Letting myself down

I can be a bit of an arse at times…

Nalle

Was rummaging around the not-just-a-wonderful-name Pickled Egg site, and found some delightful but absolutely barking tracks by Glaswegian trio, Nalle.

Playing a collection of instruments including (get this) flutes, kantele, viola, bouzouki and clarinet (at least two bits of kit I’m having trouble with there…), Nalle are coming from a very different place than most of the music I listen to. I’m guessing there are all sorts of non-American sources in there, particularly as the band members are all (I think) Finnish. But as you’ll probably be aware of by now, this is great - I like hearing new things. And this is clearly a new thing, a kind of child-like, slightly mystical and completely down-right batty folky music.

I managed to find this clip of Nalle performing in Glasgow, which will pretty much do the trick…



Anyway, as I said, I can in truth be a bit of an arse at times.

I was watching this video when it dawned on me that I’d actually seen Nalle play at Green Man a couple of years ago. I use the word “seen” in its loosest sense in that if I remember rightly I spent most of the set sitting with my back to the stage talking with a couple of friends I’d met the day before. Very poor form, I know.

In fact, I think it got worse. The problem was that after a few drinks “child-like” started to sound just plain childish, and … well… a few boorish comments were made. The long and short of it is that “the piss” was liberally extracted.

I know. I let myself down, I let my friends down, in fact I let the whole school down. The only thing I can say in my defence is that drink had in fact been taken…

Anyway, it’s all good, because here’s my chance to redress an afternoon’s carelessness. Ignore the drunken buffoons in the corner, it’s lovely stuff – lush, twangy and, yes, difficult. Buy the record (“By Chance Upon Waking”, available here on Emusic), kick off your slippers and enjoy some weird exoticism…

Pickled Egg have made three tracks available for download, my favourite of which I’ll make available here. Pick up the others over there…

Iron’s Oath - Nalle