I talked about the latest Fencezine on this month’s podcast and included King Creosote’s lovely version of Withered Hand’s No Cigarettes from the accompanying CD ‘On Behalf of My Wife and I’. Unfortunately it seems this issue has now sold out, so it seems rather cruel to be writing more about it, but at least one person (ok, one person) has asked for more info on the tracklisting so here goes (and get yourself over to the Beefboard on fencerecords.com to make sure you find out about the next issue before they sell out again).

other KC tunes on the album are the sprightly ‘Your Psycho Boyfriend’, and the more mournful ‘All I Ask’ and ‘Well Done’. Then we get some extremely lo-fi action from Mr Hand himself, with Panda Eyes, before No Cigarettes kicks in, and what an awesome version it is. 

Next we get Takeaway Food from the Religious Songs EP, a wee instrumental number and then three more KC tunes: ‘Only This Exam’, a demo version of Rims in which those DISGUSTING chorus lyrics are much more audible than on the album version, and ‘I Fall At the Last Hurdle’.

Oh and the last song will remain a secret because I’ve got the feeling KC would prefer it that way.. but I will tell you, it’s a lovely wee collection of songs by two of my favourite songwriters.

Though predominantly a Scottish label, Fence Records seem to have found a rich vein to mine in Bristol, with OLO Worms, Rozi Plain, and now François Marry all being signed to the label. Marry is, as his name suggests French, but came to the label’s attention through playing with Rozi Plain, and clearly has excellent credentials having also toured with Camera Obscura. 

Plaine Inondable (which translates as flood plains), is a rich, piano-based album with some shades of Herman Dune in the likes of the trumpet laden French language lament ‘Moitiée’, whereas the upbeat-to-the-point-of-daftness ‘Be Water (Je Suis De L’eau)’ is Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot frolicking in a ball pool after eating too many smarties. 

There is plenty of the expected French tweeness then, but this is offset nicely by some gorgeous instrumentation influenced strongly by 70’s African funkadelia. Marry’s own voice is a low gentle croon, accompanied beautifully by gorgeous harmonies courtesy of Bost Gehio who to quote the press release are “an all-female polyphonic voice group from the Basques country”. He is also joined on the album by a band called Unkle Jelly Fish, from his hometown of Saintes on France’s West Coast, where he recorded the album.

Tracks like ‘Otage’ have a more reflective mood, feeling like a summer afternoon spent writing a letter to a long-lost friend, and Years of Rain is full of archly epic anger and faded grandeur, like an episode of Poirot scored by John Barry. It’s an album with a massive breadth of musical and geographical influences, but which nevertheless feels absolutely natural and genuine – and well worth discovering.

François & The Atlas Mountains – Years of Rain

Buy on Amazon

Read Portis Wasp’s interview with François Marry

Yes I have finally experienced the Fence Homegame in Anstruther and it was well worth the wait. The above video diary shows a few of the bands we saw, a lot of which have already featured on the podcasts. I only had very limited space on my wee digital camera so didn’t manage to capture everything, e.g.Viking Moses leading us in a mass singalong of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Lover Lover Lover’, Pictish Trail doing a lovely cover of Hot Chip’s Boy From School, James Yorkston doing a great live version of ‘Woozy with Cider’ and numerous other perfect moments.

In fact, because so much was going on simultaneously in different venues, we totally missed loads of special events like the Three Craws (the hall was full by the time we got there), Ichi who many said was their highlight, any other secret shows that I didn’t have a ticket for like James Yorkston doing Daniel Johnston covers.. the list goes on. I have to say I would be gutted to miss those things if I didn’t have such an amazing time at the things I did go to. 

I can see now that Fence is all about the Homegame experience, and the rest of the year I will be just biding time for the next one – it has to be the friendliest, most laid back festival I’ve been to. But it looks likely that next year’s event will be a smaller one, so good luck getting tickets if you fancy going…

 The Fence Homegame Pre-season Friendly on Saturday at Old St. Paul’s Church in Edinburgh was a great way to spend Saturday afternoon/evening. We got there just in time to catch the end of Pictish Trail’s set, for some reason he didn’t seem to have turned the mic on and it was already pretty rammed so we didn’t get the full experience but we did get a front row seat for the lovely Animal Magic Tricks and the hilariously insane Men Diamler (whose CDs I bought), and a storming solo performance by Neil from Meursault (which convinced my cousin Lucy to buy their album) all of whom are pictured below.

The highlight for me though was finally seeing Found, who I’ve managed to miss seeing live despite buying their first album back when it first came out a couple of years back. They were superb and the below scenes demonstrate their ability to get people up dancing and have a bloody good time. That was only topped by the next song, a performance of Let Fidelity Break from their new EP (as featured on this month’s podcast).

By that time though I, my friends and a whole load of other people had given in to the irresistible urge to join in the crazy dancing so so no video footage exists. Still, you can buy the record here.

Animal Magic Tricks

Neil from Meursault

Men Diamler