Kowalskiy's Free Monthly 5-track Scottish EP #28

See... told you this EP would be on time!  This month's offering sees another five of the finest artists and bands in this wonderful country side-by-side in musical harmony.  And that sentence is why I never send out any PR about these EPs.  Anyhoo, here's the five artists in question, and what they each had to say about their track... apart from one shy lot for whom I've been at my paraphrasing best!

1.  Plastic Animals - Waking Hours (Rescued from the cutting room floor, this little beauty is from Edinburgh's Plastic Animals Automaton EP recording sessions.  The EP will be re-released soon on the Strange Fish Records label.)

"The track is called "Waking Hours" and it's from the cutting room floor of the recording session we did for our most recent EP "Automaton". It's a bit more synth-y and "space pop"-y than our usual stuff but hopefully you'll like it ok! Cheers." - Dave Wark (Plastic Animals)

2.  Poor Things - Pat Nevin Indie Disco (A cracking homage to their hometown... and a nod to Scotland's favourite, music-loving, diminutive No. 11.)

"This song is basically a homage to our hometown Perth, and to friends we've lost touch with. It's semi-fictional; I've been dabbling in short-stories (they're really hard) and I'd written this brief tale about a teenage guy who starts hanging out with 'a new crowd', (mostly out of inevitable sexual curiosity) but in doing so he ditches this girl who he's been friends with for years. So when I say 'semi-fictional', I had a friend like that who I don't see any more, and I started thinking about it recently and what a shame it is.   I played around with it a lot, and compressed it into this song - through the reference to Cocteau Twins I thought it would be funny to call it after Pat Nevin who famously got permission to leave a pre-season friendly at half time to go and see some Cherry Coloured Funk. What a bro." - Craig Angus (Poor Things)

3.  Kitty The Lion - Duck! (Goose!  This fun-filled gem was your for free earlier this year for a retweet or a 'Like'.  Now, it's yours for even less than that.  It's also proof that my paraphrasing is crap!)

"We've just found out we've got funding to record our album!! Yayyy! Also planning a wee winter tour. Why don't we just put Duck! on it?" - Kitty The Lion

4.  yaya club - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Recorded just last night in his converted-wardrobe-vocals-studio, here's yaya club's cover of The Band's Americana classic.  Get Darren's latest double A-side here for free!)

"I'm a big fan of The Band.  Levon Helm is my beard idol, and my favourite ever farmer." - Darren Vincent a.k.a. yaya club

5.  Eugene Twist - Halloween Drama Queen (Acoustic Demo) (A brand, spanking acoustic newbie from Mr. Twist.  'Tis fairly awesome if you ask me!  As is his debut album...)

"Mid - October hopefully validates this unleashing of new song 'Halloween Drama Queen'. Acoustic demo recorded at the Old Hairdressers, Glasgow. Dedicated to the unfortunate thousands each year who find themselves at the mercy of a strange and growing phenomenon - getting dumped on Halloween." - Eugene Twist

And with that, I'm done for another month.  A huge thanks to each of the artists involved in this month's EP.  I hope you all enjoy it!  All you have to do to get your FREE copy is to click the artwork above, or here if you can't be arsed scrolling back up.  While you're there, there's another 27 there crying out to be downloaded for FREE.

Now to get cracking on November's EP.   If you fancy making my life that wee bit easier, and contributing a track to one of these, then send me a wee email (kowalskiy2@gmail.com) and we'll see what we can do!  

...Plastic Animals!

Right!  It's been longer than usual since I gave you a wee nudge in the direction of an exciting, new band.  There's quite a few on my To-Introduce list, but right at the top we have Edinburgh's Plastic Animals.  In just over a weeks time, they'll be self-releasing their latest EP Automaton.  In the meantime, you can listen to, and download for free, one of the five tracks from it.  Here's Ghosts...

And here's what they had to say about the EP as well as what else they have coming up.  Straight from the llama's mouth...

Kowalskiy:  Who are Plastic Animals?

Dave:  Mario plays guitar and sings, James plays drums, Dave plays bass and Ben plays guitar. We started in Edinburgh as a 3 piece about 6 years ago, playing occasional gigs filled with short, messy punk songs. After a bit of a break we released an EP last year called "A Dark Spring", which was a step in a more ambient, harmonious direction. The addition of Ben (aka "The Panther") at the start of 2012 has allowed us to further refine and expand our sound, and now we are hell-bent on sharing it with more people!

Kowalskiy:  How would you describe 'your sound'?

Dave:  Without sounding like a wanker? With great difficulty! Layers of guitar and atmospheric noisiness, held together by a solid, driving rhythm section, with a melody buried somewhere underneath. Terms like "shoe-gaze" and "dream-pop" have been bandied about recently, but we can't really escape our grunge-y, alt-rock roots.

Kowalskiy:  PLUG AWAY!!!

Dave:  We've got a new EP called "Automaton" coming out on 2^nd June! It's the first time all four of us have recorded together and we're really happy with the way the songs have turned out. One of the tracks called "Ghosts" can be downloaded for free at the minute from our bandcamp page, and we've also made our first video for it. The celebratory Queen's Jubil-EP launch gig is on Sunday 3^rd June at Henry's Cellar Bar in Edinburgh with support from Glasgow garage-rock gals Honeyblood and indie-pop darlings The Spook School. It's only £5 and we'll be playing some tunes afterwards into the small hours. We're also playing the launch gig for a new compilation CD "2x6" by Touch Sensitive, featuring 6 Scottish and 6 Spanish bands. That's on Friday 8^th June at The Old Hairdresser's in Glasgow with Randolph's Leap and If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now.

Kowalskiy:  That's how to plug!  Last of all, what can we expect from Plastic Animals in future?

Dave:  We're keen to play a lot more gigs, especially outside Edinburgh, so we’re planning a wee tour later in the year. Things are sounding good in the practice room with lots of new ideas, so it won’t be long until we’re recording again, maybe for a full-length album this time? Maybe.

So, if you liked the sound of Ghosts above (and why wouldn't you!), then you'll be in for a treat when Automaton is released on the 2^nd of June... even more so, if you make it along to their launch in Edinburgh the day after.