Alison Eales - Four for a Boy [7"]

Artist: Alison Eales
Title: Four for a Boy
Format: 7” vinyl EP | digital
Cat#: Fika101
Release date: 8th March 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

Following the release of her debut solo album Mox Nox last year, Four for a Boy is a four-track EP of songs co-written by Alison Eales and her long-term collaborator Garry Hoggan.

Like its sister record Mox Nox, the EP was recorded and mixed by Paul Savage at Chem 19 studios, mastered by Reuben Taylor, and features artwork by Rhian Nicholas at The Passenger Press – but in a departure from the approach to the album, Four for a Boy keeps its arrangements sparse in order to showcase Hoggan’s gift for melody.

The songs

The lead track is Minuet, a minimalist love song that pits its protagonists against zombies and nanobots and which is accompanied by a lyric video by magician Billy Reid.

Rain Song, with its drip-drip-dripping ukulele and piano, captures the experience of suffering with depression, while the shining autoharp and accordion of The Earliest Blue expresses the hope of recovery. These are also accompanied by an animated lyric video.

The EP closes with Play Along, a plaintive reimagining of the Carpenters’ Superstar.

Alison Eales

Alison is a long-standing member of the band Butcher Boy, playing piano, accordion and other keyboards as well as arranging for choir and brass. She is also a member of Glasgow Madrigirls and has collaborated with bands including The Color Waves (USA), The Very Most (USA), The Just Joans (Glasgow), Featherfin (Norway) and The Powdered Earth (UK).

Her debut solo album Mox Nox was released on Fika Recordings in March 2023.

“Delightful is also one of the apt descriptions for Alison Eales’ Four for a Boy EP, a sweet collection fuelled by ukuleles, accordions and charming vocals. It could be the ideal antidote to tough days.” Snack Mag

“Four songs is all you get and four songs is that you need when you are in the company of Alison Eales. Her eloquent sentimentalism stole my heart a long time ago and I won’t be asking for it back anytime soon. Pure class”. Blues Bunny

“supremely talented” Glasgow Music City

Alison Eales - Mox Nox [12"]

Artist: Alison Eales
Title: Mox Nox
Format: 12” vinyl LP
Cat#: Fika094LP
Release date: 24th March 2023
Bandcamp | Spotify

Alison Eales is a long-standing member of the band Butcher Boy, playing piano, accordion and other keyboards as well as arranging for choir and brass. The band have made three studio albums: Profit in Your Poetry (2007), React or Die (2009) and Helping Hands (2011). All of these albums have been well-received, with React or Die featuring in The Times’ top 100 pop albums of the 2000s. The band have also released two EPs. A compilation album, You Had A Kind Face, was released on Needle Mythology in 2022, along with three new songs, with tracks mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road. Butcher Boy have supported bands including Belle and Sebastian, Scritti Politti and The Wedding Present.

Taking inspiration from sundial mottos, Mox Nox is an album about the passing of time – most specifically, the transition from day to night. Its twelve songs explore experiences of all-nighters, anxiety, travel, frustration, and friendship. The album combines acoustic and electronic instrumentation with samples of environmental sound, resulting in an indie pop record that is by turns playful and melancholy and that is likely to appeal to fans of Saint Etienne, The Magnetic Fields, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stereolab, Jake Thackray and Kirsty MacColl.

With support from Creative Scotland, the album was produced by Paul Savage at Chem 19 studios. Cover artwork was designed by Rhian Nicholas at The Passenger Press in Glasgow, using a mix of traditional printmaking techniques. The design represents a sundial and was inspired by the cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, with its stylised Doomsday Clock.

Opening the album with shimmering wine glasses and dulcimer, Rapunzel is the oldest of the songs. It expresses the frustration of feeling isolated and not fully engaging with life. This theme is continued in the second track: Ever Forward is a lyric about being trapped in a dilapidated seaside town as the seasons change, delivered over a string quartet expertly arranged and recorded by Pete Harvey (Pumpkinfield).

Originally conceived as a song about falling in love for the first time, The Broken Song eventually transpired to be a song about the onset of anxiety. The approach to writing this song was unique on the album – it was left deliberately unfinished to create room for experimentation in the studio. Track four, Shadow Blister, is also unique, as the lyric was the result of a challenge to use as many sundial mottos in one song as possible. Negligence is possibly the most personal song on the album.

Closing Side A, the single Fifty-Five North has parallels with Ever Forward, but while both songs are about struggling with the change of the seasons, this song is rooted firmly in Glasgow and expresses how a place can be both transformative and overwhelming. The song features sounds sampled from the Glasgow Subway, with a rhythm track made from the sounds of the train doors closing, and a melody made from the ping of the turnstiles.

Side B opens with Through Hoops, a song about the tensions inherent in friendships between people who are almost too alike. Upbeat and energetic, the song features flute improvised by Diljeet Kaur Bhachu (Kapil Seshasayee). By contrast, Half-French Kiss is a tiny, atmospheric song built around a chromatic music box and bowed cymbal. A Natural History of California was inspired by a single line of cello played by Maya Burman-Roy (James Grant, Idlewild) and images of San Francisco by night.

Mox Nox, like Shadow Blister, is a lyric built around sundial mottos, including the title itself (‘Night, shortly’). Opening with glockenspiel played by Joanne Murtagh (Remember Remember) it builds one instrument at a time, featuring strings, flute, autoharp, dulcimer and kalimba.

A song about walking away from outgrown friendships, Goodbye features guitar played by Basil Pieroni (Butcher Boy), a musical callback to Rapunzel, and an improvised robot choir. The album closes with Come Home With Me, a lyrical counterpoint to Rapunzel with a manic musical setting. 

“It’s a thing of beauty, this record. To do her justice, I won’t compare her to individual artists, but speak (write!) of a sonic palette that binds electronica, chamber pop and folk with gorgeous indie pop, most importantly with the songs to develop all the wonderful ideas going on here” God Is In The TV

Alison Eales - Mox Nox [Digital]

Artist: Alison Eales
Title: Mox Nox
Format: Digital single
Cat#: Fika094SG3
Release date: 9th March 2023
Bandcamp | Spotify

Mox Nox is the title track and third single to be taken from Alison Eales’ debut album. Mox Nox is a lyric constructed around sundial mottos, including the title itself (‘Night, shortly’). Opening with glockenspiel played by Joanne Murtagh (Remember Remember) it builds one instrument at a time, featuring strings, flute, autoharp, dulcimer and kalimba.

“I always liked the idea of using shadow puppets for this video, as it’s so in keeping with the sundial theme, but I didn’t think I had the skill to do it myself. Then I saw Manual Cinema’s beautiful work on the 2021 Candyman film.

https://manualcinema.com/work/candyman

I loved the starkness of the figures, and it inspired me to have a go at silhouette animation. I used Powerpoint to create the characters and backgrounds, and then superimposed them over time lapse footage of the sky outside my flat at sunset.”

Alison is a long-standing member of the band Butcher Boy, playing piano, accordion and other keyboards as well as arranging for choir and brass. The band’s three studio albums: Profit in Your Poetry (2007), React or Die (2009) and Helping Hands (2011) have all been well-received, with React or Die featuring in The Times’ top 100 pop albums of the 2000s. The band have also released two EPs. A compilation album, You Had A Kind Face, was released on Needle Mythology in 2022, along with three new songs, with tracks mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road. Butcher Boy have supported Belle and Sebastian, Scritti Politti The Wedding Present and more.

Alison is also a member of Glasgow Madrigirls and has collaborated with bands including The Color Waves (USA), The Just Joans (Glasgow) and Featherfin (Norway).

Mox Nox is released on vinyl and digitally in March 2023 on Fika Recordings.

“Mox Nox lifts its title from one such sundial motto, fittingly translating as Soon, Nightfall, the track is Alison at her most stripped back, nodding in equal parts to Monkey Swallows The Universe and Sunday Morning-era Velvet Underground. The production, courtesy of Paul Savage at the famous Chem 19 studios, is fantastic throughout, as Alison’s poised vocal and looping ukelele are adorned by the distant fizz of echoing strings plaintive woodwinds and subtle percussive flourishes, adding gorgeous texture to the sonic landscape.” For The Rabbits [video premiere]

Alison Eales - Ever Forward [Digital]

Artist: Alison Eales
Title: Ever Forward
Format: Digital single
Cat#: Fika094SG2
Release date: 9th February 2023
Bandcamp | Spotify

Ever Forward is the second single to be taken from Alison Eales’ debut album Mox Nox: with lyrics about being trapped in a dilapidated seaside town as the seasons change, and delivered over a string quartet expertly arranged and recorded by Pete Harvey (Pumpkinfield).

Alison is a long-standing member of the band Butcher Boy, playing piano, accordion and other keyboards as well as arranging for choir and brass. The band’s three studio albums: Profit in Your Poetry (2007), React or Die (2009) and Helping Hands (2011) have all been well-received, with React or Die featuring in The Times’ top 100 pop albums of the 2000s. The band have also released two EPs. A compilation album, You Had A Kind Face, was released on Needle Mythology in 2022, along with three new songs, with tracks mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road. Butcher Boy have supported Belle and Sebastian, Scritti Politti The Wedding Present and more.

Alison is also a member of Glasgow Madrigirls and has collaborated with bands including The Color Waves (USA), The Just Joans (Glasgow) and Featherfin (Norway).

Mox Nox is released on vinyl and digitally in March 2023 on Fika Recordings.

“In the liner notes to his Tea & Symphony compilation albums, Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne writes about a late-60s pop microgenre close to my heart – the ‘English Baroque sound’, defined by ‘string quartets, woodwinds, and summer-into-autumn melancholy’. Alison Eales may be resident in Glasgow rather than Gloucestershire, but with Ever Forward, she draws from that wellspring to wonderfully yearning effect.
The same grand but minimal style of string arrangement that marks Colin Blunstone’s Say You Don’t Mind or John Cale’s Paris 1919 is in full force on Ever Forward, as is the same refined, vaulting vocal, but the result is every bit Alison’s own. It’s the second track from her upcoming debut album, and if the rest are as good as this we’re in for a real treat.” Fresh On The Net

God Is In The TV premiere

Alison Eales - Fifty-Five North [Digital]

Artist: Alison Eales
Title: Fifty-Five North
Format: Digital single
Cat#: Fika094SG1
Release date: 5th January 2023
Bandcamp | Spotify

Fifty-Five North is the first single to be taken from Alison Eales’ debut album Mox Nox. A song firmly rooted in Glasgow, and expresses how a place can be both transformative and overwhelming. The song features samples from the Glasgow subway, with a rhythm track from the sounds of the train doors closing, and a melody made from the ping of the turnstiles.

Alison is a long-standing member of the band Butcher Boy, playing piano, accordion and other keyboards as well as arranging for choir and brass. The band’s three studio albums: Profit in Your Poetry (2007), React or Die (2009) and Helping Hands (2011) have all been well-received, with React or Die featuring in The Times’ top 100 pop albums of the 2000s. The band have also released two EPs. A compilation album, You Had A Kind Face, was released on Needle Mythology in 2022, along with three new songs, with tracks mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road. Butcher Boy have supported Belle and Sebastian, Scritti Politti The Wedding Present and more.

Alison is also a member of Glasgow Madrigirls and has collaborated with bands including The Color Waves (USA), The Just Joans (Glasgow) and Featherfin (Norway).

Mox Nox is released on vinyl and digitally in March 2023 on Fika Recordings.

“The single has parallels with another album track titled Ever Forward, but while both are about struggling with the change of the seasons, this song is rooted firmly in Glasgow and expresses how a place can be both transformative and overwhelming. The song features samples from the Glasgow Subway, with a rhythm track made from the sounds of the train doors closing, and a melody made from the ping of the turnstiles.The use of found sounds is both remarkable and quirky over which Eales’ uplifting vocals bring an enchanting vibrancy and colour. Fifty-Five North is also our Song of the Day.” Folk Radio UK [video premiere]

“a perfect fusion of indie-pop and electronica, nodding to bands like Firestations and Stereolab, as it combines glistening vocal lines with glitchy beats and transient synth melodies” For The Rabbits

“the track almost seems like a purely vocal performance, a remarkable one at that” Austin Town Hall

“‘Fifty-Five North’ is delicately crafted and far more complex and nuanced than it may initially appear. Breezy but chilly, it’s a pleasant and charming debut” Whisper and Hollerin

“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.” The New Vinyl Villain