It’s A Jangle Out There, WMAfm Castlemaine, 16/01/14

It’s A Jangle Out There is a radio show hosted by Josh Meadows on WMAfm Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia. The show dedicated to new and old guitar pop. You’ll find it on air between 5-7pm (local time) each Thursday. You can also catch each show live online.

We are delighted that The Hi-Life Companion were included on this weeks show – you can find the playlist here. Josh played Your Forest Bed which you can download from this blog and from Soundcloud.

Also played on this weeks edition of It’s A Jangle Out There were tracks from The Smiths, Morrissey, The Byrds, The Beatles, Jonathan Richman, Veronica Falls, Monochrome Set, Minks, Brilliant Corners, Stereolab, Broadcast, The Cure and much more.

No Pudding Annie Records to release our new album

We are delighted to announce that the new Hi-Life Companion album – Our Years In The Wilderness – will soon be available from the Bristol based label, No Pudding Annie Records. It’s on its way back from the printers and features 11 new songs, mixed by James Muir. All the tracks are concerned in some way with growing up in the Wye Valley and the Forest of Dean, here in the UK.

The track listing is:

• Brockweir House
• Meet Me At The Pier
• Sabatini
• I Served On Ships
• The Hole In The Fence
• Raise An Army
• These Last Remaining Days
• Old Bristol Road
• Dark Heart
• Our Years In The Wilderness
• Cast You Down

It will also be available from Amazon, iTunes, CD Baby and from this website. We’ll post again when we have a final release date – hopefully in the next few weeks. Alongside this great news we will also be revealing further surprises soon!

Check out No Pudding Annie Records here.

Interview for Karlos the Unhappy Jackyl

Jon did an interview recently for Karlos The Unhappy Jackyl’s blog on the progress with the new Hi-Life Companion album, and you can read it here.

Times Table x 2

Times Table popped-up a couple of times around the web this week. The wonderful DJ Emily who hosts Anorak City on KRLX played the tune on her March 2nd radio show. Emily also kindly let her listeners know how things are progressing with Our Years In The Wilderness – our next album. The show can be heard weekly online 10am-11.30am (CST) / 4pm-5.30pm (GMT).

One of our favourite music blogs is the Barcelona based Bloodbuzzed and Times Table also got a mention there this week. The song was a suggestion in regard to tunes that The Very Most could cover. You can checkout and also listen to the other songs suggestions from bands such as Camera Obscura, The Housemartins, R.E.M. and Belle & Sebastian right here. Very smart.

Needless to say that we would be totally honoured to be covered by The Very Most as the US band are big favourites of ours!

Strings and Brass

A quick update on the latest recording. Half of the violin and cello parts were recorded last weekend – another recording session to complete these parts will follow soon. Meanwhile this weekend will see the colliery brass band parts being recorded for Cast You Down. It looks like the end is at last in sight for the Our Years In The Wilderness album recording sessions. Woo!

Cue brass and strings!

The word from Hi-Life Companion HQ is that the next album recordings will feature extensive violin and cello. Violin parts are being recorded over the next two weeks, followed by colliery brass band sessions which will eventually be heard on the song Cast You Down. In other news, a sandpit is being moved into the Troy residence to be positioned under the piano…wow! Keep a look out for photos from the sessions soon – meanwhile, to get you in the mood, here’s a picture of an old colliery band from The Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire.

Recording, Thornbury, October 2010

The Troy brothers have been busy recording over the weekend in Thornbury, near Bristol. Tunes worked on included Dark Heart, Brockweir House and Your Forest Bed to name but a few. A brisk 9am start every morning and a 2am finish… albeit with an emergency siesta in the middle. These songs will form part of the forthcoming second album Our Years In The Wilderness. The songs are about growing-up and old in The Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, and feature various odd and wonderful places in and around Bristol and the Forest.

The photographs below show Matt, post-siesta…