VARIOUS ARTISTS - WE DREAM IN SOUND

Released December 2012
TOR35

We've made it! 12 singles in 12 calendar months, each expressing a different take on the possibilities of the 45 single, compiled into a double album.  

Covering nuggets garage to stoner folk to crash politica to spacecut boogie to pop politica to crazy horse rumble to gutter shronk howl to NYC desperation to jjjjjjudder pop to country swoon to prog street African skiffle and back to Garage nuggets as golden as the Cumbrian sun.

 It’s been emotional……. a whirlwind of tears, smiles, spoofs, blood, comedic gesture, growls,  dance moves, collective sighs, swoons and groans – a big thanks to all involved, the orchestra has shown itself to be a collective in the truest sense of the word.

We dream in sound. 2012. Dance to the 45. 2013 keep on shakin'… - Marc

Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?dqwfbf1s13fs37d

THE NIGHTOWL SINGS - STUCKISM (WITH YOU)/WE ARE WALKING GHOSTS

Released December 2012
TOR34

Dropping just in time for the 22nd December celebrations, The Nightowl Sings present an ideal soundtrack for the most important day of the year. Make sure your aluminium pole is standing straight and true afterwards because it's likely to have been knocked sideways by this none-more lo-fi attack of scuzzy guitars, cardboard box drums and cymbals pushing through the red. It's loud, it's bratty, things might get broken, but boy is it invigorating.

Realising that most people are probably feeling a little bit tired of the Christmas spirit by now, The Nightowl Sings present a double blast of aural adrenalin, blasting the icing off the mince pies and the tinsel off the tree – heh, it was too distracting anyway. No children's choir, no bells, no stupid jumpers with reindeers on, “Stuckism (With You)” (fast and messy) and “We Are Walking Ghosts” (slower, still a bit sloppy) are a timely antidote to all the enforced cheer, melody and Paul McCartney that we suffer in December.

So make a stand. Prepare the meatloaf. Make up your list for the Airing of Grievances. Ensure you're limber enough for the Feats of Strength. And put on The Nightowl Sings single, which brings to a close the mighty ambitious We Dream In Sound project (12 months, 12 singles, job's a good 'un). The best thing is, with no reference to any month, day or season, it can be enjoyed all year round. It's a Festivus Miracle!

(Jeremy Bye has donated his fee for writing this to the Human Fund)

Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/stuckism-with-you-we-are-walking-ghosts

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?z1n73ivo4edzo58

STONE TAPE THEORY - WHITE FLASH / DJINN

Released November 2012
TOR33

Code names for secret operations or buzz words for a coming apocalypse, Stone Tape Theory's latest offering is a 12-inch single which provides a soundtrack for deeply paranoid times - it may also be the score to the best science fiction movie you've never seen. Probably based on a Philip K. Dick short story. There are no lyrics though the two tracks crackle and insinuate with snatches of talk - borrowed, tapped or beamed in from other sources, confidential or otherwise, perhaps movies that were never released or official announcements that, once made, were soon forgotten, or erased. These are ghost messages, haunting the fibre of the music. 

The first track, "White Flash", is the more driving and sweeping of the two - edgy, roving like a groovy stealth plane with spy camera attached, picking up aerial shots of the world in abstract, then swooping in close to record moments, events, negotiations, acts of terrorism, lapses of judgement and the steady accumulation of bad faith - capturing both the covert and the mundane, the nefarious, the well intentioned and the clueless, then relaying this imagery back to an underground studio where banks of television screens create a collage of the way the whole thing really works. (Warning : This program may contain flashing imagery.)

The flipside, "Djinn", is more of a slow burner - exotic, seductive and sinister. The snaking, intricately loose and elusive guitar work darting and shimmering - chasing its many tails - almost, but not quite, colliding, creating new possibilities and riddles as it vibrates, like heavy karma in the air. There is surf, early Beefheart, Can and African street music in there, among other things. All in all it becomes an itch you can never quite scratch (perhaps you don't want to), creating patterns that are evocative and insistent, becoming some kind of garbled code before drifting off, gnomically, into inner/outer space.

This is music that paints pictures. Music that sculpts and refashions reality. Music as kinetic art. A sonic handbook for our times. - David Thompson.






Download here : http://www.treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/white-flash-djinn

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?7t23wphooo2hjul

CAT OF TOMORROW - CASHVILLE/BOBBIE GENTRY

Released October 2012

TOR32

The Treehouse family have made no bones about sharing their influences in their songs before, whether it be movies, places or whatever – as much as anything, it is their continuing sense of excitement and discovery that makes the next new release always worth listening to. Musically too, there's frequently the sense of a cap being doffed in the direction of some obscure quarter of their record collection. But this new release goes a little further and is just a little bit special.

 

The Cat of Tomorrow's previous release, Sonic Manga, was all about the stuff he liked, and so's this new single but this one-two hit (it would be a double A-side if released on vinyl, count on it) of "Cashville" and "Bobbie Gentry" pay tribute in word and arrangement. The Cat's put the keyboard and drum machine to one side for this project and picked up his guitar to create a more sympathetic backing for the songs.

If you're too busy to watch Walk The Line, or don't have the time to read “Cash” by Johnny Cash (the favourite book ever of High Fidelity's protagonist, so you really should), then “Cashville” tells you all you need to know about The Man In Black. The music – imagine “Jackson” with Moe Tucker on drums – nails it, too. Seriously, the only thing it lacks is that wasn't recorded in a prison: the Cat's too pretty to survive for long in jail, so he wasn't going to risk it. But you can add your own imaginary whoops and hollers, and you'll stand up to cheer at the end.

The sun beats down and reflects off the river, as a guitar is lazily strummed and a noon-day hymn is sung in praise of Bobbie G. More specifically, listening to “Ode To Billie Joe” on the radio if you lived in Chickasaw County. The Cat's got the atmosphere, and the imagery to a tee here as well, even down to the sad sawing of the cellos to add a little more mystery. Close your eyes and you too will be drifting down the river without a care in the world.

 

So, two tributes to favourite artists both musically and lyrically, capturing their spirit in a way that shows real love and understanding. If you have Cash and Gentry in your collection, you'll want to dig them out again after listening to this and if you don't... you'll be inspired by the Cat of Tomorrow. - Jeremy Bye.

 

 

 

 

 Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/cashville-bobbie-gentry

 

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?52a29nus9eg4f2z

 



VARIOUS ARTISTS - 8 FOLK SONGS

Released September 2012

TOR31

Sometime in 2007, I stepped into Carlisle's best book shop, Bookcase. Down the stairs, where the vinyl and sheet music is stored, I found a pile of books. '104 Folk Songs' is a book of songs recorded by popular folk artists on the Folkways record label. It included lyrics, as well as guitar and banjo chords. The book is from the mid sixties and the songs, as you can imagine, are as old as the hills.

My initial idea was an E.P. of songs taken from the book and recorded by the band I was in at the time, with a facsimile of the cover as artwork. The band broke up before the idea could be fully realised but demos were recorded and some finished versions found their way onto Harbourcoat's final release. 'Bury Me Beneath the Willow Tree', 'The House of the Rising Sun' and 'Naomi Wise' can be found on the '12' mini album among other original songs.

I put the concept to the back of my mind, knowing that eventually I would see it through and last month, the final song was recorded.

The first track to be recorded was my own, 'The Ballad Of Mary Hamilton', recorded in August 2011. I was listening to a lot of acid folk at the time as well as the soundtrack to 'The Wicker Man'. Every folk album needs a murder ballad.

Next up is 'A Horse Named Bill' by Cat Of Tomorrow. Recorded sometime in the Spring, I can recall a boozy evening in Dave's cellar and this was the result, rough edges still there for maximum Harry Smith effect. Mandolin, Banjo and Vocals recorded live on open mics.

Shane was in town for one day in February. We headed to Alastair's house and recorded 'A Hundred Years From Now'. In two takes we got the Guitar and Banjo live track, Shane then added a vocal but the body of this track was put together by Alastair over the summer. Industrial noise, effected birdsong, feedback and other noises make this Whirlaway track a long, strange trip.

Hills! Werewolves! Run! completely abandon the idea of a 'traditional' sounding folk song and '900 Miles' is given the fuzz and speed drum treatment. Desperate, ramshackle, heavy and very nearly derailed. This was recorded in winter 2011.

British Space Program momentarily swap the folk for country on 'Blood On The Saddle'. Another track that was recorded live (apart from Dave's wonderful Harmonica solo) in the cellar. Recorded shortly after I lost my job and was recording like crazy.

The Nightowl Sings take on 'Shady Grove' is probably my favourite track on this release. Kind of experimental Americana, this is sad, slow and sounds just a little fucked up. Recorded in between the albums 'By the Light of the Fallen Moon' and 'Tip the Maps'.

'Bay of Sacremento' finds Old Weird before their recent transition into electro-velvets-kraut, and recalls the hauntology spirit radio of their first release. More ghost than song, a melody dances with the shipping forecast, a mandolin comes in and out of focus and the protagonist expresses his desire to make it to Californ-i-o.

The final song on this release, and the final song to be recorded, is 'Rio Grande' by The Dead West. By now, the notion of 'Folk' is completely forgotten as the band give some real garage psych before a saxophone and effects freak out at the end. Recorded a few weeks ago in August, exactly one year since the first. Dig the symmetry.

This album kills fascists.

- Stephen.





Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/8-folk-songs

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?0ls39bzg4uiclos



THE DEAD WEST - BE MY BOOBY TRAP/SKYE

Released September 2012
TOR30

Be my booby Trap. Trip wire tumbler net pit lion, mushroom cloud on the horizon. Be my Armageddon. Roadside mine or letter bomb, a coma I won't wake up from.

Be the cause, the cause of my downfall.

Be my nemesis. Little big horn, Waterloo, the day they always said I'd rue. Be my cup of hemlock. Man-trap open underfoot, the big hole in my parachute.

Be the rocks, the rocks I'm shipwrecked on.

I don't want to escape or to second guess fate. When the fuse starts to burn, I'll just sit here and wait. Should the sirens call, no, I won't resist at all. And if I chance to fall, don't catch me.

Be my lookless leap. Ton of bricks banana skin, a game that I don't want to win. Be my coup de grace. Little death I can't stop chasing, fatal lapse in concentration.

Be the end, the end I'm heading for.

***

Well, folks, we're at the three-quarters stage in our 'We Dream In 45' project, and we celebrate September with a new platter from The Dead West. "Be My Booby Trap" is the purest pop song I've written for a while. I was aiming for a glam rock stomper in a kind of Super Furry Animals style (and that's how I sold it to Marc and Ste) but it actually came out more like XTC, if they were a garage band. It's a masochistic love song, which is a more common sub-genre than you might think. The longing for someone who you know is going to be bad news for you in the end. L'Amour Fou, if you like. And of course it's also a shopping list song and, let's face it, an excuse to metaphor like crazy.
 
"Skye" is an indie pop tune with a country heart (or is it the other way around?) Difficult to tell and, anyway, it doesn't really matter. Let's just say hip-hip-hooray for the hybrid, the sui generis, the goddamn musical equivalent of a chimera. "Skye" is inspired, in turn, by the Band's "Music From Big Pink" and, like that great album, it demonstrates a freshness, vitality and willingness to ignore the rule book whenever it feels like it (while knowing exactly what those rules are and actually being quite fond of them, when all is said and done). Let's just say this tune wastes none of its 2 minutes and 50 seconds (just right, but still not long enough), mutating as it goes along to surprise you every time you listen to it and - I'll bet you what you like - when it ends, you'll just want to listen to it again. Which is exactly what I advise you to do. - David.





Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/be-my-booby-trap-skye

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?liqoncjcvqhgh94

THE NIGHTOWL SINGS - TIP THE MAPS

Released September 2012
TOR29

I hope y'all like your music with a layer of scuzzy distortion because that's what you'll get with The Nightowl Sings. You'll get a lot more, of course, but the dirty, grimey, garagey sound is what hits you from the off. Yeah, maybe it does sound like someone's Fall-en onto the Pavement but there's no denying the power of the songs, three minutes (give or take) of no-fi grunged-up garage rock that aims for the gut and the throat simultaneously. You can almost hear the dirt crunch under their boots as they plough through these golden nuggets.

This is the scuzzbuzz-buzzing-in-the-eardrum end of the Treehouse oeuvre, songs that were recorded in less time that it takes to listen to 'em, guitars distorted beyond all recognition, the vocal takes done by shouting in a tin can with a string attached to the 4-track. Probably. The drums are sloppy as all get out, but that's OK too, they propel the tunes with a certain devil-may-care swing. And it's all about capturing a moment rather than perfection.

But it's not all fuzzfuzzfuzz by any stretch, oh no, particularly in the second half of Tip The Maps. The atmospheric piano pieces “Dukebox Ghosts” act as moments of calm throughout, and there's a whole bunch of Marc-at-the-guitar-late-at-night songs. “Black Medicine” and “You Can Talk To Me” find him in wracked fine voice, all the fancy sounds put to one side, a touch of world-weariness hanging around the songs like cigarette smoke in a jazz club in the 1950s. On the closing “Stars” the multi-tracked choir swirl around like so many broken angels trying to claw their way back upstairs. At which point it's tempting to go back to the beginning and get a refreshing blast from the electric guitar of doom.

The disparate sounds on Tip The Maps are pulled together into the lengthy centrepiece “10 Minutes from Olympia” which manages the trick of sounding languid and frantic at the same time, the varied movements unified through the spirit of the radio. What starts of like a swingin' little tune morphs into a percussive free jazz blow-out, those drums getting a crack at the centre stage whilst a sax parps desperately in the distance. There's no recovery here, just the laughter of a band comfortable in the knowledge they've pushed an idea as far as it'll go, and then a bit further just to be sure. Excellent music all round, and a tip of the cap is the least they deserve. - Jeremy Bye.




Here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/releases

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?auwbyd9c2qq1jul

Hey everybody.

Treehouse Orchestra Recordings now has a Bandcamp page. All of our releases are there for free download, although now you can have your lo-fi classics in flac, wav etc.

Check it out : www.treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com

From now on each new release will be posted on both sites simultaneously.

In other news, the most recent We Are The Wooden Houses release, Island Of Death / Halloween Haarp, has had an independent review over at A Closer Listen.

Read it here : http://acloserlisten.com/2012/08/28/we-are-the-wooden-houses-halloween-haarpisland-of-death/

Ste.

OLD WEIRD - JUST KIDS/LIKE SUBTERRANEANS

Released August 2012

TOR28

On the road. On the run. The last romantic couple. You and me against the world. A world in graint black-and-white with a lonesome plastic bag caught in the wind, as if possessed. Or maybe in wide-screen and Technicolour (if Nick Ray is involved, and why wouldn't he be?) Teen melodrama on the edge of the apocalypse. Rockabilly and New York punk, Gene Vincent, The Velvets and Suicide. Patti and Robert. Jack and Alene. Leo and Mardou (leave them alone). There's always a young guy - sensitive, romantic, cynical, acting tough but inside brittle and confused, the world never good enough for him, always breaking it's promises, forever letting him down. And there's a girl (there has to be) - radiant but melancholy, vibrant yet aloof, fragile and a little crazy, here and then gone, part of the world but also an escape route from it, tainted by association (by contact, by implication) but somehow pure...untouched. And so these two will find each other - maybe only for a little while, perhaps for the rest of their  lives. Whichever it is, they'll never forget their time together and what it meant (everything), memories and moments tattooed on each others hearts, or a photographic image burnt on their souls. Indelible. Indestructible. And we will watch, read, talk about their adventures, their passion, endlessly, until they become part of our own autobiography. Those crazy bebop evenings we spent in New York and 'Frisco with Adam and Carmody and Leroy. With Andy, Lou, John, Sterling and Mo. With Holly and Candy and Little Joe. With Harry Smith in the Chelsea Hotel. When we were kids (just kids), young, reckless and hungry for life. And the world was a big, crazy firework, endlessly exploding in the nocturnal sky of our imagination. - David.



Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/just-kids-like-subterraneans

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?dbzn8b4nn8o55ey

HILLS! WEREWOLVES! RUN! - THE TRAP/BLUE DAYDREAM

Released July 2012
TOR27

“No unifying me…no unifying dreams.”

We recorded this during the same sessions as the last album ‘Hills! Werewolves! Run! 3’. (The front cover is also from the same photo sessions, taken at Kingsmoor nature reserve north.) It was the obvious choice for the single, the only choice really, these were the only two songs to clock in at under 9 minutes.

“It’s a trap!”

The A side takes it’s theme from the Adam Curtis documentary of the same name. Interesting times. Where do you channel your disappointment / rage / disapproval? Just don’t channel apathy into the ground. Nothing will grow there.

“This is how…we disappear.”

The B side is a short instrumental. In less than two minutes it kind of sums up Hills! Werewolves! Run! Noisy, burning down your fucking house, one direction (down). This is the most natural music I’ve made and I’m glad it’s at 100mph falling to pieces as it re-enters reality direct from our souls and brains to the vibration we call sound. An aural manifesto. - Ste.





Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/the-trap-blue-daydream

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?630thubrifcgsbs

WE ARE THE WOODEN HOUSES - ISLAND OF DEATH & HALLOWEEN HAARP

Released June 2012
TOR25

1. Cursed Revenant
2. Beechead
3. Kora
4. Expansion Dig
5. Lilith

Released June 2012
TOR26

1. Vampire Skeleton    Mystery
2. Trembling Hands
3. Cloudy
4. Witchs Cat
5. The Sky (Is Falling In)
6. Oak Island Rag
7. Cease To Exist
8. Hour Of The Rose








From the autumn of 2011 to the spring of this year I was recording tracks for what would become the next We Are The Wooden Houses release. When it came time to compile those tracks for a release I soon realised that the resulting album would be too long for one disc and certainly too much for one listen. What to do?

These two releases come together. They are separate entities packaged as one, hence the individual catalogue numbers. The physical release has two slip cases in one gatefold sleeve and is limited to 25 copies.

The music : Everything from previous Wooden Houses releases is represented here. There are solo guitar pieces (Lilith, Cloudy, Oak Island Rag), Acid/Free/Psychedelic Folk (The Sky Is Falling In, Beechead), full blown psych (Vampire Skeleton Mystery) and some soundtrack music without a movie (Expansion Dig).

'Kora' and 'Witchs Cat' are a little different. They both began as improvisational jams and had layers of overdubs applied for consideration later on. Not knowing what to do I approached Alastair (Stone Tape Theory) for help and they quickly turned into full collaborations. Both retain their eastern raga beginnings but with the addition of a second mind remixing and composing, plus looping of drum tracks and the addition of samples they sound quite unlike anything from previous releases.

Alastair also has two compositional credits on these releases with 'Cursed Revenant' and 'Hour Of The Rose'. These tracks were made up from unused overdubs, loops and effected parts of existing songs.

Most of this music is instrumental and the majority was initially composed late at night while watching movies. The original concept was to fuse John Fahey, DJ Shadow and John Carpenter. While that concept has been strayed from I think you can still hear it. I hope you like it. - Ste.





Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com


Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?qvnm75530mqam2r


A Closer Listen review :

http://acloserlisten.com/2012/08/28/we-are-the-wooden-houses-halloween-haarpisland-of-death/

THE DEAD WEST - DRIFTERS PASS/ALL FOOLS DAY

Released June 2012

TOR24

…anyhow, ramshackle down-home two-step, yearning but hopeful, heading down the road, maybe stopping off for some fried eggs and country ham, but carrying on, always moving towards the hungry horizon - doesn’t the American Dream go something like this though nobody ever talks about it (in case it goes away or takes its mask off and turns out to be just another snakes-oil merchant trying to sell you something you don’t need) but soon morphing into Old Shakey & his Crazy Horse in all their ragged glory – oh to be warm again (you will be one day, child, you will be)…

…meanwhile on a riverboat down on the Old Mississippi, it’s a little more relaxed, like down in Cashville, though there’s still some darkness in those old chords and harmonies – anyways, there’s a lot of folks walking around in all kinds of finery pretending to be themselves (maybe that’s what identity is) but not always succeeding (maybe that’s what life is) but the river flows – it don’t care – its been here before though it doesn’t really remember (you can never stand in the same river again) this is how the country survives - constant movement, rebirth and amnesia - so we carry on playing this game ‘cos it’s in our nature and its so much easier than being honest with ourselves and one another (amen to that and pass the potatoes/pass the biscuits) ALL ABOARD THE SHIP OF FOOLS - ALWAYS ROOM FOR ONE MORE…





Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/drifters-pass-all-fools-day

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?5xhd1h2haaoaxt2

HILLS! WEREWOLVES! RUN! - HILLS! WEREWOLVES! RUN! 3

Released June 2012

TOR23

Two friends are stood in an independent record store sifting through the latest releases, wedged between the reissue of Sleep's ‘Dopesmoker’ and Charalambides ‘A Vintage Burden’ is the latest TOR album release by Hills! Werewolves! Run! called ‘3’. Friend (x) pulls out the release and looks closely at the cover, a figure in a dark cloak looks outward from a beguiling wooded scene. It’s reminiscent of Black Sabbath covers from the early 1970’s. Friend (xx) stares at the cover too, taking in the rural dystopia and dread the cover evokes, for a moment the two friends are joined together in quiet contemplation as their minds wander off. The silence is broken as Jack Rose’s ‘Raag Manifestos’ begins to drift out from the stores stereo system. The friends speak..

Friend (x) still holding the cover : I heard about this record, a friend downloaded it the other week…..

Friend (xx) : What’s it like?…..

Friend (x) : I heard its kinda ……………….avant garde jazz metal…….(cough)……….with bits of strung out guitar picking, spoken word samples, e-bow, violin, distorted sax….. a bit stoner rock but not if you know what I mean………I think it only has four tracks, pretty long mind, two of them loud, two of them quiet……..my friend said it was a bit fucked up….in a good way.

Friend (xx): Huh!

Friend (x): You know……Sun Ra meets Sabbath meets James Blackshaw...(laughs)

Friend (xx): I see.

Friend (x): Or mabye Parson Sound getting it together with early Floyd to cover Sylvester Anfang...

Friend (xx) : mmm…….do you like Bo Diddley?

- Marc.





Download here : http://treehouseorchestrarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/hills-werewolves-run-3

Or here : http://www.mediafire.com/?rbdc3b872j7696e

Read an independent review at A Closer Listen here :

http://acloserlisten.com/2012/06/01/hills-werewolves-run-3/

Hello readers,

A few months ago Marc and Ste from the Treehouse Orchestra were interviewed for the Soundcheck section of our city's local newspaper. The interview is online in full here :

http://carlislemusiccity.co.uk/treehouse-orchestra-recordings-branch-out/

Many thanks to Adam Lewis for his kindness and enthusiasm.

While you're there check out the attractions for the forthcoming Carlisle Music City event (June 4-10). Carlisle Music City is a not for profit organisation dedicated to boosting the music scene in Carlisle. Free music, an ethically sound motivation and Death In Vegas, what's not to like?

Check it out: http://carlislemusiccity.co.uk/

Ste.

THE INFERNOS - YOU ARE FREE TO DO AS WE TELL YOU/DON'T BE A SQUARE

Released May 2012
TOR22

Stop! Is this 1984? Can you tell me, I'm not sure. 'Cos we've seen this all before. Is it Déjà vu all over again or is time an illusion (and time spent under Tory rule even more so)? If you feel you have seen it all before - recession, high unemployment, industrial action riot, sleaze, sabre rattling over the Falklands and Tory ministers telling us to get on  our (insert your vehicular contrivance of choice) to find work - then you are not alone. Welcome the newest additions to The Treehouse Orchestra - The Infernos (featuring Dan T) - to provide the soundtrack to a strangely familiar and ever so smugly horrible state of affairs. But, let us not forget that 1984 was also the last hurrah of post punk and a time when pop music could also be political and engage with the events of the time (yes kids, you really should try this at home). It may have been hell on earth but at least it had a pretty good soundtrack. If the Gang Of Four graphics on the cover don't tip you off straightaway, the jerky, belligerent and witty agit-pop of "You Are Free To Do As We Tell You", soon will. With Its "Is it just me or has the world gone fucking crazy - again?" attitude, tragi-comic swagger and berserker toy-town guitar solos, this tune provides the musical accompaniment that 1984 (part 2 - special coalition edition) deserves.  Oh yes, and you also get an appearance by one Bill Hicks. Don't say we don't spoil you. The flip side, "Don't Be A Square", makes the personal political - a put-down that is also a love song (and vice versa) a wonderfully rollicking, irrepressible pop song, with ants in it's pants, backing vocals that manage to be both hectoring and camp at the same time and more pop culture references that you can shake a post-modernist stick at. Come on, baby, don't be a square. Turn it up, let yourself go and dance. The bastards can't take that away from you. - David

Download here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?w0m71vri5dndqve

BRITISH SPACE PROGRAM - SURF'S DOWN (PART 1) / SURF'S DOWN (PART 2)

Released April 2012
TOR21

This dear listeners is the first TOR release by British Space Program, and what a joy it is. A single in two parts, making a spiritual whole. POP and experimental, light and shade, definitions and a sea of possibilities. Surf's Down (Part 1) opens with Ukulele and the best whistling since Jimmy Rodgers was roaming Kentucky. From this most endearing start a bright and breezy pop song bursts forth. Yes, This is POP via Cherry Red, 'I Often Dream of Trains' era Robyn Hitchcock, Cluster and K Records. Words yearn for the right girl, the right town, the right type of sunshine. It is a beautiful evocation of a certain type of Northern English melancholy. The feeling that whilst our dreams may always be just beyond reach, their is always the radio, which if your lucky, may be tuned into the world of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. In this moment of kinship we can dream again and sail away.

Surf's Down (Part 2) finds us floating on gentle waves, we can hear our heartbeat skip to the world around us. Then the mood changes, we are now on land as we feel the pulse of the industrial world. We walk through the undergrowth, reminded of all those Warp releases, loft spaces filled with Korgs and static, those '74 Munich shows we read about. We are afraid and confused, for sometimes this is how POP music makes us feel. And even though we can't explain why - this alien world we find ourselves in feels like home...- Marc

Download here :

http://www.mediafire.com/?qk85k5w41z48yzy

THE DEAD WEST - 49 CASTLES/LOOSE AND GIDDY

Released March 2012
TOR20

A. Go search the dustbin. 49 castles. Raise yer diluted pupils. cough. Bring down the Government. Stay in your armchair. Your arrested. For what. For nothing. Mudhoney. Fuzz bass so big it hurtzzz. Go find yer country, its yours, its ours. Electric white boy blues (black). Kill the president (Prime Minister) with love and dirt. Don’t roll over. Revel in irrelevance and sanity. Call the cops. Tell yer sister about ‘Sister’, death valley 2012. Suck on a 7 inch and scream. Go find yer country, its yours, its ours (everyone). Don’t give up yer soulman, kill pussycat kill. Make some noise and rejoice. Kiss me underground.  /////////////////////////////////////////////// B. Loose and Giddy, that hood don’t suit yer eyes, I love you, go smoke a cigarette………..outside/inside/outside/inside/outside. Violin, a friend to sing so sweet. Give thanks. A room of ones own you know. Country waltz with no rednecks. Things happen, shit happens. Ballrooms decay but we still dance slowwwwwwww. Physical, feel flows. ‘Progressive old time’ with no dust allowed to settle. Backroads in yer mind, kind couplets for others not met. Like a romance up in the air with strangers. Give out to all. To all. Streetlights don’t lift the gloom, you do, electricity if you want it. - Marc.

Download here :

http://www.mediafire.com/?72v83eie80aaq09

WE ARE THE WOODEN HOUSES - BRIGHT YELLOW SUN/3 A.M. LOVE SONG

Released February 2012

TOR19

Two releases into our We Dream In 45 program for 2012 and the scope and diversity of the pop single is already vividly demonstrated. Last time around we were in Indie-land, with the sad sacks and the dreamers, whooping it up and dancing like crazy then reflecting afterwards on what it all amounted to. This time, we're in the woods and it's getting dark. Originally the superb closing track of The Nightowl Sings album "By the Light Of the Fallen Moon", "Bright Yellow Sun" is here a different animal altogether. How to do a great cover version? - simple really, make it sound like a totally different song, the same being in a strange parallel universe all of it's own. Where the original came on like a pixelated, cracker-barrel philosopher spinning a moonshine tall-tale, We Are The Wooden Houses evoke an intense Fahey-style wander through the darkness. It's all come close and I'll tell you, if you really want to know, but don't hold me responsible for the words once they're out there.
The flip side, "3 a.m. Love Song", perfectly fulfils the promise of it's title. We're out of the woods now - but only just - stumbling out into the night, tired and restless, maybe a little stoned. It's a little town or village, out on the fringes - a lot of us came from a place like that (maybe we're still living there) - somewhere like Consett or Silloth. You make your own excitement in those kinds of places and it isn't always fun or particularly pretty. Maybe it's just wandering around looking for laughs or hash or some kind of revelation, however slight or fleeting. And there are the local characters and the familiar buildings and streets, warped and made a little strange by the drink or drugs or our youthful hopes and dreams. And the music itself, in amongst all of that, sounds a little like an imagined collaboration between Ray Davies and Donovan - both deadpan and trippy, clear-eyed and cosmic. Incantatory bells and smoky guitars creating beauty in the fog.
Both tracks create their own world and, if you listen long and hard enough, these worlds become our own. A shared autobiography. Sparse instrumentation - words, chords, mood and shadow - paint a universe. Intimate yet vast. The ghost in the machine is (always) art. - David.


Download here :

http://www.mediafire.com/?r3l1riwdlngwj2b

THE NIGHTOWL SINGS - START OF THE CENTURY/SADCORE BEDROOM HITZ

Released January 2012
TOR18

Happy new year to you all out there who still dream in 45 and welcome to our twelve month journey to explore the delights and possibilities of the pop single. Every month in 2012 we will release a single from the artists here at Treehouse Orchestra. When I say single, I of course mean a 7" plastic disc to be played at 45rpm with a song on each side (A and B or double A if you're really lucky), contained in a sleeve with a cool cover which makes you just want to buy it (whether you like the picture or the design, the name of the band, the song titles, whatever) or because you heard it on the radio or because a friend won't stop raving about it. Whatever it is, you have to hand over your money and take it home. Because that's what we're talking about here, the experience we're trying to recreate, the artifact that we wish to celebrate and invoke. You Have it in your hands now. January's offering comes courtesy of The Nightowl Sings and it illustrates pretty much straightaway exactly what I'm talking about. Side one is "Start of the Century". A call to arms, a 'word up' - but one you can dance to! It whoops, it hollers, it makes a noise and it wants you to move your feet and shake your body. Hell, it wants you to know you're alive and, for god's sake, have a good time. It is resolutely lo-fi, romantic and pleased as fuck to be here. Then flip the record over and you have "Sadcore Bedroom Hitz" - more reflective, perhaps a little melancholy - part memoir/part manifesto/part affirmation (remember the Breakfast Club and the Berlin Wall coming down - of course you do). This is a life, a way of looking at the world. Both songs do what the pop song does at it's best. What it's saying and how it says it are really the same thing. It is what it does. So live with these songs for a while and take them into your hearts. Ladies and gentlemen, this is pop!!! - David

Download here :

http://www.mediafire.com/?pesqqd0c7h4jimc

We dream in 45!!! We all love singles, don’t we? You know, with artwork (remember those Smiths singles), an A-side and a B-side, those capsules sent to us weekly by artists we barely knew. Singles can be everything and nothing, you can write a manifesto from them, or just dance, or listen to the wonky B-side that makes no sense on repeat. So far the Treehouse Orchestra Recordings has only released E.P.’s and albums, but now we want to take that twisted jukebox aesthetic further. Over the next twelve months we will endeavour to release a single each month for free download, each release will have an A-side and B-side and artwork, it will be just like those seven inch records you couldn’t part with even though you didn’t have a record player any more. It’s a salute to those pre-Beatles Joe Meek singles, to Motown and Stax, to Nuggets, to Rough Trade, K and D.F.A. and all those other labels and artists who dreamed in 45. Go dance, and if you can’t pour yourself a stiff one, then do it again…….