When I was converting my vinyl collection to digital format, I used a piece of software which would automatically cut the recording into separate tracks. Songs with very quiet intros, breaks in the middle and false endings could end up being cut into two separate tracks. The software settings would need to be adjusted and the song re-recorded. This could be a little tiresome. It would be an absolute bugger with this album.

Temporacha is, you see, a very, very, very quiet record.  Not perhaps as pretty as their previous albums, this is a much more spectral affair, Tenniscoats, have produced a whisper of a record. Plucked strings are left to reverberate into the ether, leaving long gaps punctuated only by birdsong, the sound of a downpour or a car passing. Three or four note patterns are repeated without ever sounding like they are about to flourish into a full blown tune. This is about as minimalist as you can get.

The album is actually a collaboration between the Japanese duo of Saya and Takashi Ueno with Lawrence English of the Room40 label. The idea was to use field recordings taken in Japan of rural and urban environments and build an album to capture the essence of these settings.

For such a sparse sound, it is a strangely compelling listen. Rather than being a random collage of background sounds, it demands your attention and washes over you. Back in the early 1990s, Alex Patterson of The Orb frequently extolled the virtues of floatation tanks as a means of achieving a state of complete relaxation. I myself have never spent time in one, but if I did shell out for one and it didn’t sound like Temporacha in there, I think I’d be asking for my money back.

Click the photo below for more info.

Hot on the heels of Andrew Morgan’s ‘Please Kid, Remember’ comes another contender for most autumnal record of the year. Play this outdoors and mists will descend and leaves will turn golden and fall like teardrops.

Essentially a folky collection of songs, the sound is given a richer texture through the use of sound washes and the St. Kitts String Quartet. Strings have been arranged by Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy who has previously written arrangements on both of the Arcade Fire albums as well as on Luxury Pond’s debut, ‘Through A Revolution’. His work here complements singer Dan Goldman’s plaintive vocals perfectly, adding strength and light to songs such as ‘Caving In’ and ‘Truest Nature’, which from hushed beginnings swells to sounding positively cacophonous in comparison to the rest of the album.

Similarly, the vocals provided by Daniela Gesundheit (from Snowblink) add an element of ether to the outstanding ‘The Bones’ and ‘Clay’.

Recorded in a single day, perfectionists might gripe at the occasional cracks in Goldman’s vocals but such glitches add something to the mix. All too often, records like this can sound over produced and sterile. ‘I went into the process willing to trade the idea of perfection for a feeling of honesty,’ he explains. Mission accomplished then.

Goldman describes his lyrics as having a skewed perspective and across the album plays with ideas about prehistoric sharks, Moses and making portraits from clay, though it isn’t clear whether or not this is a response to Lionel Richie’s video for ‘Hello’.

‘Luxury Pond’ is available to download here for eight Canadian Dollars and eighty eight cents. That’s a mere five quid to those of us this side of the Atlantic.

Or you can have a listen first here.

It’s in the middle of nowhere and difficult to find. It’s ridiculously small, only 100 people can squeeze inside. There are no acoustic elements to its design – it is a wooden hut. The stage is so tiny that some members of the band are unable to access it from the dressing room and have to clamber up from the audience side. There’s no bar and the toilets are outside. The seats are uncomfortable. The Band Room is easily the best venue I have ever been to.

It would appear from the way they play that it is one of better venues that Canadian folkestra Woodpigeon have played too.

It’s all too easy to dismiss Woodpigeon as wistful, romantic folkies (not that there’s anything wrong with that and singer Mark Hamilton’s opening solo set is equal parts wistful, romantic and folky) but tonight’s line up shows off their more muscular side with the songs bolstered by a full band and a sound which swells and rolls like the sea. Which is ideal as the centrepiece of the show is ‘And As The Ship Went Down You’d Never Looked Finer’, a song about drowning to death. It ends in a melee of looped vocals, distorted guitar, swirling keyboards and crashing cymbals. For five minutes or so, Woodpigeon are My Bloody Valentine. It’s their finest moment to date.

In fact, and I’m not sure if this is a reflection on me or Hamilton, but many of their best songs seem to dwell on the subject of death and loss. Either in powerfully emotive ways such as in ‘And As The Ship Went Down…’ or in the blackly comical murder ballads which they specialise in. Tonight we are treated to two songs detailing the disposal of a corpse. In such a small and intimate venue it is probably best not to catch the eye of Mark Hamilton as he sings these. It’s dark and remote outside!

Check out the Band Room HERE.

or Woodpigeon HERE.

A big fat chunk o’ summery pop music. The single boasts three versions of the title track: There are two fairly pointless remixes and an extended version which basically  amounts to almost two minutes of air raid sirens and the sound of a man blowing up an airbed tacked clumsily on to the front of the song. It’s ok though as once you’ve got through that, there are still 4 minutes of skittering pop song to go. ‘Mind, Matter and Waste’ and ‘Pencil Case’ complete the E.P. and prove that although there’s been a fair bit of criticism aimed at them in recent years, the Cameras still know how to knock out a tune. All in all, things are looking good for their forthcoming fifth full-length album, ‘Origin:Orphan’, which is due for release later this month.

Have a listen by clicking right…HERE.