Album of the Week: The Son(s) – The Son(s)

You might remember a short piece with the mysterious Son(s) on the Tidal Wave of Indifference a while back.

Their one full-time member – a guy called “Karl” if he’s to be believed – gave little away about the band, who he was or what their plans were. 

Turns out that a self-titled album was high on the agenda, and here it is, put out by Olive Grove Records.

You’ll hopefully have heard last year’s single Radar, and it pops up again here. Actually the phrase ‘pops up’ probably suggests something a bit too energetic for such dreamy little tune, flecked with sighing, layered vocals. However lazy it might be, it’s still wonderful.

Promoted from Radar b-side to album opener is the much bouncier Dogs, Boys & Men… probably the most upbeat thing here. Anyone expecting more scruffy toe-tappers will have been sold a pup by this early curveball.

The feel of the album is languid, as if ‘Karl’ is struggling to get out of bed to make some music – but thank god he did. This record has been hyped to huge levels in the Scottish blogosphere but the warm words are justified - it’s jaw-droppingly good.

You Belong to No One is a thing of paralysing beauty and the piano-led Sold Down the River feels like being licked awake by a litter of kittens. There is a Hole in the Middle of the Sea has added wave noises and is an experience akin to paddling in the shallows on a warm day.

Those lesser seen rocky guitars get another run-out on Count Your Feet which starts off in fairly typical fashion before cranking up to a crunchy, T Rex-y stomp.

For a relatively unknown, reclusive one man band on a wee label to have produced one of the year’s finest records so far is an astounding achievement, given that we’ve already had albums by Mogwai, PJ Harvey and Radiohead in 2011.

It’s only February and the gauntlet for Scottish music was thrown down early doors by Conquering Animal Sound. I have a feeling it’s been picked up and thrown on a bit further by the Son(s). You NEED to hear this.

So I spoke to “Karl” again about the recording of the album…

So is this really all your own work? And how was the writing and recording experience?

We (I believe the tricksy wee bugger is using the ‘Royal’ We here – Ed) did record and write it alone, with one exception. Can you hear what it is? (turns out ‘estranged’ bandmate Callum added some vocals to Pinholes – Ed) We had a very nice wee studio (Smallfish Recordings) do the mastering for us but that’s about it. Just us in our wee studio. Writing and recording is the best bit, mastering less of a pleasure, simply because you have to negotiate someone else’s opinions, and actually releasing a record is a bunch of crap. It’s expensive, administrative-heavy work.

We didn’t set out to make an album, we just fell into the process. However these songs were selected from around thirty or so as these worked and flowed together best. I guess that’s how you make an album isn’t it? Unless you’re making a concept album of course. Some were written a wee while ago. The oldest is about a year old, the newest was written and recorded the week the CD had to go to the printers.

How did the link with Olive Grove come about?

We got involved with Olive Grove through Lloyd (Meredith, co-founder and Peenko blogger). We’d been in touch with Halina (Rifai - the other co-founder and Glasgow PodcART Queen) too as she’d been kind enough to play a few of our songs in PodcART. However Lloyd got in touch and asked us if we would like to work with them in some shape or form. We had a single coming out on Eli and Oz and had already recorded and worked out how to press the album so it made sense to work on that together. I have to say how great they’ve been to work with, they may not have the same opinion of me of course. But it must be one of the reasons why there is good will towards them, they’re real enthusiasts. They genuinely love music, bands, gigs, records, the whole thing. There’s no artifice, little cynicism. So they deserve recognition. And that’s the beautiful thing about the people involved in independent music in Scotland at the moment. There are so many proper enthusiasts, so much is done for a love of music, not for financial gain. Right from Chemikal Underground through Olive Grove, Song, By Toad, Armellodie, and all the bands, bloggers and podcasters. There is so much quality just now eh? It’s good.

Agreed! What’s next for the Son(s)? How about a gig or two?

No idea what’s next, it partly depends on the record’s reception. I guess it’s pretty much certain we will write some more songs, though I don’t know if we’ll formally release them. I don’t know what’ll happen with Olive Grove even, I assume they’ll move on to their next release. Gigs? Well who knows. Mebbes aye, mebbes naw.

We can live in hope! You can listen to album gem Radar below.