Nathan Hall and the Sinister Locals - Scattersparks

Third album syndrome? Nah. Cardiff's prolific song-smith returns with more explorations of new weird suburbia.

If you've yet to hear the work of idiosyncratic songwriter Nathan Hall, I recommend you rectify this at the nearest opportunity. As main songwriter in Cardiff-based band Soft Hearted Scientists, he's responsible for a rich seam of gently hallucinogenic, mild-mannered music. His songs take a sideways glance at the foibles of the modern world, see the absurd and comic in the everyday, and bristle with visionary imagination and expand the range of subject matter for the humble three minute pop song. Imagine if you will Robyn Hitchcock or Syd Barrett  crossed with Ivor Cutler's polyphony-obsessed Welsh cousin.

With Soft Hearted Scientists on something of a sabbatical at the moment, Hall has kept himself busy with offshoot outfit Nathan Hall and the Sinister Locals. Their third and most recent long-player Scattersparks came out at the end of July and has been one of the summer's staple soundtracks round our house, acting as a balm as the increasingly barmy backdrop of UK politics.

Across a whopping 24 tracks there's plenty of ground covered. Lyrical obsessions occupy a peculiar and distinctly British ground – the weather, history, a dislike of pomposity and pretentiousness, all tackled with humour and a sense of wonder at the everyday oddness of 21^st century life. This is DIY music, though well-recorded at home using a number of vintage keyboards with a Joe Meek approach to sonic experiments and effects. Such explorations of new weird suburbia are proof that these Isles have much to offer culturally in contrast to our direly divided political landscape.

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Nathan Hall & The Sinister Locals - The Volga Sturgeon Face EP

Soft Hearted Scientists' frontman releases solo EP.

It's difficult to think of a contemporary band as prolifically good as Soft Hearted Scientists. After seven LPs (and nary a bad one among them) the band are taking a year out to re-charge their collective battery. That's not to say they won't be making music. Frontman Nathan Hall has already enlisted a bunch of pals to back him on his debut solo EP. Ladies and gentleman say hello to Nathan Hall & The Sinister Locals.

Fans of SHS will not be disappointed, this new outfit ploughs a similar furrow. The same astute, subversive worldview that characterised the best work of the SHS is present throughout this four song Extended Play. Wide ranging references, with equal portions of absudities and insights have always been hallmarks of Hall's work and here is no exception. But there's always a point to be made, be it with lyrics intent of taking revenge on the perpetrators of genocide, lamenting the passing of time or anaylising existencial crises. Clever stuff. No slouch with the music and textures either. Gentle neo-psych one minute, baroque pop the next before bursting out some ideas-packed prog the next. Neat work.

Tracklisting

Everybody's Burning Effigies

Songs For The Flowers

Like A Setting Sun

Catacombs Of Camden Town

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Soft Hearted Scientists - Golden Omens

Modern life is weird! Prolific Cardiff collective's 7^th long player!

It's been a busy few months for me and I've not always been able to post here as often as I would have liked. One release I definitely didn't want to let slip through the net is the latest opus from Soft Hearted Scientists. Hot on the heels of their recently reissued debut Uncanny Tales From The Everyday Undergrowth comes Golden Omens, their latest album of new material, this time on a double CD. Split into 4 parts, it's a song cycle that once again helps us see the world with fresh eyes. This is a band with a seemingly bottomless well of inspiration from which they conjure up tunes to delight and entertain us.

There's a Robyn Hitchcock lyric that goes something like “a sideways glance in a full on world”. I may have that slightly wrong but it sums up what Soft Hearted Scientists are all about. Their songs are rooted in the ordinary and everyday but make you see the world anew, opening your eyes to the inherent weirdness and absurdity that surrounds us when we step back and examine what's going on around us. Odd juxtapositions and associations abound.

Not only that but musically they continue to come up with the goods. Gentle pastoral folksiness one minute, into soundscapes and Barrett-esque whimsy the next. As hinted at on the album sleeve, Soft Hearted Scientists are the musically equivalent of jellyfish, fascinatingly odd and funny, they swim beneath the surface, are endurable and ever present, and might just sting you. Encounter them and life is never quite the same again. Dive in and swim with them!

Click here for Soft Hearted Scientists' website.

Soft Hearted Scientists – Uncanny Tales From The Everyday Undergrowth

Long out of print debut gets reissued with previously unheard demos! Pulp meets Pink Floyd for a peppermint tea!

I came across Soft Hearted Scientists ashamedly late, around the time of their fourth long-player Wandermoon, a lovely album that still offers fresh insights with each listen. A further two albums, both equally rewarding, have since followed and the band are now tantalisingly close to releasing their seventh - Golden Omens. Until then we can content ourselves by checking out where their journey started.

As with most bands there's something special about first albums, those records that somehow capture the initial flurry of ideas and enthusiasms and can be almost manifesto like in terms of setting down a band's identity. Such is the case with Soft Hearted Scientists' Uncanny Tales From The Everyday Undergrowth, their debut album from 2005. Critically acclaimed on it's release, it's long been out of print but is now getting a release on The Hip Replacement label. Along with the original record this reissue comes with a second disc containing demos of the songs on the album.

It's reassuring to find that the band's trademark mix of gentle and quirky melodies mixed with garden shed experimentalism was present at the get-go. The band describe their sound as kitchen-sink psychedelia, citing The Beach Boys and (perhaps more importantly) Oliver Postgate among their influences. Kitchen-sink psychedelia is pretty much bang on the button but I'd also propose the album is akin to Pulp meeting Pink Floyd to put the world to rights over a peppermint tea. An album of lovably eccentric songs with a softness of heart at their core. If you're new to the band start your journey here.

Clickhere for Soft Hearted Scientists' website.

Soft Hearted Scientists – The Slow Cyclone

Cardiff's psych-collective release their ambitious 6^th album. A wide-reaching 24 track song cycle.

There's no other band quite like Soft Hearted Scientists. The Cardiff-based mavericks' 6^th album is ample proof of that, and may be their strongest yet. Over an ambitious song-cycle of 24 tracks, Soft Hearted Scientists take you to places other bands don't, yet still manage to buy you an ice cream and get you home in time for tea.

There's a lot to immerse yourself in with this disc. At almost an hour long, it's divided into four sections, each containing full length songs as well as short musical snippets and jingles. There's a vast musical scope across the whole shebang, their trademark nursery rhyme melodies rub shoulders with eerie soundscape pieces, folksy interludes and moments of baroque elegance. It's as if Meic Stevens has made an album with Syd Barrett, and got the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to produce.

At times the album come across as a soundtrack to an as yet unmade movie. Quite what that movie's plot-line would be is anyone's guess. It would have to involve hermit crabs, flying horses and moments of tripped-out japery. A film worthy of a kickstarter project if ever there was one!

For all the Brit-psych whimsy the album also contains some deeper lyrical themes which are occasionally at odds with the music and melodies that contain them. This spoonful-of-sugar/bitter-pill approach makes for a listening experience that's both gently unsettling (in a good way), and genuinely surprising.

“We may be the last flowers in the garden” they sing on Cobra Clouds. Let's hope not, but if so these are plants we should love and nurture. Take up thy watering-can and walk.

The band play Sheffield Lantern Theatre on Saturday 8^th November.

Click here for more on Soft Hearted Scientists.

Soft Hearted Scientists - False Lights

Fifth album from Cardiff's psych-pop social commentators.

Fans of Soft Hearted Scientists have had a great year so far. Not only has Fruits De Mer Records released a vinyl-only greatest hits set (sort of) called Whatever Happened To The Soft Hearted Scientists, there's also a brand new album, False Lights, out this month on the band's own Hip Replacement label.

Picking up nicely where previous album Wandermoon left off, False Lights sees the band hone their unique mix of gentle breezy psychedelia, music hall whimsy and oblique social commentary. Songwriter Nathan Hall's lyrics poke fun at modern mores and are at times funny, occasionally beguiling, but always memorable. His deadpan delivery doesn't mask the fact that he actually writes some rather ace and catchy tunes.

“Seeing” comes across as George Formby takes a trip, all wide-eyed wonderment and weird lyrical juxtapositions. This 21^st century music hall sound is further explored on “Turn The Tables” where IKEA comes in for some stick before the song's sing-a-long jaunty ending. “False Lights” is like Syd Barrett fronting Half Man Half Biscuit (what a band that would have been!) with its descending guitar lines and pithy lyrics.

The band are equally at home with a more textured, abstract sound, proving that behind the jocular satire there's some seriously good musicianship. Check out “Golgatha” with it's Pompei-era Floyd tempo and gently lysergic dreaminess and you'll see what I mean.

Elsewhere they cast a disarming sideways glance at house prices, the popular press, multinational corporations and much much more. There's even room for a nursery rhyme mixed with pokes at our lovely political leaders (“Seaside Sid And The Giant Squid”). Proof that in the right hands pop and politics do go together, and can still put a smile on your face.

www.softheartedscientists.com