Hobopop edits Spiral Earth

So the folks at Spiral Earth decided they'd help us celebrate the release of the fifth full length album from Kirsty McGee by letting us edit the content of their website for a week. In true DIY spirit we've decided to provide them with 100% artist generated content. Everything you read from us this week has been written by an artist who is directly or indirectly connected to what we do or where we're from, and is probably about an artist who is in some way connected to us, too.

By way of an introduction and a taster of what's to come, here's a bit about the various things that we do here at Hobopop Productions.

We're a small operation based in Manchester and evolved from the DIY ethic that governs the musical careers of Kirsty McGee and Mat Martin, and we are all about writing. Everything that you'll find connected to us is in one way or another about great songwriting from people whose work we really care about. So, as well as booking ourselves out and releasing these Kirsty McGee albums, we have become a small agency, looking after some international songwriters and trying to get the people of Britain to come out and hear them play.

Our series of 'Between Writers' articles this week is a good example. Songwriters interview one another about what they do. We have Kirsty McGee, interviewed on the making of 'No.5' by Damien Mahoney of Caulbearers (Tuesday), and mutual interviews conducted by Kreg Viesselman & Myshkin (both Hobopop artists - Wenesday and Friday), and by Samson and Delilah & Fuzzy Lights (both releasing records with our Manchester friends the Little Red Rabbit Collective - Thursday).

This is carred over into the two 'Ten Questons for...' articles which are quick-fire interviews with singer-songwriters from the Little Red Rabbit Collective who are in the habit of singing while others play - Kevin Craig from Last Harbour (Friday) and Sian Webley of Anna Kashfi (Wednesday).

We're also interested in the ideas behind the language we all use in music, and we've commissioned a few 'Top 10' lists of things you might not expect at first. Of course, there's the the top ten of historical hobos from us (Wednesday), but also K C McKanzie's top ten Shabby Brides in song (Thursday) and a top ten of loners from Alt-Country songwriter Quiet Loner (who's forthcoming album has been produced by Mat Martin - Tuesday).

Of course, there are other things to keep you reading, too. K C McKanzie has written an enchanting and zen piece on what it is to be a Roots musician living in Berlin, Quiet Loner and Kirsty McGee/Mat Martin have given you their current Spotify playlists to listen to, etc, etc... To begin with we'll give you Kirsty McGee's track by track commentaries for No.5, the new album from the Hobopop Collective, and Honeysuckle, her debut, which is re-released today as a free download with a bonus track, both with songs to stream, naturally...

Hoping you'll drop by through the week and see what it's like in our world. And do get in touch, won't you..?

Kirsty McGee - No.5 [A Live Album] - Track by Track

Back in September 2009 we assembled the Hobopop Collective - Kirsty McGee, Mat Martin, Nick Blacka and Rob Turner, and threw them into rehearsal for a one-off show in Manchester, which was to be recorded and released. Already this early we all agreed that there would be no overdubs or repairs made to the tracks after the show - that we would perform more songs than we needed, then select the ones we felt best captured the energy of the evening, exactly as they were.

The result is 'No.5' - released today on CD and digital download, and it features not only the collective, but guest performances from some exceptional musicians - James Steel (The Brute Chorus), Christopher Cundy (Guillemots) and Clive Mellor (Richard Hawley).

We asked Kirsty to listen back to the record and give us a commentary on each track.

Kirsty McGee - No.5 [A Live Album] - Track by Track

Omaha:
America is a country full of fantastic place names. Oblong, Illinois (home of Oblong Cemetery and Oblong Lake); Truth or Consequences, New Mexico; Nameless, Tennessee; Odd, West Virginia; Hell, Michigan and Experiment, Georgia. Given a list like this, the word 'Omaha' seems rather ordinary, but it's a word that feels good on the lips. There's something mysterious about it like a chant overheard from behind a closed door.
The song is the nearest I get to a 'stalker ballad'. I was interested in writing in the short story form, using an unreliable narrator obsessed enough to count the number of windows in the the main character's house. ('Seventeen Windows' is the name of an old weavers' house I used to pass on the road as a child. We'd try and count the windows from the car whilst waiting at the traffic lights. The missing windows had long gone but the name continued to fascinate me -  I like it when things turn up out of context like this.)
I particularly enjoy the rhythm of the language in this song as well as the idiosyncratic drumming of Rob Turner who, immediately on hearing the song, took his washboard and re-created the sound of an old car coughing into action. The watering cans came later - well, from my garden.

Alibi Blues:
Was written with a heavy dose of the 'flu in a bedroom in Paris one New Year. I'd been indoors for a few days and was feeling a bit stir-crazy. When we recorded this song for The Kansas Sessions I asked Mike West, the producer, to give me some Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western guitar. He did. On No.5 this is provided by James Steel, frontman of The Brute Chorus. There were many photos taken whilst we were making the live album and most of them were of James, whose seminal quiff and large moustache seemed to capture everyone's imagination.

Last Orders:
I remember thinking on writing this one; 'this is way too dark, I can't possibly do anything with this...'  The band loved it straight away though. On the record the combination of Chris Cundy's rumbling bass clarinet and the lyrical bass playing of Nick Blacka gives the song a musing, brooding quality that I like. I especially love the way the song opens out in the bridge with Clive Mellors' soaring harmonica solo that makes playing a double-crossed major harp in a minor key sound effortless.

Sandman:
Sandman was my favourite from The Kansas Sessions, mainly due to Larry Maxey's inspired clarinet lines. Sadly, we left Larry in Kansas, but the No.5 recording features some gorgeous cymbal work from Rob Turner and the dark saxello of Chris Cundy. The Sandman is the mythological character charged with sending children to sleep at night by sprinkling sand in their eyes. Oddly, perhaps, this is seen as a good thing. Personally I think it's a damned creepy thing to have a shady figure standing in the corner of your room holding a bag of sand. I tried to weave some love intrigue into my version which I guess makes my sandman a bit of a bunny boiler.

Bliss:
Bliss was recorded first in 2002 for my debut album Honeysuckle (now available as a free download). It's the only song I've ever written inside a tent. The tent was erected about half a mile away from my favourite pub, The Square and Compass in the wilds of Dorset, the only pub I've ever been to that has its own museum of dinosaur bones. I'd hitched there from Penzance to watch Mike West and Myshkin play in a bare stone room so full of bodies you could hardly move a muscle . I'm not surprised that creative things happened on that camping trip. We toyed with the idea of not including the song, but so may people who were at the show had remarked on its power and intensity that we decided to stick with it. I like the way that the contrast between the frailer and the more powerful sections comes across in this recording.

The Last to Understand:
My favourite song on the record. I love the interweaving of the guitar and tenor guitar and the sweet melody. It was written about two weeks before the live recording took place so it was still 'settling' when we recorded it. The song is really a musician's dilemma about file sharing. Sometimes I wonder how all the massive changes that are taking place in the way we consume music will effect the independent musician. Sometimes I know what I think about this issue. Usually, I don't.

Stonefruit:
Opened with some lovely bass licks from Mr Blacka and with some gorgeous grungy guitar and harmonica from James and Clive. This song features mat on the fretless banjo, a real wild-card of an instrument that was built on a bus in Oregon and whose skin still bristles with a gruesome fuzz of unshaved goat hairs. Stonefruit is an utterly cynical song about the kind of person who can't see a sweet peach without tasting a bitter stone. I'm trying hard not to be this person.
Stonefruit has been selected by Q magazine as no. 24 in its list of 50 essential downloads for the month of April. We're quite proud of that.

Dust Devils:
Often a favourite at our shows, our sinister tango Dust Devils contains the line 'You are my lampshade'. Depending on the audience, this dark, twisted song about madness and obsession either shudders into knowing giggles or shuffles into earnest stillness. I'm still not sure where this song came from - I think it started off as a challenge to write a lovesong to household dust. The line about the lampshade was a kind of joke but I left it in to see if anyone would notice.

Faith:
Faith is a soft, prison-break lovesong. The sensitivity of Nick's bass and Rob's drumming here as well as the delicacy of the banjo playing make it a lovely song to end the album with. I love the way you can really hear the enthusiam of the audience at the end. It was the last song we played in the show, and they were asking for more. With their feet.

Kirsty McGee - Honeysuckle 2010- Track by Track

To celebrate the inclusion of the song 'Bliss' on the new live album No.5, we are re-visiting the album the song was first recorded for, Honeysuckle, first released on Fellside records in 2002. We're doing this by making a selection of the songs from the album available as a free download, with new artwork by Manchester artist Peter Seal. The reissue also features a bonus track - the only surviving recording from an earlier album that was never released. Kisrty has had a listen and shared her thoughts on the songs and recordings, eight years on...

Kirsty McGee - Honeysuckle 2010 - Track by Track

2002 was an unsettled year of homelessness, late night bar work, lone hitch hiking, a new flat (with sand on the floor to save the cost of carpet) and a new manager. By the time I recorded Honeysuckle I'd started touring for the first time and had a whole bunch of songs dealing with lost love, Cornwall and the occupational hazard of getting crushes on people whilst being single and working in a bar.

It feels funny revisiting 2002. I have to say I'd probably leap from the time machine if I had to do it for real. Recorded at Woodman Studios, Elland, Yorkshire, Honeysuckle was produced by John Wood (who had previously recorded Nick Drake, Sandy Denny and the McGarrigles) and Clive Gregson (Any Trouble, Gregson & Collister and named as one of Guitar Player Magazine's "1,000 Great Guitarists").

As this was my first 'serious' stint in a recording studio, I made the mistake of going on a fast for the first few days to 'sharpen my reactions'. Needless to say, it did the opposite. John and Clive, sitting in the studio, rechristened "Both Hands on the Wheel" "She needs a good square meal" and it wasn't till the third day, when I took advantage of a full veggie breakfast, that it all began to come together.

I guess you have to learn these things through experience.

Here's my 2010 reaction to the record:

Rich:
An ironic lovesong for a time that probably never deserved a lovesong, Hanging out in late night bars in the late '90s, I had one too many experiences with 'drinking myself uneasy' - on one notable occassion I was so scared of playing at an open mic night that I hid in a cupboard. Listen out for Neill MacColl's soaring electric guitar and the Boo Hewerdine backing choir. I still love the warmth of this one!

Cats' Eyes:
A melancholy late-night driving song with a mesmeric feel to it. It features some lovely melodic double bass played by Geth Griffiths. The flute playing from me on this track was definitely inspired by the records of Honeysuckle producer John Wood's earlier production credit, Nick Drake.

Take What You Need:
A poem for a friend who was leaving town. The sublime string arrangements that lift the chorus on this one are all the work of talented viola player and singer-songwriter Jo Hamilton. The piano is played by Clive Gregson and Neill MacColl contributes some skeletal autoharp.

Skin:
This song started out its life in my father's village of Orba in Spain. One day he took me out on the roof of his house and showed me a flight of pigeons sweeping across the valley. As they passed over the sun, you could see that each one was painted in a bright colour so that they looked less like pigeons and more like parakeets.
This image - of soaring caged birds - stayed with me, as does the spellbinding and haunting guitar work of Neill MacColl. Some lovely piano here from Clive too.

The Wrong Girl:
Another song featuring Neill on electric guitar. Clive contrived a rather nifty key change in this one. I still can't remember the chord I was playing but I remember it was hellishly difficult to get my hands round! On the techie side, I also remember John setting up an old-school tape loop to get the reverb. Rock 'n' roll.

Bliss:  
Something rather peculiar happened when I wrote Bliss. I'd hitched alone to Dorset to see Mike West and Myshkin playing legendary pub The Square and Compass and was sitting in a small two-person tent toying with two incomplete lovesongs.  When the two songs merged I was surprised to find I had one much stronger song. Darkly sensuous and full of genuine heart, Bliss was once described by a Cornish poet as a 'dissolving song'. Recently revisited on No.5 with The Hobopop Collective and sax player Chris Cundy, it remains one of my most popular.

Venice:  
The only time I ever went to Venice, I arrived by train and found myself with tears rolling down my cheeks when I saw my first gondola. This is the only track on Honeysuckle that is entirely solo and was also the hardest to record. I can still hear myself go off-mic on the last note to look down as I reach for those high frets!

Never Can Last:  More unusual guitar from Neill, this time, whistling into the back of a hollow-bodied guitar to generate feedback. Martin Hughes of Any Trouble provides drums and Boo joins me on backing vocals.

She's Got to Travel:  At the time of release, this song drew several comparisons to Beth Gibbons' Portishead. I have fond memories of playing this one on the side of a road near Zennor. I like its simplicity.

10.  Little Things (bonus track) - Recorded in Bolton in 2000 for an earlier and never-to-be-released album (Little Things, Ugly Man Records) after winning studio time in the Northwest Songwriting Competition. In this sparse arrangement I'm joined by Julian Gaskell on electric guitar. I'm still amazed by how high my voice sounds here!...
Before anyone asks, there are no plans to release the rest of this session as, due to homelessness and poor filing, the original recordings have been lost.

The missing songs:
The original album, which was released on Fellside Recordings (FECD170), has three extra tracks, Golden Honeysuckle Rose, The Tuba Player's Wife and Wild Garlic.

A note on the cover:
The original cover features a photograph by Charles Devlin.
The new cover has been re-designed by Peter Seal from his original biro drawings made for the unreleased album Little Things (2000).