Category: Alison Eales

Alison Eales has featured a few times on the blog over the past year, but she’s never been part of this series.

This is another one entry where the musician qualifies under the residency rules.  Alison is from north-east England, but she has lived, studied and worked for decades in Glasgow.

A quick reminder that she’s long been more than just the keyboard player with Butcher Boy, having been immersed in music her entire life, to the extent that she achieved a PhD a few years back, with her thesis offering a critical history of the Glasgow Jazz Festival from its inception in 1987 through to 2015. She sings with the Glasgow Madrigirls, a 40-strong choir closely associated with Glasgow University and whose work has featured on a number of film and television soundtracks. And of course, over the past 18 months, has released an album and an EP via the London-based label, Fika Recordings.

mp3: Alison Eales – Rain Song

One of the four tracks to be found on Four For A Boy, the EP which was released back in March.  Click here to make a physical purchase (with added bookmark and badge) direct from Alison.

Or if digital is more your thing….click here.

JC

Mox Nox, the debut album from Alison Eales, was one of my favourite releases of 2023.

I am delighted that this ridiculously talented musician has followed it up with a 4-track EP, Four For A Boy, now available digitally and on 7″ vinyl courtesy of Fika Recordings.

The songs have been co-written by Alison and a very good friend of hers going back decades, Garry Hoggan, and as with last year’s album, it has been produced by Paul Savage of The Delgados.  The lead song is Minuet, described by its authors as ‘a minimalist love song that pits its protagonists against zombies and nanobots’.

The other three songs are every bit as wonderful, and it all adds up to a charming, delightful and essential release.

I’ve purchased three additional EPs for the purpose of offering them as prizes in the latest TVV competition…..so, to possibly get your hands on a free copy of Four For A Boy, please come up with the correct answer to the following question:-

For which Glasgow-based indie-band does Alison Eales play keyboards?

Send your answer to the blog e-mail address – the vinylvillain@hotmail.co.uk – but please include your full name and address so that I can work out postage costs should you be lucky. (I promise that all the emails will be deleted afterwards so that I don’t keep any of your personal info).

The closing date is Saturday 31 March.  Good luck etc.

JC

The fourth of an occasional feature in which I’ll draw your attention to some albums that have been purchased in 2023 and which I reckon are worth highlighting. This one will come as no surprise to anyone who is a regular visitor to TVV and has been paying attention.  It’s an album that came out in March on Fika Recordings.

The debut album from Alison Eales is an absolute doozy, twelve wonderfully crafted and delivered musical gems which draw from the many genres in which this superbly talented musician has been involved over the years.

She is best known as the keyboardist in Butcher Boy, one of the best and most underrated bands to emerge out of Scotland in recent times, but she is also a long-standing member of the Glasgow Madrigirls, a choral society whose live output encompasses a huge range of music such as  classical, medieval, world, folk and chapel.  The Madrigirls grew out of an initiative at Glasgow University, and Alison is a bit of an academic too, having gained a doctorate thanks to a ground-breaking thesis on the history of the Glasgow Jazz Festival, which earlier this year enjoyed its 37th edition.

There was every chance that Mox Nox was going to be an album of quality, and so it proved.  I did review it on release (not something I’m in the habit of doing, but I will make exceptions for friends) and mentioned that the publicists at Fika had suggested it would likely appeal to fans of Saint Etienne, The Magnetic Fields, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stereolab, Jake Thackray and Kirsty MacColl, all of which gives an indication of the depth of influences that have impacted on the songs and the ways they have been recorded and arranged.

It’s an album which, from the opening notes of its first song, grabs and holds your attention throughout.

mp3: Alison Eales – Rapunzel

The voice is angelic, the instrumentation is of the utmost quality and the production, courtesy of Paul Savage of The Delgados, is perfection personified.   It’s the beginning of what proves to be a genuinely captivating album.

It’s an impossible task to put this record into a single category.  There are a number of examples of chamber-pop, not least on Ever Forward in which Alison sings while accompanied by a string quartet, while the track selected as lead-off single Fifty-Five North has the catchiest of choruses to a tune that many an indie-pop band would kill for.

It must also be one of the few songs to have been inspired in part by the Glasgow Subway,  the city’s underground rail system, which opened in 1896 (third-oldest in Europe after London and Budapest) and has never expanded beyond its initial design of a 10.5km loop around the city, but only taking in the west end and south side.

It’s a gentle-paced album for the most part and a couple of the ballads, including the title track, are examples  of songs that just seem to grow in stature with every listen.

Alison’s sense of self-deprecating humour shines through on a few occasions, not least in the album closer Come Home With Me, a jaunty number, in which the art of seduction finds itself reeling in the face of candidness:-

I don’t have much to offer in my flat
I can’t tell the cobwebs from the cracks
The kitchen’s full of rotting fruit
Up we crawl and then it’s all downhill to ill repute

Part of the reason for pulling this mini-series together is to perhaps offer up some ideas for Christmas gifts, either for yourselves or to buy for someone who you think might really enjoy the sort of music being suggested.

If Mox Nox is of appeal, then please feel free to click on this bandcamp page.

JC

I hope some of you will recall a posting from earlier this year when I got all excited by the impending release of Mox Nox, the debut album by Alison Eales, best known for multi-instrumental work, but mainly keyboards, with Butcher Boy.

It’s coming up for four weeks since the record, on Fika Recordings, was made available, during which time Alison has played a handful of gigs as part of the promotional efforts.

I’ve held back from offering my thoughts on the album until now.   I’ve done so for the simple reason that having been ridiculously impressed with its contents on the first few listens, I thought it would be best to shy away from a review on the basis that some of the more cynical out there might have been thinking, ‘well, he would say that, wouldn’t he, given he’s good friends with the musician’.

But my repeated listens to Vox Nox have been without prejudice.  I think a lot of my delight comes from the fact that, despite the fact she has roped in a few of her bandmates to help out on some of its 12 songs – Basil Pieroni plays guitar on four of them, while Maya Burman-Roy and Cat Robertson add cello and violin to a number of other tracks – the album very much stands on its own as a vehicle for Alison’s previously (seemingly) hidden talents in the singing and songwriting departments, given she hasn’t had too much obvious input into those particular activities in her years with Butcher Boy. 

I mentioned back in January, at the time when lead-off single Fifty-Five North was given a digital and promo video release, that Alison had spent many years working away quietly and below-the-radar on her solo material.  Part of this involved her going along to open-mic evenings across various Glasgow venues and locations, gauging the reaction of audiences to her performances. It’s as tough an environment as you could possibly imagine, but it has all proven to be very worthwhile as it enabled her to enter a recording studio from where she would emerge with a set of songs that have an incredible degree of maturity and confidence, perfectly polished up by the talents of Paul Savage behind the desk. 

Mox Nox is a superb album that I know will be among my favourite releases in 2023.  The publicists at Fika, in the material they sent out along with review copies, said it was an album that was likely to appeal to fans of  Saint Etienne, The Magnetic Fields, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stereolab, Jake Thackray and Kirsty MacColl, which gives an indication of the depth of influences that have impacted on the songs and the ways they have been recorded and arranged.  It’s an indie-pop album laced liberally with chamber-pop; a string quartet is utilised on one song, while others make use of flute, glockenspiel, autoharp, dulcimer and kalimba.

Incidentally, I’m not alone in falling for the charms of Mox Nox. 

Ed Jupp, in a terrific review over at God Is In The Zine, calls it ‘brilliantly accomplished’ and states that listeners are ‘probably unlikely to hear many records as individual as this album this year’.

The unnamed reviewer at BluesBunny opens with ‘There are things that make life worthwhile. Things like beer, curry and 4.2 litre V8 petrol engines. Things like Alison Eales and her album “Mox Nox”’, before commending Alison for ‘doing what many would consider unfashionable and that is making an album for grownups.’

Jason Anderson, in giving the album 7/10 in Uncut magazine, calls it a ‘charming debut album’ in which Alison’s ‘affecting vocals and atypical instrument choices help steer these songs away from the tried and twee’.

Here’s an opportunity to listen to the lead single. An ode to Glasgow from someone who is not a native but now calls it home after many years of studying, performing and working. 

mp3: Alison Eales – Fifty-Five North

The album might well be available in an independent store close to where you live, but your best bet might well be bandcamp, where it is retailing for £20 while the digital copy is £7. Click here.

JC

Last year’s compilation album You Had A Kind Face was the first time Butcher Boy had released new music since 2017, but you have to go all the way back to 2011 for when a fully formed LP was released.

The void will be filled in to an extent this coming March, thanks to the debut solo record from the band’s keyboardist, Alison Eales.

Alison is actually much more than a keyboardist.  She’s been immersed in music her entire life, to the extent that she achieved a PhD a few years back, with her thesis offering a critical history of the Glasgow Jazz Festival from its inception in 1987 through to 2015.  She sings with the Glasgow Madrigirls, a 40-strong choir closely associated with Glasgow University and whose work has featured on a number of film and television soundtracks.  Oh, and anyone who has ever caught Butcher Boy live on stage will know her backing vocals are an important element to many of the songs.

She has been working away, in a low-key manner, on her solo material for many years, hoping that her dream of landing a deal with a record company would allow the songs to one day see the light of day.  The dream is about to become a reality, thanks to London-based Fika Recordings where she joins an impressive roster of artists that includes, among others, Darren Hayman, The Just Joans, Randolph’s Leap and The Smittens.

Mox Nox is the name of the debut album, and it comes out, digitally and on vinyl, on 24 March.  It was recorded at the famous Chem 19 studios with in-house producer Paul Savage of The Delgados at the helm.  A video for its first single, Fifty-Five North, has just been released:-

It really is a lovely piece of music, with a hint of some of the gentler sounds that were occasionally offered by the late Kirsty MacColl. It’s an ode to Glasgow from someone who is not a native but now calls it home after many years of studying, performing and working. 

Alison will be performing at two shows (matinée and evening) this coming Saturday, the 14th of January, at the Lexington in London, on a bill alongside Ballboy and The Just Joans, while I’m intending to get along to the 13th Note in Glasgow on Thursday 19 January where she opens at a show for the launch of the new album by local band, Marshall Chipped.

I’ve already put in my pre-order for Alison’s album, and I’ll no doubt give it a review on TVV in due course.  If the debut single is anything to go by, then it’s something to look forward to.

JC