody Loves You is a simpler tune, one hook or riff sustains the vast majority of the track and it washes over me. It is probably the weakest number on the album. Some might find it touching but me, here and now, I find it very repetitive and lacking the rich depth that the wider arrangements, present on the other tracks, provide. The penultimate track is stately in pace, epic in scope, and reassuringly rich in the chorus. This is a much more engaging love song than the one before. Middleton's songs tend to be self absorbed - more about the lover than the loved; I suspect this too comes from the blackness of battling mental demons. I am distracted by the jangling top end for a bit and lose my train of thought as the song draws down and we enter the closer.

Big bold Bond-movie sounds kick off Superhero Songwriters, but the actual song is immediately stripped back and becomes less bombastic, more fragile, but those brassy focus points are in the locker to separate out our verses. There is a good dollop of self-deprecation in the lyric, that has always endeared me to Malcolm. The song itself is split in two (just as well given its length). The latter half is arranged very differently, less punchy after a keyboard takes over the melody, then the bigger arrangement of guitar drones and lines come in to build a really big and sustained canvas of sound. Picking out any one part gets tough for me as the aural wall all fills with colour. As the page saturates it is flipped and the lonely acoustic guitar returns to pick us out the core melody one final time before the curtain falls. 

Most of this album is just a solid "good", but I relate to it a lot so as a whole it has wormed its way into my favourite things. The real high points though are just superb, 10 of 10 numbers that I keep returning to again and again. I suspect that will last a while yet - at least whilst I remain prone to lonely little episodes where I feel like an impostor and teeter on the edge of regression to a general darker place. These happen from time to time, but in general I am in a happier spot than when I first latched on to Middleton's music. I remain incredibly grateful for his ability to expose similar feelings in this way, however.

5:14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine - Malcolm Middleton

Track List:

1. Crappo the Clown
2. Wake Up
3. The Loneliest Night of My Life Come Calling
4. Best in Me
5. Cold Winter
6. Bring Down (Preprise)
7. Rotten Heart
8. Speed on the M9
9. 1, 2, 3, 4
10. Birdwatcher
11. The King of Bring
12. Devil and the Angel

Running Time: 54 minutes
Released: 2002

What a stupid name. I've also noticed that my 4th listen starts with "4" and my 5th with "5". That pattern ends here. Right, with that out of the way, on to the listen.

I picked up Malcolm's solo albums after getting into Arab Strap (or Falkirk's 98th most influential people according to an anecdote Middleton told at a gig I went to) after they started to appear regularly in the LastFM stations I was listening to at one time... Scottish music featured strongly.

I think I grabbed Sleight of Heart first, as it was new at that point then worked back. This is his first and probably his worst (though I've not really listened to Human Don't Be Angry enough to judge...).

I do remember reading a smart alec comment somewhere along the lines of "If Arab Strap was Aidan singing Malcolm's songs, how come 5:14... was shite but L.Pierre's output was good?" but that is awful close to prejudgement. Certainly it's not a strong start. Wake Up is fairly tuneless and Crappo the Clown does not live up to the name. The extended tag list is reflective of backing vocalists, not just related artists. Going in I don't recall hearing Emma Pollock or Jenny Reeve on this Middleton album, but I'll be listening out this time. I own solo work by both and I am very partial to Reeve's voice.

The Loneliest Night... is the first tune that resonates with familiarity for me. It presages the tone and sound that for me characterises several tunes on later albums, and when more polished represents the Malcolm Middleton that convinced me to shell out... at least before it goes all twangy to end.

Huh. LastFM has a "love" marker for Best In Me. That seems a bit strong, though when the backing starts and Jenny Reeve is in harmony I can maybe see it. I also see that someone has tagged it with "Either they have beards or they should have beards" which is the kind of drive-by, bumper-sticker tag that I approve of, and have been known to drop. That said, it has higher take up than any of mine; 47 people? Really?! Only 1 other person has used "could or should be my theme song"... once, and Happy-Clappy Menace is a truly unique tag. Make that had a "love" marker, but another use of cosbmts now that I listen to the lyrics of Cold Winter. It's a pretty good thing I conflated could and should or that would be a bleak list of tracks. Not as bleak as this album though, perhaps. But then what do you expect from a work that puts Prozac at the heart of its name?

Jesus, Bring Down is unpleasant; thank **** it is short. Rotten Heart is more affable, strangely catchy hook to accompany the now familiar self deprecation. Over very soon, and into more bleak. No guitar, just a piano for Speed on the M9 and a whole bucket of loneliness. I can relate to the emotion, but I don't really think that the delivery works so well and the laughter at the end is a freaky switch-a-roo.

Is it wrong of me to want this listen to end? Not because I am not enjoying it, but because I actually want to go pick up re-reading the Albion RPG (from Silver Branch Games). I've been trying to get myself keyed up to run an RPG again and the mixture of mild post-apoc setting with British folklore is seductive, even though I'm not sure what I would use for core events in the setting as described. Not long to go now anyhow as I'm listening to Birdwatcher. It feels like the vocal performances mature through this album but they are layered over very hit-and-miss melodies, beats and bass and the overall impression is something of a mess, and one that does not encourage a dedicated listen... hence the wandering of my mind.

"I'll never amount to anything [...] and my songs are shite" - its one hell of a self assessment. It is funny what depression can do to our minds. I do like the way that Middleton has used his music to tackle this over the years, but this is a pretty harsh end to the album. I never did identify Emma Pollock's contribution.

Overall? Yeah, it is not great. Pretty glad he carried on doing stuff though, 'cause he definitely improves.