ARTiST: Songs Of Green Pheasant
TiTLE: Aerial Days
LABEL: Fat Cat Records
GENRE: Indie
TiME: 35:58 min
SiZE: 43,7 MB
BiTRATE: VBRkbps
RiP DATE: Oct-31-2006
RELEASE DATE: Nov-13-2006
WEBSiTE: www.fat-cat.co.uk
Track List:
01. Pink By White 05:23
02. Remembering And Forgetting 06:54
03. Wolves Amongst Snowmen 05:26
04. Stars Form Birds 04:36
05. Dear Prudence 05:28
06. Wintered 04:18
07. Brody Jacket 03:53
Release Notes:
Songs Of Green Pheasant is the work of Duncan
Sumpner, a 30-year-old artist / teacher from
Oughtibridge in Sheffield. His self-titled debut
album was released on FatCat in August 2005, and
drew widespread praise, gaining admiration from
Devendra Banhart, M·m, and Vetiver, and making many
peopleÆs lists as an outsider æalbum of the yearÆ.
What emerged on that record was something fragile,
yet coherent and utterly charming. With a warm
cloudy depth, sweet melodies and some gorgeous vocal
harmonising, it was a set of simply beautiful,
beautifully sung and played songs.
Again created rural isolation on the rim of the Peak
District, some of the tracks include the playing of
friends, but other than the odd bit of
instrumentation it was entirely written and recorded
by Duncan again. With obvious differences in
production as well as feel, tracks exist
independently of one another in a chronological and
musical sense, with each having been made
purposefully as a response to something that
happened in DuncanÆs life at that particular time.
The most obvious example being The Beatles cover,
æDear PrudenceÆ which was made when he was asked to
contribute to a Radio One evening show commemorating
John LennonÆs death with cover versions of the
æWhite AlbumÆ. The rest stemmed from the desire to
turn a thought or feeling into a tangible hard
copy... æRemembering and ForgettingÆ began from
Duncan reading a newspaper article about teenage
killers; æBrody JacketÆ is a lament about finally
throwing out a much-loved coat he had worn for the
previous 7 years; æWinteredÆ is about the misplaced
personal faiths and mythologies we make up as young
people.
Whilst there is no real intended thematic
connection, there is an overall theme to the record,
with Duncan describing tracks as ômusical jottings
of certain times (however irrelavent) and for me are
kind of little candles that light up and stretch out
across those 3 or 4 years illuminating those pockets
of time....I can remember clearly where I was, what
I was doing what the weather was like etc something
i would have no chance of doing if i hadn't
considered it important enough to make a song ..ö
ôHence the title which i think suggests the drifting
irrellevance of these things versus the romantic
human desire to make something out of them.ö
Where ÆSongs Of Green PheasantÆ was tagged as yet
another outsider / neo- folk release, its sphere of
reference lay closer to an uneven lineage of artists
like Butterfly Child, Talk Talk / Mark Hollis, Pan
American, Simon and Garfunkel, Flying Saucer Attack,
Jewelled Antler Collective, Richard Youngs, and
Galaxie 500. Whilst certain of these tracks retain
the feel of that album, others hint at the future,
and musically SOGP has clearly moved on. The newer
tracks (recorded now in 8-track) show a richer, more
sparkling production, and overall it isnt anywhere
near as folky as before.