Wojtek The Bear is an incredibly unusual name for a band.
The backstory can be read in full here on wiki, but in short, Wojtek was a bear cub who was found in 1942, who was adopted and raised by soldiers in the Polish Army, and who lived the latter part of his life in Edinburgh Zoo, passing away at the age of 21 in 1963.
The name has now been adopted by five Glasgow-based musicians, whose third album is scheduled for release in early 2024. The band, consisting of Tam Killean (vocals), Graham Norris (lead guitar), Paul Kirkwood (bass, vocals), Martin McClements (drums) and Becky Cheminais (violin) have been around for about five years, with the debut album A Talent For Being Unreasonable coming out on Scottish Fiction Records in 2018.
The band were a quartet at the time, but having guested on a number of the songs on the debut, Becky was asked to join by the time everyone went into the studio to record the follow-up, Heaven By The Back Door, which was issued by Last Night From Glasgow in 2021.
They make the sort of intelligently enjoyable indie-pop that has never quite gone out of fashion, certainly in the environs of Villain Towers, and I’m only sorry it was taken so long, and their appearance in this long-running series, for them to debut on the blog. Rest assured that when the new album, Shaking Hands With The NME is made available to buy, it will be getting well mentioned and plugged. I should mention that the new album, which will again be on Last Night From Glasgow, was produced by Stephen Street, which is usually a sign of quality.
To make up for them not featuring in the past, here’s a song from each of the two previous albums.
mp3: Wojtek The Bear – Made Out Of Maps (from A Talent For Being Unreasonable)
mp3: Wojtek The Bear -One Things’s For Certain (from Heaven By The Backdoor)
Ach…. let’s go the whole hog. The band recently released a video to showcase what will be the debut single from the third album.
It’s rather wonderful, isn’t it??
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
To my shame, I’ve been a LNFG member for a year and this are the first songs I’ve heard by Wojtek The Bear.
In fairness, having membership access to the LNFG vault means that there’s been just so much music to dive into, in addition to the regular deliveries of lovely new vinyl, so I simply hadn’t got to them yet. My loss.
I liked all three songs, I’ll get to Heaven By The Backdoor sooner rather than later now and I’ll look forward to receiving Shaking Hands With The NME in 2024. Renewing my LNFG membership was one of the easiest decisions I’ve had to make this year…!
JC, thanks as always for another great entry in this truly epic series.
Unashamed puffery. I like it.
Flimflamfan
Yes, rather wonderful. It’s a shame buying records from the UK has become almost impossible with added VAT, shipping and customs. Double the purchase price is normally where it ends up.
Maybe need to look for a Glasgow trip next spring, always wanted to visit Scotland anyway.
Love it. Solid entry for Trumpets #4.