The debut album by Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs will be released on Valentine’s Day 2009. The track-listing is:
Lover’s Song
Big Blonde
Atheist’s Lament
Oh Men!
A Scenic Route To The Isle Of Ewe
That’s Just Love
Ballad Of The Unsent Letter
Now I Know I’m Right
The Last Kiss
Lullaby For Unborn Child
Living With You Now
My Goodbye
The album was recorded in Glasgow with regular Arab Strap / Aidan Moffat engineer Geoff Allan. It will come in 2 formats: regular CD in a gatefold sleeve with poster with enhanced disc including 3 videos, and a limited edition Board Game box set which includes the vinyl album, the full regular CD album, a cover versions 7” single with exclusive tracks I Got You Babe (Sonny & Cher - see below) and Love Is Not A Game (Glen Campbell), the 5 Songs By Aidan Moffat & A Best-Of CD EP featuring special alternate versions of album tracks and one exclusive track (Plastic Mistletoe), a How To Get To Heaven game board with die and pawns and a Valetine card written, designed, signed and numbered by Aidan himself! No definite price details yet, but we reckon it will be somewhere between £20 - £25. It should be available for pre-order soon!
Aidan’s live album, An Evening With Aidan John Moffat, is now available from the webshop. Originally intended as a vinyl-only release, Aidan has instead opted to release it in a digital format only, but with plenty of bonus material which includes: printable CD jewel case artwork so you can build your own album at home, the original poster for the show in PDF format, a previously unreleased studio recording called “You’ve Never Known Love”, a high quality Quicktime version of the promotional I Can Hear Your Heart film and a letter with sleeve notes too! The album itself comes as two very high quality (320 kbps) mp3s - Main Set and Encore - and includes alternate versions of the tracks from I Can Hear Your Heart and a few previously unreleased and improvised numbers as well - 20 tracks in total! And all this will cost you a mere £4.99! It’s available EXCLUSIVELY from the new Aidan Moffat / Chemikal Underground webshop which you’ll find here (it’s in the “More Music” section):
http://shop.chemikal.co.uk/acatalog/AJM.html
The Aloha Hawaii single - Aidan’s collaboration with Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai - now has a definite release date of September 8th. You can preview the tracks and read the press release at the Chemikal Underground site here:
http://www.chemikal.co.uk/aloha-hawaii.htm#
You can also pre-order the limited edition 10” vinyl single on the Chemikal Underground shop. They’re also doing an exclusive deal which includes a snazzy Aloha Hawaii t-shirt! Economic downturn be damned! Spend your precious cash here:
http://shop.chemikal.co.uk/acatalog/Towns_On_The_Moon.html#aCHEM108
Aidan is now offering sex advice on the Quietus website! The column is accurately named “I’m No Expert” and can be found here:
Oh dear.
UPDATE - Apparently there’s been quite a response to this column and it looks like it will now become a regular monthly feature! You can read the second installment here:
http://www.thequietus.com/articles/uncle-agony-aidan-moffat-s-back-to-fix-your-weeping-sores
Aidan has yet another new project on the go - an often discussed but rarely realised collaborative partnership with Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai! Their plan is to release a sporadic series of vinyl-only 7” singles over the course of the next year or two, hopefully culminating in a full album sometime in the future. There will be no digital format of these songs available anywhere, absolutely 100% old-fashioned record ONLY. The first single, Towns On The Moon b/w I‘ve Been Bad For Years And Years, will be available from Chemikal Underground at the end of July!
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Chemikal Underground will be releasing not one but two digital-only albums by Arab Strap in the coming months. The first one, Music From Rogue Farm, is the soundtrack from the animated short film Rogue Farm that Arab Strap recorded in 2004, prior to their final studio album, The Last Romance. All 11 tracks are instrumental and previously unreleased! The downloads are available in album format only (no single track downloads) and also come with printable CD jewel case artwork should you wish to make your own hard copy! Available exclusively from Chemikal Underground over at their online shop for a mere £4.99:
The second, as yet untitled album will be a compilation of b-sides and rarities - more details when we have them.
The Little Beer Song, also know as the Aidan John Moffat singing bottle opener, and the pre-Arab Strap 1995 lo-fi eponymous masterpiece by the Angry Buddhists are now available from The Aidan Moffat Shop! Go here:
http://www.resonancestore.com/aidanmoffat/
We’ll have new t-shirts and ladies knickers after April 16th (when Aidan plays London)!
Below you can see how the final artwork of Aidan’s new album, I Can Hear Your Heart, will look. As well as 24 tracks and a short story, the album also includes enhanced content which boasts a digital lyric book, a glossary, a second bonus short story and an exclusive 5-track EP, The Boy That You Love, which consists of exclusive alternative versions of album tracks. The enhanced content also includes printable artwork so you can put together your own packaging - see below. (Jewel case not included. Obviously.)
The album is released on Monday the 11th of February. Please note that there is NO LIMITED EDITION - the album is only available in one format, so if anyone tries to charge you extra cash for the “limited edition,” they’re lying.
If you haven’t already, you can preview the album here:
http://www.chemikal.co.uk/icanhearyourheart/
And you can pre-order it from the new Chemikal Underground Shop here:
Yes, more good reviews for I Can Hear Your Heart from the weekend papers:
“stupendous album… one of Britain’s greatest lyricists” ***** (Pop CD Of The Week)
- The Sunday Times (see left)
“a startling and beautiful art package” ****
- The Observer Music Monthly
“captures the highs and lows of carnal pleasures with Wildean wit and sass… the spokesman for a generation of romantic degenerates”
- Independent On Sunday
I Can Hear Your Heart by Aidan John Moffat will be available February 11th from all good record stores, both physical and virtual.
You can scroll down for more album details and also preview the album here:
http://www.chemikal.co.uk/icanhearyourheart/
Praise for I Can Hear Your Heart so far:
“often funny, occasionally erotic and always unashamedly real: frankly, we’re a little bit seduced”
– Time Out ****
“…will touch even the darkest of hearts.”
– Clash
“a beautiful flower growing out of the filth”
– NME 8/10
“buoyed up with powerful humanity, warmth and wit… highly recommended”
- Word
“drunkenness, debauchery and deceit have never sounded so artful”
- Notion
“an album of astonishing frankness and unimpeachable ambition… inspired punchlines and masterful storytelling… certain to be 08’s most intimate album, and an early contender for its best.”
- Rock Sound (9/10!)
“an enjoyable new emission” (****)
- Uncut
“voyeuristically compelling”
- Mojo
Well, that’s what the critics think - but will all this translate into album sales? Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?
I Can Hear Your Heart by Aidan John Moffat will be available February 11th from all good record stores, both physical and virtual. We HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you purchase the physical product, which comes in book form and has several exclusive bonus features… we’ll have photos soon. (It is currently available for pre-order from Amazon although there seems to be some confusion over the price - we’ll try and sort this asap.)
You can scroll down for more album details and also preview the album here:
http://www.chemikal.co.uk/icanhearyourheart/
From the new issue of Plan B magazine, which should be at your newsagents now. As you can see, the cartoon is excellent!
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As mentioned before, Aidan recently discussed his love of comics with Scottish author Ian Rankin, who guest-edits the new edition of The List magazine, where the interview appears. The List is an arts and events guide for Glasgow and Edinburgh and is in shops now, but for those of you who don’t live in Scotland or find the very thought of buying a paper document tragically old-fashioned, you can read the interview online at:
http://www.list.co.uk/article/5379-ian-rankin-interviews-aidan-moffat-about-comics/
Aidan makes a brief appearance in Ken Garner’s excellent new book, The Peel Sessions, a definitive history of the legendary John Peel radio show. The author asked him to offer some exciting background story behind any of the three Peel Sessions that Arab Strap recorded in their ten-year lifespan, but Aidan was at a loss - it appears that Arab Strap took the recording of these sessions seriously and rock ‘n’ roll behaviour was at an absolute minimum (although session track “The First Big Peel Thing” was a version of First Big Weekend with new lyrics that documented the journey to Maida Vale studios in a transit van with cheap cider so foul that it had to be mixed with even cheaper cherryade to make it vaguely palatable). Instead, Aidan’s tale of winning a raffle is part of the “A Listener Writes...” series of asides that can be found throughout the book. It’s only a third of a page, but we thought we should let you know and recommend a wonderful book that also includes a complete list of all Peel Sessions ever recorded and a full run-down of the Festive 50’s. Buy it!
The second song to be released by Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs, “Your Hands Are Cold,” is available now on the Worried Noodles compilation from Germany’s Tomlab label. The album features 39 songs by various acts based on lyrics by Glasgow-based artist David Shrigley from his previous “empty sleeve,” the Worried Noodles lyric book that Tomlab released in 2005. Some of the other bands and musicians included are Franz Ferdinand, David Byrne, TV On The Radio, Grizzly Bear, Liars, Hot Chip, Deerhoof and many, many more. For more info, go to:
http://www.worriednoodles.com/