Edinburgh’s premier slow-core-alt-folk-sonic-droners, the sublime eagleowl, are the latest members of the glitterati to take the Suitcase Orchestra Q&A

If I were to play just one of your songs to someone who hasn’t heard your music, which would it be and why?

Probably something like Blanket, cos it’s got quite an obvious hook, but still has all the usual elements. And it’s relatively short. Though you could always throw them in at the deep end with something like No Conjunction. Hit them with 10 minutes of misery.

You are being sent to the moon. You’re allowed to take 1 album. What is it?

If it was favorite album, probably Marquee Moon. But maybe I wouldn’t want to listen to my favorite album on repeat for the rest of my days. It’d probably be nice to have something you’ve not heard before? So you can spend time getting to know it. Or maybe something really long, to make sure I get better value. Like the last Joanna Newsom record.

On the subject of being sent to the moon, what 3 things would definitely be in your suitcase?

A decent book. A few cans of Guinness. The internet. I’m aware that might be cheating.

What film would you be a character in?

Probably something with very little action in it. I’d quite like to be a side character in one of those intense relationship dramas from the 1970s. Like Five Easy Pieces, or something. It’s a shame those kinds of films don’t get made any more.

Tell us an interesting fact.

I have an owl related fact. It was told to me by Andy from the band Fuzzystar (http://www.myspace.com/fuzzystar) when we first started playing.  It’s that the “twit-twoo” that most people regard as the noise an owl makes isn’t one owl – it’s actually two, doing a call and response. I think it’s maybe a mating call, I’m not sure. I probably should have researched that fact better by now. Sorry.

Tell us about a band or singer we might not have heard about who should be featured on Suitcase Orchestra.

Have you had Withered Hand yet? Withered Hand. He’s also from Edinburgh. There’s a lot going on in Edinburgh at the moment, actually. Meursault, Withered Hand, Conquering Animal Sound, the Last Battle, the Occasional Flickers, Rob St. John, Enfant Bastard, the Douglas Firs, Jesus h. Foxx. They’re all pretty good.

Recommend a book.

I’m reading Mark Cousin’s Story of Film at the moment. I’m probably the wrong person to ask about books, as most of the books I read are actually about films, or film making.

Which literary character would play you in the book of your life?

Linus Van Pelt.

What’s the worst record in your collection?

I have quite a lot of dodgy metal albums from the mid 90s. But I secretly still quite like them.

My friend gave me a copy of the Best of Eilart Pilarm, who is a Swedish Elvis Impersonator that doesn’t really look or sound like Elvis, and appears to have little ability at singing. Technically it’s probably the worst record in my collection. But I love it.

What question should I always ask in a Q & A? And answer it please.

Q. What are you wearing?

A. None of your business.

Into The Fold, eagleowl’s latest e.p. is available from their website which is here and kilter records can be found here.

The Spacemen 3 of folk are back with a new EP. and they’re gonna kick out the jams, or, more likely, hypnotise them and sort of usher them out of the door.

Picking up where their Christmas single, Sleep The Winter, left off – which is unsurprising as both records came out of the same recording sessions -title track Into The Fold captures perfectly their smouldering slow-burn sound. There’s something epic about the noise they make; something which suggests wide windswept landscapes, silhouetted leafless trees and rocky outcrops.  Already commissioned by the Edinburgh International Film Festival to soundtrack footage from the Scottish Screen Archive, it’s surely only a matter of time before further film score work materialises.

Everything moves at a very slow pace here, vocals are murmured and strings drawn out and stretched to their limits – it’s a lot like the starkly beautiful work of Hildur Gudnadottir on her Without Sinking album – only Morpheus, coincidentally the EP’s shortest track breaks into a trot. The rest of the tracks are allowed to materialise and fade with equal elasticity, Into the Fold comes in at over six minutes and closing track No Conjunction is just five seconds short of ten minutes in length.

But what’s the rush anyway? Listen to it and watch the sky grow dark. I just did and it fitted perfectly.

eagleowl, and yes their laid-backness does extend so far as to deem the use of capital letters unnecessary, launch Into the Fold at the Roxy Room in Edinburgh on Friday, April 30^th before releasing it through selected independent record stores or to order through their website and label (details below) from May 3^rd. They also play The Flying Duck in Glasgow on Saturday, May 1^st.

Into The Fold is available from eagleowl’s website which is here and kilter records can be found here.

You Were Into Them First is a series aiming  to give new bands the limelight we feel they deserve. The first of the series focuses on Edinburgh’s Eagleowl.

Named because an eagleowl can kill a woodpigeon (Eagleowl’s Malcolm Benzie used to work in a record shop with Woodpigeon’s Mark Hamilton apparently, though the rivalry in band names is friendly), Eagleowl describe themselves as a lo-fi post-folk ensemble. If you aren’t sure what that means, this may be easier: Eagleowl are the Spacemen 3 of folk. Simple looping guitar riffs played over a woozy drone of fuzzy strings, breathy, sometimes murmured, vocals, all done to hypnotic effect. On the band’s website, they claim to believe in doing things right, rather than doing things fast – this appears to apply to both the quality of their output and the pace of their songs.

Like Spacemen 3, some of the music is gently mesmerising while other songs like This Is Not Your Lucky Day have a pulsing air of menace about them. Their new single, Sleep the Winter, falls into the former category – it’s a whispered lullaby moving at a glacial pace, which draws you slowly into its titular hibernation.

Sleep The Winter follows their debut EP, For The Thoughts You Never Had, which, to give you an idea of the attention to detail that’s going on here, was released as a limited edition CD with screen printed hand folded card sleeve. That’s now sold out in its physical form, but can still be downloaded from the usual sources. It features Motherfucker which is so positively poppy, by Eagleowl standards, that it even has a drum beat. The titles of the other tracks on the E.P. – Sleeptide, Blanket and Blackout – hint at a desire to be smothered and unconscious which is mirrored in the somnambulant nature of the music.

December the 11^th sees them play at the Bowery in Edinburgh to mark the release of Sleep The Winter, followed by  an appearance at the Sick Kids Sunday charity all dayer, at the GRV in Edinburgh on Suday 31^st January alongside an impressive line-up which includes James Yorkston & Adrian Crowley’s tribute to Daniel Johnston.

Sleep The Winter is released by Kilter on December 11^th. Check that out here.

Eagleowl’s Myspace is here.