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Kenneth McMurtrie

Kenneth McMurtrie

Full Time Hobby Turns 10 In 2014

 

The Full Time Hobby label will have been on the go for ten years by the time October 2014 rolls around so needless to say celebratory activities are on the cards.

The following gigs will take place in London along with the release of the two disc compilation album What The Hell Are You Doing?, featuring cover art from David Shrigley (track listing at the bottom of this article).

14th Oct: Timber Timbre @ Shepherds Bush Empire

16th Oct: Tunng & Diagrams @ Purcell Room (Southbank Centre)

17th Oct: Erland & The Carnival @ Purcell Room (Southbank Centre) 

19th Oct: The Leisure Society perform The Sleeper & Smoke Fairies @ QEH (Southbank Centre)

All shows are dedicated to the memory of Benjamin Curtis (Sept 23, 1978 – Dec 29, 2013)

Inspired by such classic independents as Elektra, Sub Pop, Creation and Rough Trade, Full Time Hobby began in 2004 with the aim of releasing music it truly loved and that needed its support. Featuring songs from Tunng, The Hold Steady, Malcolm Middleton, The Leisure Society, White Denim, Erland & The Carnival, Smoke Fairies and many more plus that special David Shrigley artwork What The Hell Are You Doing?: A Full Time Hobby Tenth Anniversary Compilation is a true declaration of independence.

What The Hell Are You Doing? tracklisting:-

Disc 1

    Viva Voce – Alive With Pleasure                   
    Autolux – Turnstile Blues                               
    Tunng – Bullets                                                          
    Malcolm Middleton – We’re All Going To Die                       
    White Denim – Let’s Talk About It                 
    School of Seven Bells – Iamundernodisguise 
    The Hold Steady – Massive Nights                 
    Fujiya & Miyagi – Knickerbocker                  
    The Accidental – Wolves                                
    Micah P. Hinson – When We Embraced                      
    Erland & The Carnival – Trouble In Mind      
    The Leisure Society – Last of the Melting Snow          

Disc 2

    Timber Timbre – Demon Host                        
    Hooded Fang – Tosta Mista                            
    The Magnetic North – Rackwick                    
    Diagrams – Antelope                                      
    Cheek Mountain Thief – Cheek Mountain      
    Braids – Freund                                                          
    Seams – Punch                                                           
    Omega Male – Testosterone                            
    Pinkunoizu – Moped                                      
    Samantha Crain – For The Miner                    
    Smoke Fairies – Eclipse Them All                  
    The John Steel Singers – Common Thread     
    Dralms – Crushed Pleats        

Full Time Hobby also have albums from The John Steel Singers (July 28) and Erland & The Carnival (August 25) coming out.                          

Hooray For Earth - Racy

Kicking off with pleasingly heavy guitar chords Racy's opening track 'Hey' doesn't then go the way you might expect, as the far lighter and clear vocals come in and the song soars to a close over a strung out guitar solo. Album number two from Hooray For Earth therefore shows a bit of diversity from 2011 release True Loves right from the start. 

Phoenix come to mind on track two, the pop grunge 'Keys' and from there it's but a short hop to the synth-backed wonder of the lushly anthemic 'Say Enough'. From these early tracks it's pretty clear that song titling is not massively important here - six of the album's overall nine are known by a single word whilst the rest don't stretch past two. Better that than "untitled" though.

Building on the success and positive reception garnered by True Loves the NY-based quartet fit pretty snuggly somewhere between the more expansive scope of Arcade Fire and that of Moby's non-blues sampling efforts - accessible, generally well paced and joyful indie rock.

Halfway through the album's length the title track shifts the mood slightly with it's moodier, shoegazing style although the choruses are right back up there in the reaches of anthem land. It's too short by half, however, and rather lets the side down because of that. 

'Last, First' maintains the downbeat nature of its predecessor and in doing so maintains the interest by evoking Joe Jackson, which is lucky as if not for that it would risk overstaying its welcome.

On the whole then this is a solid follow up to True Loves but, despite that initial diversity, will probably not engender the same desire for more that the earlier album did. Live the the songs may be experienced in a different way of course - there are enough solos and anthemic elements to make for a pretty emotionally charged performance, that just unfortunately isn't fully communicated in their recorded versions. 

Racy is released on July 29 and available from amazon and iTunes. 

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