~ From the blog
Stafford & Radio Trees Spring Dates
Adam Stafford & Radio Trees (MJ McCarthy – Zoey Van Goey/Trembling Bells) are setting off on a short Northerly tour at the beginning of March.
Please check the dates below and come out to one of the shows, we would love to see your smiling faces!
Video of Adam Stafford Live here!
Feb/March Tour 2012:
25th Feb: w/Radio Trees & O’ Messy Life, Stafford’s 30th Birthday – 13th Note Cafe (downstairs), Glasgow
1st March: w/Radio Trees – The Tunnels, Aberdeen
2nd March: w/Radio Trees – new Portsound @Manna Cafe, Dundee (Newport-on-Tay)
3rd March: w/Radio Trees – Head of Steam, Newcastle
4th March: w/Radio Trees & Loch Awe – The Third Door, Edinburgh
End of Year lists & Live Video
Adam Stafford’s LP Build a Harbour Immediately has turned up on a number of End-of-Year lists in the blogging community. Thank you to everyone who bought the LP and supported Adam during 2011.
#1 LP of the Year – Peenko
#1 LP of the Year – Ayetunes (#3 LP in Reader’s Poll)
#2 LP of the Year – Scottish BAMS
#4 LP of the Year – Jockrock
#13 LP of the Year – GoldFlakePaint
#18 LP of the Year – Isthismusic?
Vic Galloway’s LP’s of the Year
The Herald‘s LP Round-Up 2011
#32 LP of the Year – Sweeping The Nation
#50 LP of the Year – The Skinny Magazine
Best Records of the Year – Glasgow PodCart
#7 LP of the Year – Songs Heard on Fast Trains
#7 LP of the Year – Fresh Air FM
#30 LP of the Year – The Tidal Wave of Indifference
#30 LP of the Year – Dead Sound
#45 Songs of the year (Festive 50) – Song, by Toad
If you haven’t heard it – please buy the album HERE!
The Threads of Sound label have also issued a single of two brand new Live Stafford tracks - download them HERE!
Check the video performance of Add Mask at the same show HERE!
Read some notable articles on Build a Harbour below:
“Cult pop-hero emerges from cultural vortex…” – The Glasgow Herald Interview
“Build a Harbour Immediately… marks the creative rebirth of a talented and much-loved musician. However it’s funded and however it’s played live, we think it’s a little bit special.” – The Scotsman Radar interview
“I’ve realised that you can’t second guess an audiences taste at all…” The GoldFlakePaint Interview
“I do think what I do is good, otherwise I wouldn’t do it!” – The Falkirk Herald interview
“Adam Stafford has crafted an album of pure joy that is going to take a lot beating for my album of the year…” – Peenko Build a Harbour Track-by-Track
“The disparate parts are limbs all connecting to the same body…” – Argos Barks, an interview with Adam Stafford
Bookings for Stafford: info[at]wisebloodindustries[dot]com
Build a Harbour Immediately
Adam Stafford (formerly Y’all is Fantasy Island) issues his new solo LP Build a Harbour Immediately on Aug 15th (digitally) & 22nd via Wise Blood. Co-produced and recorded by Paul Savage (ex-Delgados & Mogwai producer) at Chem 19 in Hamilton last year, the album features contributions from Emily Scott and Zoey Van Goey’s Kim Moore among others.
Stream, buy & download the album digitally from the WBI Bandcamp page.
Praise for Build a Harbour Immediately:
“But this is the thing – it’s not a problem except for reviewers – that Stafford’s oeuvre is hard to define…” – 5/5 isthismusic? review
“Like Bjork’s ‘Vespertine’ and Radiohead’s ‘Kid A’, this will be slotted firmly in as one of the albums of my generation…” – The Glasgow Podcart Reveiw
“Between Y’All is Fantasy Island and various other projects, he’s amassed quite the discography. This surely ranks high amongst them, with tracks frequently setting off in one direction, before Stafford whips around to challenge assumptions…” 4/5 – The Skinny Magazine review
“Stafford’s album is lyrically vivid, vocally striking and roundly impressive…” 4/5 – The List Magazine review
“…It is like a journey which begins composed and relatively straightforward but gradually fragments and drifts in to more abstract territory. After all that is what any good album ought to be…” – The Sonic Reverie Review
“Close to some of his finest work here, Stafford is a remarkable songwriter capable of delivering chillingly observed and sometimes far from easy-to-digest stories, whether in the shape of tight, literate pop music or the more expansive and experimental elements he employs…” – Songs Heard on Fast Trains review
“Powerful, beautiful tracks that range from sing-along crowd pleasers to dreamy soundscapes to down right jaw dropping craftsmanship leave us just waiting to experience this live.” – The Rave Child review
You can also buy the album on ultra-rare yellow cassette from our online distributors Insularis Records here (unfortunately now SOLD OUT!).
Listen to the lead single Fire & Theft below:
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New Radio Trees EP!
Full-time Zoey Van Goey member and sometime accordion player for Aidan Moffat, The Trembling Bells and Lord Cutglass, Michael John McCarthy is also a prolific composer for theatre and a solo artist in his own right with his one-man project Radio Trees.
Following 2009′s Outside World Strategies Vol.1, MJ has found time to record its companion piece, Vol. 2.
Leaping between a wide cross-section of genres, from electro-pop, to expansive ballads, to noisy over-driven indie guitar Vol.2 might just be one of the most exciting additions to the WBI catalogue.
Download it for FREE here, and check out the brilliant This Head is Not For Sale below.
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Bobby Womb New EP
Jon McCall, ex-Y’all is Fantasy Island drummer issues his 2nd EP on Wise Blood entitled Dwarf Management.
Clocking in at just over 13 minutes, it is an unhurried, psychedelic melch of breathy clarinet, glockenspiel and sparrow. There’s advice for magpies on domestic cats. Listen to it this late summer/autumn in your allotment shed while finishing that book you started on the regional accents of birds.
Download the EP for Free HERE!
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