Soft Bodies Bleed Out is the fourth and final Soft Bodies Records compilation.
Soft Bodies started in 2013 with the release of Soft Bodies Don't Bleed. Jodie and I didn't really know that many bands back then (well, good ones, at least), so half the bands on there were figments of various friends imagination. It did alright and pretty much set up the next few years. We worked with godfathers of DIY, we worked with complete unknowns. Noise, pop, drone, jazz, indie, synth weirdness...whatever. If it was interesting, we would be interested in putting it out.
We did pretty well over the last few years and it was a lot of fun, but we have limited time these days (you could probably tell as releases had dried right up) and what with increased activity with Quimper and Jodie's solo stuff it was probably a good time to put it to bed. Which brings us to Soft Bodies Bleed Out. One last compilation before we put the lights out.
We've just reduced Drizzle Maw & Domino to £0.00. Or $0.00 if you're so inclined. I think we're going for a pay-what-you-want thing for anything we do that isn't physical, and seeing how we seem to have a fair few new listeners of late, I thought we'd price the older stuff to match.
Drizzle Maw is a collection of demos for an album that never ended up happening along with various other songs from the same time. I say "demos", but the songs were more or less complete (and some of them were actually complete). It's probably one of the better things we've done.
Domino is a collection of Quimper songs that were featured on various sessions, compilations and other strange places.
Bit of a gap between blog entries as we've been busy finishing up the final Soft Bodies compilation. It's entitled "Soft Bodies Bleed Out" and will feature various people who have (or would have) either been on or around the label at various points in the past and now non-future. It should be interesting.
In other news, Wake Up Gastone has turned out to be one of the more popular things (relatively speaking, of course) we've done in awhile. And that's despite not releasing a video, a promotional campaign which was a shrug of the shoulders and a "meh" and a very much last minute release. Thanks TONS to anyone who listened, helped spread the word or generally gave a damn. Even *more* thanks to anyone who bought a copy.
The next EP is about 3/4 finished, should be ready towards the end of the month though if Soft Bodies Bleed Out ends up coming out then, we may delay it a bit so we don't drown you in Quimper songs. We're planning a new video but we quite fancy doing something a bit more involved than just another music video. That'll probably be ready when it's ready, but should be worth the wait.
We have also found a bunch of videos we did for our live shows a few years back. We (well, Jodie mostly) did videos for each song that were projected as we played, and considering most of our audience isn't even in the same country as us, let alone city, not a great deal of people have seen them. Hope to do something with them at some point as well. Think there's even a couple of songs that never made it to an EP...
That's about it for now. I shall leave you all with the inevitable plug for our latest EP. Ta!
Scott Walker has been omnipresent lately (at least in some circles) due to the BBC Proms event last night. Scott Walker is one of those artists that I tried to get into for a very long time. Friends would buy me his records. They would be put on at parties (rather sedate parties). Heads would nod sagely as his baritone voice sung of lost loves and melancholy and I couldn’t help but think “Can we not just put the Betty Boo album on again?”. As time goes on and you get a little older you stop pretending about many things, and one of those things for me was that I had any love for Scott Walker beyond Jackie. And even then Marc Almond and Momus did it better.
Sooooo…since no-one reads blogs these days unless they’re in easily digestible list form, allow me to present three songs I’d rather listen to than Scott Walker.
Vanilla – No Way, No Way.
Yes, yes. The video is terrible and it’s the very worst of the Spice Girls bandwagon jumpers but it’s long hanging fruit. We’re here for the song. And the song is even worse. It is musical dog-food. Poundshop dog-food from the good old days of Poundshops selling health hazards instead of brand names. Gloopy, gelatinous horror that leaves only the taste of ash. A queasy mess staggering home stopping only to vomit up the refrain of “no way, no way” at the most inopportune moment. It is grotesque. Nothing on The Drift can compare, Scott Walker could not dream of creating something so painful. Even if he had a can of dog-food and a stick for percussive use and locked himself in a darkened room for a week with nothing but an open mic for company. Not enough. Not nearly enough. Steely Dan – Do It Again.
I know an awful lot of Steely Dan fans. Damn near everyone who was on Soft Bodies seemed to like them. You could understand it with the more traditional songwriter types, but then you’d also have people doing ambient/noise/harsh bastard techno being fans. The Dan bridges the void. At least with most people, I have and probably always will be of the opinion it’s MOR bobbins….AND YET, I’d probably rather hear Do It Again than the Seventh Seal.
Slade – Run Runaway
In 1983/84, Scott Walker started to reinvent himself with Climate of Hunter. And so did Slade by morphing into Big Country for a bit. Scott Walker would never have thought of that, and thus he found himself outplayed by Wolverhampton's finest, disappearing from view until the mid 90s, wondering what could have been.
Righty-o, enough sacrilege. WE HAVE MUSIC OUT. Please do download and/or listen to it if so inclined. Ta!
We have a new EP out today. It is called Wake Up Gastone. It's the second in a series of four track EPs we intend to put out for the rest of the year. Listen here! Now! Here! Now!
Four songs. Couple of instrumentals, another pop number with Jodie on lead vocals and a piano/vocal thing with more Jodie vox. It is, as all these EPs will be, completely FREE unless you want to give us some money. We are not proud. We WILL take your money!
Hard cash is not the only way you can support us though, there are far cheaper and probably more effective ways. The only reason Quimper has any sort of audience is because people have been very lovely about telling other people about us. Our relationship with what's left of the music press mostly consists of us both wishing the other would go away. Our relationship with most people mostly consists of wishing the other would go away, come to think of it. The absolute best way you can support us is by spreading the word of Quimper. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell podcasts. Tell blogs. Tell labels they should release our records. Tell the next person you see in the street. Tweet like a bastard. Poke people on Facebook. Can you not poke people on Facebook anymore? Then poke people in the street. Demand your local radio stations play our songs. Go forth, become our dervish hordes. SMITE IN OUR NAME.
Or, y'know, just tell yer mates that we're quite good. One of the two.
If you haven't heard our last EP, the fine people at the Gated Canal Community show played a couple of tracks from it on one of their recent shows. Link below.
Hopefully should have another EP ready for late August/early September. Possibly with a video. We've also been talking about playing live again, I think we've got a better way of doing it than just hiding behind (or in front of) video projections. The downside is that it's a way that involves me running around in a dog mask and hedge trimmer. Early days, anyway.
