Label News
Chemikal Underground Winter Revue!
A rare and unmissable orgy of Chemikal Underground greatness will take place at Stereo in Glasgow's Renfield Lane on Saturday Decdember 8th. The first in a series of Chemikal Underground club nights sees an all Chemikal lineup of Mother And The Addicts, De Rosa playing material from their new album and Chemikal debutantes The Phantom Band all under one roof and partying the night away until 3am.
A full range of new Chemikal merchandise will also be available for those of you wanting to kit out your wardrobe with Chemikal couture and DJs will be ensuring audio excellence until closing time. Tickets of £5.00 will be available at the door so get there in plenty of time to make sure you get in...
CHEM100 Party At T On The Fringe Put On Hold....
Hi everyone, just to let you know that due to a variety of different factors beyond our control, the Chemikal Underground event at the Liquid Rooms for Aug 22nd has been postponed until September or October when the stars are in better alignment. We'll keep you posted on a new date when we've managed to pull everyone together in the one place to stage an event worthy of the occassion! Sorry for selling the dummy..... Visit Fringe website
Ballads Of The Book Triptych Show - Artist In Residence
Jenny Soep will be our resident 'artist in action' at the Triptych's 'Ballads of the Book' event at the Tramway. Jenny is on a mission to draw the contemporary original music scene particularly in Scotland. Have a look out for her and her bits of paper and painting materials while she creates art 'live in situ' during the performances, translating her experiences of the music, emotion and energy into drawings. The work will fill a gallery space in the upstairs foyer as the day progresses.
Check out www.jennysoep.blogspot.com and www.jennysoep.com for more of her work
'Ballads Of The Book' Comes Alive! (sorry that was corny as fuck)
It's true though, we're throwing an enormous all-day bash on Sunday, April 29th as part of Glasgow's painfully hip Triptych Festival. This is what they have to say about the event...
A truly distinguished artistic accord that’s as aurally divergent as it is lyrically august, Ballads of the Book sees Scotland’s finest writers, poets and musicians converge for a meteoric creative hoopla – wherein authors co-write rock songs; and pop stars channel poetry; and the outcome is an innovative, timeless, new body of work.
Inspired by the Chemikal Underground compilation of the same name, Ballads of the Book is set to amass an interstellar cast of sonic and literary stars for a must-see, one-off, Triptych wig-out. Its established and emerging talents will include the following:
Erudite Scots rockers Idlewild are one of the country’s best-loved bands, and front-man Roddy Woomble’s legacy to this project is vast: his work with Edwin Morgan, (on 2002’s The Remote Part), inspired a fascination with literary and musical unions, the fruition of which is Ballads of the Book. Ergo, without whom: none of this.
Norman Blake has galvanised passions and gratified hearts from Glasgow to California for over 20 years. Lead vocalist with harmonious power-pop stars Teenage Fanclub, and a formative member of Scots indie rebels the Boy Hairdressers and BMX Bandits, Blake is among alternative music’s most treasured artists.
The death-rattled spawn of Fuzzbox, Bolan and the Bad Seeds, Sons and Daughters are a clap-happy voodoo-child Bonnie and Clyde, whose delirious rhythms, wayward hosannas, stormy libretto and foul-tempered claviers maul at the corpses of blues, bluegrass, rock’n’roll.
Anstruther’s champion rhapsodist and Fence Collective reign supreme, King Creosote is one of our most precious and prodigious craftsmen: his beatific squeezebox ditties, tavern shanties, amber psalms and heart-dropping ballads are the stuff of wonder.
A founding member of inaugural psych-folk livewires The Incredible String Band, Mike Heron is an effervescent counter-cultural legend, whose acclaimed solo work includes the 1971 magnum opus ‘Smiling Men With Bad Reputations’: a folk-rock rampage whose credits include Elton John, Pete Townsend, John Cale and Keith Moon.
Central highlander Alasdair Roberts is a brilliant, cerebral folk liberator, whose erudite, gauzy, mythological psalms channel poison and ardour; fable and splendour; darkness and allegory; murder and blood: as currently evinced on his excellent fourth album, The Amber Gatherers.
Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat is set to expose his bracing charms at the event – as is Alun Woodward (ex-Delgados) who’ll flash his current Lord Cut-Glass incarnation. Fellow ex-Delgado Emma Pollock is assured to further seduce; as are indie-pop statesmen Trashcan Sinatras, sublime singer-songwriter Karine Polwart and DIY folk mutineers, Foxface.
Flying the flag for Scotland’s literary glitterati, Dundee writer, teacher and artist Bill Duncan’s lauded novels include ‘The Smiling School for Calvinists’. His present enterprise, however, is a quixotic online endeavour, ‘thehaar’: it’s an artistic collaboration that fuses the real, the mythical and the wildly imaginative via text, images, sound – and magic.
Rodge Glass, meanwhile, is a Glasgow-based writer and sometime rock’n’roll swashbuckler whose first novel, ‘No Fireworks’, was published in 2005. His biography of writer, painter, Triptych 07 illustrator, and general Scottish legend Alasdair Gray is due in 2008.
A heroic, ebullient, day-glo word-slinger, Falkirk’s Alan Bissett is one of Scotland’s greatest young writing talents, whose exceptional novels, Boyracers (2001) and The Incredible Adam Spark (2005), have spiked and revitalised the country’s literary canon.
John Burnside’s staggering aggregate of novels, short stories and poetry include the T.S. Eliot Prize and Whitbread Award-winning ‘The Asylum Dance’ (2000), ‘Burning Elvis’ (2000), The Locust Room’ (2001), and ‘A Lie About My Father’ (2006).
Also set to enliven at the Triptych gala are Edinburgh’s monarch of urban dysfunction, Laura Hird (whose ‘Hope And Other Urban Tales’ came out last year); Glasgow fantasy and sci-fi commander Hal Duncan – author of the awesome Vellum (2005) – and outstanding local poet Robin Robertson. His latest collection, the award-winning ‘Swithering’, was published in 2006.
Ballads of the Book’s all-day shenanigans will feature band performances, solo recitals, book readings, one-off collaborations, multi-media extravaganzas, DJ sets and more.
That just about sums it up really...oh! and the magnificent James Yorkston is going to be there too. 3pm - midnight and beyond: why are you still reading this and not buying tickets immediately? Sheesh, you can lead a horse to water and all that....
Go to the Triptych site, click on Ballads Of The Book and get ticketed up forthwith...
Chemikal Underground Take Part In 'The Heist'
Chemikal Underground are one of the featured labels taking part in 'The Heist' on The Downloader website. Our friends at the downloader kindly asked us to blow our own trumpet on their mighty website and to gild our own lily somewhat by giving away four free downloads from our artists. Being the agreeable fellows we are, we said yes and offered up tracks by Aereogramme, De Rosa, Mother And The Addicts and Sister Vanilla.
For anyone who even gives the slightest toss what Chemikal Undergrounder Stewart Henderson has to say about, well, anything really, there's an interview with Stewart about the record label; his hopes for the future; prospects for world peace; his love of the Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Deadwood...(well that last bit's not in the interview, but he does love those programmes)
Ballads Of The Book – Released March 5th
Finally, Ballads Of The Book, Chemikal Underground’s long awaited album of literary and musical collaborations will hit the shelves in the UK and around Europe on Monday (March 5th) – our American cousins will have to hold their breath a little longer for their domestic release date of April 3rd. To celebrate the album we have constructed (or perhaps more honestly, our computer literate friends at Small Oranges have constructed) a spectacular mini-site for Ballads Of The Book for you to explore and enjoy.
There will be a free event at Glasgow’s CCA on Friday (March 9th) for everyone to revel in the album’s excellence whilst enjoying performances from De Rosa, Trashcan Sinatras and a live debut for Lord Cut-Glass (ex-Delgado and Chemikal magnate Alun Woodward’s latest musical incarnation). Over and above these live wonders there will be DJs, repeat showings of STV’s Ballads Of The Book documentary and opportunities to get your hands on the album itself as well as tickets for the ‘Ballads’ extravaganza at the Tramway Theatre for this year’s Triptych Festival on April 29th.
Talking of the documentary, for those of you who missed it, STV broadcast their ‘Ballads Of The Book’ documentary on March 1st, featuring interviews with (amongst others) many of the album’s participants and a rather splendid voiceover by the inestimable Mr Pat Nevin. You can watch an edited version of it on our ‘Ballads’ minisite…
Remember to check out the mini-site for a host of information on the album or, you may want to skip all that hoo-haa and just buy the thing.
Tracklisting
Mike Heron & John Burnside - Song For Irena
De Rosa & Michel Faber - Steam Comes Off Our House
James Yorkston & Bill Duncan - A Calvinist Narrowly Avoids Pleasure
Foxface & Rody Gorman - Dreamcatcher
Lord Cut-Glass & Alasdair Gray - A Sentimental Song
Aidan Moffat And The Best Ofs & Ian Rankin - The Sixth Stone
Norman Blake & John Burnside - Girl
Karine Polwart & Edwin Morgan - The Good Years
Sons And Daughters & A L Kennedy - The War On Love Song
Alasdair Roberts & Robin Robertson - The Leaving
Strike The Colours & Rody Gorman - Message In A Bottle
Aereogramme & Hal Duncan - If You Love Me You'd Destroy Me
Malcolm Middleton & Alan Bissett - The Rebel On His Own Tonight
Trashcan Sinatras & Ali Smith - Half An Apple
Vashti Bunyan & Rodge Glass - The Fire
King Creosote & Laura Hird - Where And When
Emma Pollock & Louise Welsh - Jesus On The Cross
Idlewild & Edwin Morgan - The Weight Of Years
More about Ballads of the Book...
Chemikal Underground Records are proud to announce the release, in March 2007, of Ballads Of the Book, an elaborately ambitious project featuring some of Scotland’s best writers and musicians.
The brainchild of Idlewild’s Roddy Woomble, Ballads Of The Book began as a simple idea to bring together the literary talents of Scotland’s writing community with a diverse range of new and established recording artists. Following Idlewild’s work with Edwin Morgan on their Remote Part album, Roddy wanted to explore the possibilities of more artistic collaborations with various writers providing original lyrics for recording artists to interpret in whichever way they saw fit. Having enlisted the enthusiastic support of the Scottish Arts Council and with Chemikal Underground onboard, it wasn’t long before the nascent idea and fledgling list of interested parties flourished into a brilliantly realised collection of songs: as musically eclectic as they were elegantly poetic.
From the literary world, the list of those involved reads like a who’s who of the great and the good in Scottish literature. The giants of Edwin Morgan and Alasdair Gray rub shoulders with cutting edge, contemporary writers like Ali Smith, A L Kennedy, Louise Welsh and Ian Rankin. Esteemed poets like Robin Robertson, Bill Duncan and Rody Gorman feature alongside successful writers and novelists like Michel Faber, Alan Bissett, Laura Hird, Rodge Glass, Hal Duncan and John Burnside.
From the musical world there is a rich collection of both established artists and upcoming, even unsigned acts. Idlewild, James Yorkston, Norman Blake, Sons And Daughters, Karine Polwart, King Creosote, Alasdair Roberts and The Trashcan Sinatras contribute tracks alongside Chemikal Underground acts Aereogramme and De Rosa. There are rare appearances from both Vashti Bunyan and The Incredible String Band’s Mike Heron as well as solo performances from Emma Pollock and Malcolm Middleton. First time incarnations also feature for ex-Arab Strap frontman Aidan Moffat (Aidan Moffat And The Best Ofs) and ex-Delgado Alun Woodward (Lord Cut-Glass) in addition to the (as-yet) unsigned talents of Strike The Colours and Foxface.
The album cover is an original, specially commissioned artwork by Alasdair Gray and the genesis of the project is the subject of a film documentary due to be broadcast by Scottish Television around the release. Live performances in support of the album are scheduled for Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival in January of next year, with additional launch events, acoustic performances and talks by the writers and musicians planned around the release also.
In short, Ballads Of The Book is an extraordinarily ambitious and original piece of work: simplistic in its origins and imaginatively executed, it’s hard to imagine an album with more impeccable credentials.
