BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords
(pic by martin millar)
Creepy and entrancing, Sarahjane Swan's new single Ghost features her abrasive, blustery vocals over gothic guitars and industrial synths and percussion. Her peculiar blend of gothic music with pop is not easy to describe--perhaps try to imagine an early 90s Siouxsie Sioux/Trent Reznor collaboration. - Silence-Killer.com
Released today on Shark Batter Records, Ghost is the second single from the Scottish sculptress, occasional alternative model and creator of left-field electronic Gothic-Pop ditties, Sarahjane Swan . And there's a spooky story behind the song.
It was the Fates who brought Sarahjane Swan and Shark Batter Records together. Throughout most of the 1990s, the two brothers in charge of the label's day to day dealings - Mike Sorensen Small and rogerSIMIAN (not his real name, you'll be shocked to discover) - lived with their parents in a converted church hall in the Scottish Borders. That's the house where they and some friends started the underground magazine, Sun Zoom Spark , featuring interviews with everyone from punk rock old-timers (The Ramones, Jonathan Richman) to Brit Pop whippersnappers (Blur, Radiohead, Pulp, Elastica, Supergrass, Manics, Echobelly, Oasis, Sleeper), noisier American acts (Beck, Sonic Youth, Pavement, Mercury Rev), pop stars (Coolio, Erasure, Garbage, Rolf Harris) and many riot grrrl influenced female-fronted acts. It's where Roger, Mike and two pals - Grant Pringle and Donald Kyle - formed cult Scottish band, Dawn Of The Replicants, with their lodger Paul Vickers.
It's also where Sarahjane now lives with her boyfriend, their son and the resident poltergeist.
A year or so ago, when SJS began looking for a guitar teacher she found her way to Mike Small, and the pair were startled to discover they had that old church house in common.
"Have you met the ghostie yet?" Mike asked. "He was pretty quiet when we all lived there. We probably made too much noise. Scared him away."
"He visits almost every day," Sarahjane replied. "He's a nice ghost I think but he's a bit fussy. He moves little trinkets about the bathroom and turns stuff upside down."
Within only a few months of starting her guitar lessons, Sarahjane Swan was still having to look at the fretboard when changing chords but had written almost an album's worth of songs.
Mike loved those songs. "Oh, we should put those out on our wee record label," he said.
"You have a record label?" Sarahjane asked. "Cool."
SJS's ode to her spectral lodger, Ghost, is the most recently written of her songs, composed without guitar: just voice, a beatbox and plenty of spooky reverb. The Shark Batter posse loved the demo so much they thought Ghost should be the next single. And so here it is.
This new version features musical shenanigans from rogerSIMIAN and Mike Sorensen Small, the drumming of Grant Pringle (Dawn Of The Replicants) and a bit of additional vocal derring do from Brendan McAndrew (Mike's co-conspirator in the Stone Ghost Collective).
Download from
Amazon.co.uk
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords
(pic by martin millar)
Creepy and entrancing, Sarahjane Swan's new single Ghost features her abrasive, blustery vocals over gothic guitars and industrial synths and percussion. Her peculiar blend of gothic music with pop is not easy to describe--perhaps try to imagine an early 90s Siouxsie Sioux/Trent Reznor collaboration. - Silence-Killer.com
Released today on Shark Batter Records, Ghost is the second single from the Scottish sculptress, occasional alternative model and creator of left-field electronic Gothic-Pop ditties, Sarahjane Swan . And there's a spooky story behind the song.
It was the Fates who brought Sarahjane Swan and Shark Batter Records together. Throughout most of the 1990s, the two brothers in charge of the label's day to day dealings - Mike Sorensen Small and rogerSIMIAN (not his real name, you'll be shocked to discover) - lived with their parents in a converted church hall in the Scottish Borders. That's the house where they and some friends started the underground magazine, Sun Zoom Spark , featuring interviews with everyone from punk rock old-timers (The Ramones, Jonathan Richman) to Brit Pop whippersnappers (Blur, Radiohead, Pulp, Elastica, Supergrass, Manics, Echobelly, Oasis, Sleeper), noisier American acts (Beck, Sonic Youth, Pavement, Mercury Rev), pop stars (Coolio, Erasure, Garbage, Rolf Harris) and many riot grrrl influenced female-fronted acts. It's where Roger, Mike and two pals - Grant Pringle and Donald Kyle - formed cult Scottish band, Dawn Of The Replicants, with their lodger Paul Vickers.
It's also where Sarahjane now lives with her boyfriend, their son and the resident poltergeist.
A year or so ago, when SJS began looking for a guitar teacher she found her way to Mike Small, and the pair were startled to discover they had that old church house in common.
"Have you met the ghostie yet?" Mike asked. "He was pretty quiet when we all lived there. We probably made too much noise. Scared him away."
"He visits almost every day," Sarahjane replied. "He's a nice ghost I think but he's a bit fussy. He moves little trinkets about the bathroom and turns stuff upside down."
Within only a few months of starting her guitar lessons, Sarahjane Swan was still having to look at the fretboard when changing chords but had written almost an album's worth of songs.
Mike loved those songs. "Oh, we should put those out on our wee record label," he said.
"You have a record label?" Sarahjane asked. "Cool."
SJS's ode to her spectral lodger, Ghost, is the most recently written of her songs, composed without guitar: just voice, a beatbox and plenty of spooky reverb. The Shark Batter posse loved the demo so much they thought Ghost should be the next single. And so here it is.
This new version features musical shenanigans from rogerSIMIAN and Mike Sorensen Small, the drumming of Grant Pringle (Dawn Of The Replicants) and a bit of additional vocal derring do from Brendan McAndrew (Mike's co-conspirator in the Stone Ghost Collective).
Amazon.co.uk
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