Yip Man // Introducing Yip Man of Scotland

Well hello! I'm Yip Man. You probably know me as Al Nero if you know me at all. The former sorta-frontman of Le Reno Amps and co-founder of this here, Armellodie Records. You might be forgiven for thinking that I've been somewhat idle, or at least focussing on running Armellodie, since Le Reno Amps bowed out in 2011. But in truth I've been away. Al Nero went to China… Yip Man came back. 

Upon my return to Scotland I hooked up with my old sparring partner, Scott Maple and we began to work together on some songs that I had written while I was away courting The Red Dragon. We found a cosy little studio in Glasgow courtesy of Sean Pollock and Beatroute Arts and I roped in some other pals to flesh out my bones, Neil Warrack (Super Adventure Club) came and played some drums, Greg Barnes (who has previously provided generous organ donations to Le Reno Amps and Chris Devotion & The Expectations) came and played keyboards, Gordon Kyle joined us for a splash of trumpets and a dear friend, Clare Rajan came in and sang some sweet, sweet harmonies. Together we made a record, the debut record of Yip Man. It's called 'Braw Power' and it looks like it'll be out in November this year. That's the plan anyways, though plans change all the time don't they!?! Who really knows...

There's a couple of tunes from the album that have found their way out into the ether. I've been fortunate enough to have some spins on BBC 6 Music courtesy of Steve Lamacq and Stuart Maconie, and Radio Scotland thanks to Vic Galloway. I'm also lucky to have such talented pals willing to commit a lot of their time to making me look good. Namely, Ian Tilling (he of Trapped Mice fame) for making the Not That Easy video and Jason Sinclair of Poppycock Films for making the For Your Own Good video. It's been a blast so far and we've only just got started. You can check out both of those videos below and stay tuned for more Yip Man in the coming months. Braw!

Armellodie Records // Label Sampler 2015

It's that time of year again when we here at ArmHq toast to the coming year's sure-to-be-hits and the floppy discs of yore that we so proudly stand behind.  It's the Armellodie Records Sampler 2015. Free for all!

2014 was a fun one. The first 6 months were proper boppin' on the release front. We had our French compadres, Appletop, release 'Brave Mountains' in March. Followed by Super Adventure Club's 'Built-In Redundancy' live album for Record Store Day in April. We then released a hat-trick of belters in the shape of Dan Lyth & The Euphrates, 'Benthic Lines', Chris Devotion & The Expectations, 'Break Out', and The Hazey Janes, 'Language of Faint Theory'.

After summer there we put our feet up on the label-front, busying ourselves with real-shit for a change. There's been some tasty freebies from Gastric Band and The Douglas Firs to tide us over and we're very much looking forward to 2015. As you'll hear/see when you grab the sampler we have forthcoming albums on the way from Trapped Mice with 'Sacred To The Shades', and Thirty Pounds of Bone with 'The Taxidermist'. They'll both hit the streets in the Springtime and sounding beautiful so they are.

So thanks for all the hoots this year and all the very best for 2015.

Al + Scott
xxx

 

Armellodie Records // Sounds Of The Insomniac Radio Show

Our very own Scott Maple popped into the Pulse 98.4 studios this week as a guest of Alan Clarke's excellent Sounds Of The Insomniac show. Armed with a handful of Armellodie-hits (Armellodits?) and plenty of chit-chat you can listen to the show here on Mixcloud.

Sounds Of The Insomniac (Show 16 with special guest Scott Maple of Armellodie Records) by Sounds Of The Insomniac on Mixcloud

Super Adventure Club // Built-In Redundancy Available Now

As you may know we here at Armellodie released a live album by the mighty Super Adventure Club to coincide with Record Store Day 2014.

Released on CD in a luxurious 6-panel gatefold digipack we manufactured just 100 copies of Built-In Redundancy and it was on sale exclusively at two shops in Central Scotland, Love Music Glasgow, and Avalanche, Edinburgh. 

However we recently received this letter to ArmHQ.

“Dear Armellodie, I love Super Adventure Club more than life itself. However Central Scotland may as well be outer-space to me. I can’t possibly visit Love Music to purchase a copy. I am crying. Crying I tell you. Yours Sincerely, A. Fan”

To which Armellodie replied;

“Don’t worry A. Fan, we realise that due to the extremely exclusive (in all terms) nature of this particular release, it would quite simply be wrong if you, yes YOU, could not have the opportunity to own this artefact. A memento that can be passed down through future generations of your family, and one day be sold for a vast profit on Flog-It by your financially destitute great, great grandson.”

And so being a thoughtful bunch here at Armellodie Towers, we have reserved a quantity to give you the opportunity to order the album online. If you would like a copy please don’t delay in purchasing. The album will be sold on a first come, first served basis and once they are gone, they’re gone for good. You can order your copy HERE. 

Please continue to support your local independent record shop, as wise old Chris Devotion said, “no one likes people that only go to the big games.”

2013 // A year in records…

We’ve had a great year here at ArmHq. Nice to see some of our releases popping up in end-of-year-lists, a few in The Herald, a few in Jockrock, others here and there.

As a way of saying “thank you” to those of you have supported us in any way we’ve got a free to download label sampler doing the rounds. Get it HERE.

That’s us signing off for 2013. See you on the other side.

Happy Hogmanay!

ArmHq
x

Armellodie Records // New Label Sampler - Merry Christmas!

The gift that keeps on giving…

Every year’s a winner here at ArmHq but this last year has been especially productive, having worked on and released 7 new albums and a couple of booming EPs over the past 12 months it’s been mega-rewarding.

On top of that we managed to squeeze in another label tour in the summertime which saw us host a string of shows around our beloved Scotland showcasing the impeccable talent that resides on our burgeoning roster.

To catch up on what you’ve missed, put the skip in your step, and discover your new favourite band we’ve compiled a new label sampler. An annual toast to the hits and the floppy discs we so proudly stand behind. 

You can download the SAMPLER RIGHT HERE and please spread the word and support the artists involved.

The new year is already shaping up nicely, we’ll have records from new troops and fresh efforts from familiar faces.  

Going international, we’ll be bringing you the new album from Appletop who hail from the exotic dirty south of France. C’est tres bien! 

We’ll also have the new album by Dan Lyth, from the slightly less exotic but no less dirty, Dunfermline. A stunning record recorded entirely outdoors. More news soon!

Then there’s the second effort from garage-rock’n’rollers, Chris Devotion & The Expectations, currently holed up in the studio with producer Andy Miller, who also worked with the band on their much celebrated debut, Amalgamation & Capital.

Further still we’ll be releasing the new album from Dundee’s finest young things, The Hazey Janes. The follow up to 2011’s, The Winter That Was, was recorded in Spain earlier this year and is almost all dressed up and ready to leave the house. We can’t wait.

Plenty more too nae doot! Busy times. Exciting times. Join us!?

All that’s left to say is thank you for your continued support. Armellodie is a teeny-tiny operation, so buying an album or coming to a show goes a long way and means a great deal to us. You deserve a holiday! Enjoy the sampler. Merry Christmas, happy new year and we’ll see you on the other side!

ArmHq

"Turns Out My Brain WAS My Other Brain" by SUPER ADVENTURE CLUB as premiered by Prog Magazine on their website. Check it. Mental good times! 

Here’s what director, Michael MacLennan had to say about the making of the video.

"Super Adventure Club have been one of my favourite Scottish bands, so when I was lucky enough to work with them on the video I wanted to make sure to create something that would match their unhinged, tightly honed insanity.

The idea of brainwashing seemed to fit the song, and I liked the idea of subtly referencing the infamous scene from A Clockwork Orange, with nods to Lost and 70s slasher movies. With the drummer Waz off on studies halfway around the word it fitted in perfectly to have him the focus of the video that Bruce and Mandy are forced to watch, and anybody who has seen the band live will know how brilliant and indispensable B was as their deranged, horse-mask-adorned dancer, so it also felt like a great idea to have him as the kidnapper. It was a complicated shoot (with more than 180 shots), and an even more complicated edit, but it felt like a necessity to match the complexity of the song, and it was a joy to work with everyone in the band and label from start to finish.” —-Michael MacLennan.

And here’s what sticksman, Neil Warrack, has been saying about the new album and the demise of SAC.

"Whereas recording the first album was, for me, an explosive and somewhat out of control experience; and the second album seemed like a collection of the work we had done over a long period of time, between tours and whilst we were having all sorts of ideas about where we could take the band; this album, in contrast, seemed a wholly organic affair. We had rekindled our love of just writing the music we wanted to write. We stopped trying to play all the "good" gigs and just concentrated on having a bit of fun, and not worrying about where it was all ‘going’. We played the gigs we wanted to do and wrote the songs we wanted to. If we couldn’t rehearse one week we didn’t get our knickers in a twist, we just kept plugging away over a long period of time, then, all of a sudden, we had an album in our hands and it was exactly what we wanted; an album that sounded like Super Adventure Club, warts and all, as we do now. It’s a completely honest album, despite the fact it may look like complete tomfoolery to the untrained eye."

"Also we went into the studio at just the right time. Which I think is about two to five rehearsals prior to what you think would be the perfect time to go into the studio; it gave us the freedom to continue to mess around with everything, from lyrics, to sounds, to song structures - everything is open to debate. It would never work trying to record our music ‘the way it’s supposed to sound’ - because it changed form from gig to gig anyway. Listening back to it is like hearing someone else play our music - I can’t remember what was going through my head when I played some of the stuff on the album, I probably wouldn’t do it again, but it’s definitely us, honestly."

You can get your mits on the new album “Straight From The Dick” right HERE.

Super Adventure Club // New Album "Straight From The Dick" OUT TODAY!

Third (and sadly final) studio album from “Glasgow’s most deliriously imaginative trio” (The List), SUPER ADVENTURE CLUB finally release, ‘Straight From The Dick’ on Vinyl, CD and digital download. OUT TODAY!

Free Download Single - “9 Times” [DOWNLOAD]
Video - “Between a Sock and a Hard Place” [WATCH]

If you are one of those avid music lovers that feel so inclined to fit everything you hear into a neat little musical box, (possibly employing the use of hierarchical tree charts and Venn diagrams to find the exact classification of a band’s chosen genre), then Super Adventure Club may fry your brain. With brusque self-confidence and stupendous musical chops Super Adventure Club stand proudly in the revolutionary vanguard of contemporary experimental music. Into the breach they go, taking with them an ever-present sense of humour and sense of the absurd.

Since their conception in 2007, Super Adventure Club have toured their blistering live show from Inverness to Cork to Bordeaux, and many hotspots in between. The band is regularly joined onstage by the horse-headed Johny B (this is not a joke - the man really has a horse’s head) whose help, or hindrance, has ensured that with a clutch of well received shows and the release of two critically acclaimed albums (2009s Chalk Horror! and 2010s Avoid Zombies) the band have garnered a cult following all over the UK and into Europe.

"On their previous album, Super Adventure Club recommended avoiding zombies; now, alas, they’ve become one, with Straight From The Dick arriving posthumously following the trio’s decision to separate earlier in the year. But like a late reel hand grab from the grave, their third album delivers one final (and wholly enjoyable) shock to the system, ensuring that, should the hiatus prove definite, their twisted noise will be sorely missed. 4/5" - The Skinny

Straight From The Dick sees the triumvirate – Bruce Wallace, Mandy Clarke and Neil Warrack – maintain their zen-like focus on memorable hooks and surrealist lyrical imagery. From loungey hip-swinging tales of culture shock (‘Hablo Espanol’), freakish ear-drum workouts (‘Fuck The Pop’, ‘9 Times’), Zappa-esque spaz-jazz (‘Dog With Two Dicks)’, and giddy brain-melting wrong-pop (‘Turns Out My Brain Was My Other Brain’), the band parley with idiosyncratic pop, and parade their ninja-jazz-rock mojo with glee.

On album centrepiece, ‘Between a Sock and a Hard Place’, Wallace sings about people who have fallen in love with things that are not human. Selvi Kumar dedicated his life to a dog after killing another dog. Lee Jin married a pillow of an anime character. Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer, 54, whose surname means Berlin Wall in German, wed the concrete structure in 1979 after being diagnosed with a condition called Objectum Sexuality. This song is a perfect example of not only the band’s contagious and slightly deranged sense of humour, but also their enviable ability to pen a tune.

"…a tight collection of wondrously daft songs anchored by the kind of intricate math-rock rigour which normally comes with compulsory po-face. Songs about dogs with double appendages and men falling in love with pillows sit comfortably alongside methodical musicianship – a band worth celebrating 4/5". - The List

A celebratory record, tinged with sadness as Wallace sings on finale ‘Bossa Novice’, ”If I’d done half the things I’d planned to have done, there’d be a lot more done, and it wouldn’t make a difference to anyone.” A fitting sentiment, as on the eighth of August this year, Super Adventure Club played their final show to a sell-out crowd of sweaty devotees in their hometown of Glasgow. With Straight From The Dick the band is cementing their status - North of the border at least – as one of the most innovative and exciting bands to come from our shores. Being a posthumous release, Straight From The Dick is set to shroud the band in its own enigma. Here’s to the legacy!

"Having called time on their musical endeavours, at least in this guise, back in August, the group have managed to sign off in fine style and can rightly look back on the records and live shows of the last five years with a deserved sense of achievement. Hopefully their complex song structures, boundless energy and vitriol won’t be missing from the scene for too long." - Muso’s Guide

You can pick up Straight From The Dick from today in all good record shops and download places. You can get it direct from us too, on CD, Vinyl or download right here. Look at the vinyl, 180 grams of lush…

If you’re looking for older SAC goodies or some other champion sounds to fill your stockings then look no further than the ARMELLODIE SHOP. Go on, fill yer boots so we can feed our we’ans. Til the next time ye faithful followers… stay cosy!

ArmHq
x

Note: The ridiculously cool photos of SAC were taken in The Photo Bubble (check them out - super nice people) at this year’s amazing Insider Festival. Good times.

The horse photo was taken by Michael MacLennan. Thanks Mikey!

SUPER ADVENTURE CLUB release their new album, and sadly what is said to be their last, tomorrow. It’s called “Straight From The Dick” and you can get it from HERE.

Here’s some live footage and interview snippets filmed by Chris Houston and Jason Sinclair at the band’s final show at Broadcast, Glasgow on the 8th August this year. Very much worth a look.

SUPER ADVENTURE CLUB's new album “Straight From The Dick” has arrived at ArmHq, a beaut' we trust you'll agree!

For all those who have Pre-ordered you’ll be happy to know your shiny vinyls and/or CDs are bagged and shipped, winging their way to you now.

If you’re still to get in on this ruckus action, it’s not too late:
http://superadventureclubuk.bandcamp.com/album/straight-from-the-dick

The album is officially released on Monday 2nd December. Christmas gift anyone!?

Listen to ‘9 Times’ from the forthcoming SUPER ADVENTURE CLUB album “Straight From The Dick”.

You can download the song for FREE RIGHT HERE!

And you can pre-order the album on CD or Vinyl on the following link:
http://superadventureclubuk.bandcamp.com/album/straight-from-the-dick

"Thanks to everyone that came along to any of the Armellodie Tour 2013 shows. Monumental good times! Also special thanks to the venues and those people who helped us put on the shows. You know who you are and it means a ton to us. Nae doubt we’ll do it again sometime! For now though I need a year off! There was a lot of video cameras going about at the shows so I’m sure some footage will appear soonish. In the meantime Jason from Cuddly Shark took some pretty nifty photos. Have a gander. Cheers"

Al
ArmHq-
China Division

Armellodie Records // Edinburgh and Glasgow Shows Next Week!

Facebook Event Pages:

EDINBURGH SHOW »>
https://www.facebook.com/events/169800333194494/

GLASGOW SHOW»>
https://www.facebook.com/events/530217927014212/

New Troop // Gastric Band

Gastric Band are not for the faint-hearted and we here at Armellodie Records are proud to introduce them to the fold. Look at these handsome chaps.

Bruce Wallace (Guitar, Synth, Loops and Ross MacPherson (Drums, Percussion) formed Gastric Band at the beginning of 2011.  Bruce just happens to be the founding member of similarly off-kilter spazz-jazz rockers Super Adventure Club. The two-piece soon blossomed into five with the addition of Jack Weir (Guitar), Cameron Cullen (Guitar, Samples, Keys, Loops) and Ricki Thomson (Drums, Percussion) joining in 2012.

Citing the likes of Steve Reich, Robert Fripp, and Bill Bruford as influences, Gastric Band channel the taboo-breaking spirits of Frank Zappa and Karlheinz Stockhausen into their music.  There’s no time to get settled, no time to relax and no time to wonder what it all means as melody butts heads with rhythm through unexpected arrangements.

Armellodie will be releasing the debut album, Party Feel in June on CD and download. You can listen to the album in full here now though.

Gastric Band is operating with one freakish mind, like a drug-addled 5-headed Cerberus of rock and roll. The five schizophrenic grooves that make up Party Feel provide a lasting warped cuddliness, an intoxicating and fearful mix of intricacy, subtlety, brutality, flippancy, and seriousness. Each song burrows its way under your skin and fires electrical impulses down the axons of your nervous system. 

You will surrender. You will submit. You will shake your whole, entire body.

Find Gastric Band on facebook here.

Armellodie Records // Unplug The Jukebox →

A lovely spiel from the good people at Unplug The Jukebox about the merits of Armellodie. Ahh nice.

Armellodie Records // Label Sampler 2012

It’s the end of another year and so we gift to you a label sampler. Hits of the near future, flops of the past and spankers from the back catalogue compiled for your listening pleasure. Featuring a track from each of Armellodie’s troops, you can download it for free right here.

1. Super Adventure Club - Sheila’s Stabiliser Wheels
2. The Douglas Firs - Apologia
3. The Pure Conjecture - The Tumbler That Never Ran Out
4. Something Beginning With L - Last Night’s Party
5. Galoshins - The 4th Chord
6. Kill The Captains - Fun Anxiety
7. Trapped Mice - Mona Lisa
8. Thirty Pounds Of Bone - The Streets I Staggered Down
9. The Hazey Janes - Girl In The Night
10. Conor Mason - Misunderstood
11. Chris Devotion & The Expectations - The Girl Is Leaving
12. Le Reno Amps - God Loves A Trier
13. The Scottish Enlightenment - All Homemade Things
14. Cuddly Shark - Trigger Happy 

It’s been a fun year for the label, we’ve released a handful of awesome records which have all done us proud.

We embarked on our first ever label tour in the summer, steam-rolling our way round our native Scotland.

There was barely a festival that Chris Devotion & The Expectations didn’t pop up at and The Hazey Janes headed off to support Wilco on their European tour in October, good vibes all round.

Anyways, it wouldn’t be so good if it wasn’t for the people who buy the albums and go to the shows. So thank you.

Enjoy the sampler, have a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2013.

Now, let’s get sloshed.

ARMELLODIE SAMPLER 2012 - DOWNLOAD