Today is the final installment in our FoundFreeFri series. As we prepare to unleash our third long player to the expectant masses (well I’ve got to hype it up eh?) on Monday we thought we’d take it right back to where we started and gift you Mullokian – our debut single way way back in March 2006. We’ve put together a wee EP containing the b-side dub version and a live rendition recorded for Song, By Toad (listen to the full session here) plus a little lesson from a few radio DJs on how to pronounce ‘Mullokian’.
We’ve really enjoyed putting this series together. If you’ve missed any of the tracks they’re still available to download (links below). We hope that, even though our weekly freebies have come to an end, you’ll stick with us – we still have plenty of treats for you throughout the year.
Thanks for listening, (I’m getting quite emotional now so I’d better sign off).
Cheers
Tommy / FOUND
Pssst . . . buy our album on Monday please. You can pre-order it here.
Last night we launched our new album at The Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh (although the album’s not officially out in the shops until 14 March). We’re been getting lots of lovely reviews of the record and people have been commenting on how it’s much more of a professional, grown-up sound. So this week we wanted to remind you of where we came fae and gift you a collection of sketchy demos. Warning though these demos contain Zigpletives.
Demos included:
01 Awkward (See Fergs In London Demo)
02 Kev’s Piano Chop
03 When You Fall (Demo 1)
04 When You Fall (Demo 2)
05 Tealeaf (Kleptomaniac Girlfriend)
06 Reshaping (Tommy’s Reprise)
07 Track 22 Demonstration (Let Fidelity Break Demo)
08 Admission No2 We Are Shit (Demo)
Next week will be our final FoundFreeFri (awwwwww). And then our album drops (yeeeeaaah).
Those foolish folks at The Skinny have seen fit to make us their cover models for the month of March (I would say it’s gonna damage sales if it weren’t a free paper). On top of this they’ve written a very nice feature about us, given the album 4/5 and even allowed Ziggy to rant about what each track means.
This week’s free download is an usual one (even by our standards): it’s a soundtrack for a comic book. Gemini Theme was written to accompany our friend Christian Ward‘s comic Olympus. (Some of you may be familiar with Christian’s beautiful record sleeves for The Pictish Trail and Player Piano). The story of Olympus goes something like this:
3,000 years ago, the brothers Castor and Pollux were granted immortality by Zeus. Today they serve him on Earth. Sent to capture a messenger fallen from Olympus, the brothers accidentally release one of the fiercest prisoners of Hades, a cursed, ravaged soul with a millennia-old grudge! Now in an adventure that takes them across Europe and to an island off the coast of Greece, Castor and Pollux must track and capture this being before his rampant rage yields irreversible damage to the balance between Olympus and the Earth.
I’ve attempted to capture the essence of this epic tale with every sonic trick at my disposal: a synth choir and lots of reverb.
You ca now pre-order copies of our forthcoming single Machine Age Dancing (7 March 2011) and LP factorycraft (14 March 2011) direct from Chemikal Underground’s site here.
We’ve now reached week 21 of FOUND Free Friday and there’s only three Fridays left until our new album factorycraft drops. Only three more free downloads left, but fear not as all of the previous freebies are still available: http://bit.ly/FoundFreeFri
This week we give you My Darling Amidar, a song which didn’t quite make the album. We’d been playing this song live for a while and even recorded a version during the album session at Chem 19 but felt it didn’t fit with the other 10 tracks. So rather than just ditch it completely we’ve decided to bring you Ziggy’s original demo version. Enjoy.
After 20 weeks of bringing you high quality free music, the jig is up … is this the worst FOUND song ever? We certainly thought so and no sooner than it was finished, it was consigned to the bin.
Originally intended to be part of The Fidelities EP the song is called She’s Interfering and the lyrics remind me of a Flight of the Conchords song or perhaps more accurately of Jimmy Nail’s smash hit Ain’t No Doubt.
Ziggy recently uncovered an mp3 and we agreed that it would be cathartic to share it with you. We also promise to never write anything like this again.
Anyway, let us know your thoughts on the worst FOUND song ever crafted.
We are extremely happy to announce that we’ve been successful in our application for a Creative Scotland Vital Sparks Award. We’re not going to reveal too much about the project yet but over the next year or so FOUND will be collaborating with Aidan Moffat to create a major new artwork that will be unveiled in 2012.
Here’s the official spiel from the Creative Scotland press release (and we’ll tell you more soon):
Ziggy Campbell said: “The Vital Spark award is rare in that, not only has it encouraged FOUND to seek out a brand new collaborator, it is also substantial enough to allow us the time and space necessary to realise our most ambitious idea to date.
I’m looking forward to the chance to create a completely new and unique work with Aidan Moffat.”
Further information on the Vital Sparks awards can be found here on the Creative Scotland website.
Last December our good friend Alan Oates invited us to play his Leith Tape Club Xmas Special in the belly of a boat on the Shore. Alan asked each of the bands playing to cover one of the others’ songs which he would record for the Tape Club. We chose to cover The Oates Field‘s Snakes and spent hours learning and practicing a driving motorik version. On the night of the Tape Club we discovered we were on last and that pints of Budvar were only £2.50 . . .
By the time it got to our set we were, how shall I put this delicately, shitfaced and in an unusual twist on the performer / audience relationship Ziggy heckled the crowd. When it came to our final song, the aforementioned cover of Snakes, we were a shambles: Kev set alight to Ziggy’s guitar, Ziggy flailed his guitar through the air (partly to try and put out the flames, partly just for show) and I stumbled around with an inane grin on my face like an amused zombie wearing a Christmas jumper. All of this was recorded to tape, although mercifully audio not video. I never want to hear it let alone see it, please Alan for the sake of humanity keep this recording locked up.
Thankfully some of the other artists took their covers more seriously and today’s free download is one of them. Iona Marshall chose to cover Johnny I Can’t Walk the Line – a track from our forthcoming album. In order to learn the song she made a recorded version which she gave to us. I took a listen the day after Tape Club and it soothed away my hangover. Iona’s got a beautiful voice, she also has a gift for combining acoustic instruments and electronics with such a light touch that the results sound effortless. I have no idea why she’s not already a big name on the Scottish scene (or internationally for that matter) but hopefully that will soon change. You can pick up more of Ms Marshall’s mesmerising music on the latest De-Fence Records 10″ vinyl here (which I highly recommend).
We’ve teamed up with The Skinny to give you a chance to win tickets to our album launches and copies of our new album on gatefold vinyl or deluxe CD. We want you to draw a portrait of one of us and email a jpeg to competitions@theskinny.co.uk by 23 February. We’ll select our favourite drawings and 3 lucky winners will win a pair of tickets to their choice of either the Edinburgh or Glasgow launch and a copy of the album on vinyl or CD.
Above are our attempts at drawing each other, from left: Tommy by Kev, Ziggy by Tommy and Kev by Ziggy. We’ve been quite conservative in our choice of materials but we want you to be adventurous – make a mess; make my face out of alphabetti spaghetti; construct a 3D Kev-head from glow sticks; or fashion a Zig-beard from yarn.
Full terms and conditions are on The Skinny website here. (You have to login to view them).
Our most recent album, factorycraft, has been long-listed for the inaugural SAY Award . iPhone & Android users can download the free SAY Award App from: bit.ly/SAYapp You can listen to a track from all 20 long-listed albums and from 16 April you can stream an album a day in its entirety.
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