Gemini Theme
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.
I hope you enjoy it.
Cheers
Tommy / FOUND
Pre-order single & album
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.
Is This The Worst FOUND Song Ever?
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.
Cheers
Tommy / FOUND
FOUND & Aidan Moffat win Vital Sparks Award
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):
“Edinburgh-based arts collective / experimental pop band, FOUND have joined forces with Glasgow-based singer-songwriter, Aidan Moffat, and Professor Simon Kirby from the University of Edinburgh’s Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit to develop, Unravel, a new form of dynamic non-linear storytelling that reacts to audiences and context.”
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.
Johnny . . . Iona Marshall’s Cover Version
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).
Until next week,
Cheers
Tommy / FOUND
FOUND Portrait Prize
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 [email protected] 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).
Happy doodling,
Cheers
Tommy / FOUND
Grovesnor ‘Find A Way To Stop Him’ (FOUND Remix)
Grovesnor (aka Robert Smoughton) produced one of my favourite albums of 2010 in Soft Return. We first met Rob when he was playing in the post math rock outfit The Naciente Quartet. We played a few gigs with them in London and Edinburgh around the time of our first album. At the time I was only really aware of Rob as a drummer but it has since transpired that he’s a ferociously talented multi instrumentalist who can turn his hand to almost anything. Soft Return proves he is also gifted singer songwriter and the album is packed with inventive stories that transcend the mundane and take you to another time and place altogether.
I thoroughly enjoyed remixing Find A Way To Stop Him and never tired over listening to Rob’s lyrics and vocals. His influences are clearly wide and varied but for some reason the story in the song puts me in mind of Phil Collins’ great turn as an actor in Buster (that may sound like a cuss, but it really isn’t intended that way).
Anyway, I really should stop writing now before I type something even worse. I hope you enjoy our interpretation of Grovesnor’s Find A Way To Stop Him.
Next week we have a real treat for you, our friend and fellow Fence Collective member Iona Marshall has produce a mesmerising cover of one of the tracks from our forthcoming album.
Have a great weekend,
Tommy / FOUND
factorycraft promo 01 Shallow
Film produced by fortsunlight
Silver Columns / Toob Remixes
It’s week 17 of #FoundFreeFri and we’re giving you two for the price of none: a Silver Columns remix and an instrumental version of our Toob remix. If you notice a few similarities between the tracks that’s because they’re essentially the same. When I was putting together the most recent ComputerScheisse mix I thought it would be nice to try and work in Johnny Lynch’s beguiling falsetto vocals. I tried dropping the a’capella of Brow Beaten over various tracks and I noticed that it almost fit over the instrumental of our Toob remix – save for a few clashing chords (ouch). I tweaked the instrumental a bit and hey prestwick . . .
I’d like to give special mentions to my friend James Nesfield who played the violin part, Alan Stockdale for his superb, thundering drums and Bobby Perman for some of the tightest tambourine playing I’ve ever recorded. Cheers lads.
I hope you enjoy both versions of the track,
Cheers
Tommy / FOUND
Admission Number Two – King Creosote Remix
It’s week 16 of FoundFreeFri. Last week was our remix of King Creosote‘s song Leslie, this week he returns the favour with this sublime reworking of Admission Number Two (from our This Mess . . . LP). This version was the b-side to You’re Really Quite The Catch which came out on a beautiful 7″ single on Fence, which you can still get your hands on here.
Have a great weekend,
Cheers
Tommy / FOUND
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