Song by Toad
Album review: Adam Stafford – ‘Trophic Asynchrony’: Falkirk composer moves to a deep, cyclical set of formal minimalism to address the ecological state we’re in
FALKIRK’S Adam Stafford, the film-maker and folk artist whose lockdown notebook album Diamonds Of A Horse Famine we warmly embraced here last summer – not least because it contained the free-associating “Erotic Thistle” and its fantastic line, “melt down my death mask to fashion it into a dildo” (read our full review here) – has returned …
See: Adam Stafford – ‘Threnody For February Swallows’: grand avant-classical minimalism cautions against climate change
FALKIRK’S Adam Stafford, the film-maker and folk artist whose lockdown notebook album Diamonds Of A Horse Famine we warmly embraced here last summer – not least because it contained the free-associating “Erotic Thistle” and its fantastic line, surely worthy of some kind of award (and culled from a real life story), “melt down my death …
ALBUM REVIEW: Adam Stafford – ‘Diamonds Of A Horse Famine’: atmospheric folk set from the notebooks
Diamonds Of A Horse Famine is a lyrically precise and freewheelin’ folk set, reviving a rediscovered notebook. Erotic Thistle contends for folk song of the year
TRACK: Adam Stafford – ‘Diamonds Of A Horse Famine’: an eerie, dream-state blues
ADAM STAFFORD, Song, By Toad’s rather excellent Falkirk folk guitarist, has just released the title track of his forthcoming LP Diamonds of a Horse Famine for your delectation. And a very fine and atmospheric, dreamstate rattlin’ blues it is. Cop a listen below. It’s another track culled from a notebook of half-finished ideas that Adam …
SEE: Adam Stafford – ‘Erotic Thistle’: a warm and confessional folk fingerpicking gem
FALKIRK’S Adam Stafford is one of them; he’s good at stuff. Grrr. He’s a multi-instrumentalist and film-maker, who necessarily has used the purdah of lockdown to create; for what else are our culture’s guiding lights, the creatives, to do? For him it’s proved a creatively fruitful time that has helped him fashion up an entirely …
ALBUM REVIEW: Fair Mothers – ‘In Monochrome’: marrow-deep dark-folk truth and nuance
THE OCCULT poet, painter and writer Ithell Colqohoun advanced the premise in her book, The Living Stones of Cornwall, that your local geology births you as much as nurture and nature. She felt that the granite of West Cornwall gave rise to a certain hardened, otherworldly, stoicism. And you can see a certain geology at …
TRACK: Fair Mothers’ ‘Monochrome’ is unflinching, stark and so beautiful
YOU’LL never be able to accuse Kevin Allan, the creative force behind Scottish folk outfit Fair Mothers, of dashing off a quick, vapid pop hit for the lulz. That isn’t to say he isn’t capable – the musicianship he presents is deep and adept; but whereas for some music is a career, for Kevin, it’s …
SEE: unsettling Aberdeenshire folk noir from Fair Mothers
A TREMULOUS, held guitar note, fed through fuzz and vibrato, with the raw quality of a wire fence shuddering in the wind; a darkly delicate piano arpeggio, as if remembered from the end of sleep. The tune has the quality of a haunted fairground under brooding skies. And so we’re into the dark world of …
Album Review: Song, By Toad -Split 12″ Series Vol. 7
We’ve already lamented the announcement last year that Edinburgh-based Song, By Toad Records was calling it a day. If this is its last release then it’s appropriate that its one of its signature split 12″s. (Although don’t be fooled, it’s a 12-song album.) The idea is simple and speaks to the heart of the label. …
News: Farewell Bastard Song, By Toad – a celebration
A few days back Matthew Young who runs Song, By Toad Records let slip that he was calling it a day. While a decade of doing anything is a lot and it’s often better for everyone that people move on and do new stuff, Song, By Toad will be missed – not least by me. …