Race Horses - Man In My Mind EP

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

4...according to our Phil on Thu 10 Dec, 2009.

Racehorses are the latest signing on Fantatsic Plastic who've been well quiet of late. It's the 2nd release as their debut was a limited CD single which we had a few of but they went well sharp! Anyway this is apparently all about a fella who's well into Gnosticism and TV mentalist Bear Grylls which sends him crackers. It would do though... lets face it.... There's only so many times I can watch someone foraging around in bear poo for some sort of nourishment. It sounds like this band are pretty crackers though. I don't remember the CD single sounding as crazy as this! It starts off all trad indie rock-ish before it goes all mental and goes all over the shop. It's made a right mess of my ears it has. I don't really know what to say about it at all.... but it is bizarrely thoroughly enjoyable and I (weirdly) like it. 'Man In My Mind' is well interesting....

TRACKLISTING:

01 Man In My Mind

02 Grangetown 02920

03 Opium Den

04 Last Boat To Dover

OVERVIEW:

RACE HORSES concept EP “Man In My Mind” tells the story of an average Joe whose obsession with Gnosticism and TV survivalist Bear Grylls sends him into a spiral of deteriorating mental health. The story begins with the title track, which kicks off with a few bars of Mahler’s Symphony Number One and ends in a gonzo-pop freak-out.

“Grangetown 02920” – named in reference to the big band standard Pennsylvania 6-5000 – sees the EP’s protagonist driving around the band’s own native district of Cardiff in a fit of madness, and sounds like Kasenetz-Katz producing Glenn Miller. Recorded amid a chaotic party in the studio, it’s described by Meilyr as “a dark surf song.”-

On the second half of the EP, “Opium Den” is a love song that Meilyr wrote at the age of 14 reworked to sound like a bad trip and influenced by the eerie soundtracks to Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist and horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. “It’s the character's rush back to consciousness from his state of depression, when he remembers back to the first time he met his lover in the ‘80s,” says the singer. “The final song, “Last Boat To Dover”, is him coming out of his illness and returning home to his lover, on the last boat of the day.”

Recorded in Bethesda and Cardiff, the EP sessions saw parties, guest violinists and, oddly, a member of a West End musical on crowd noise duties. Field recordings played a big part in the EP - taken from those parties, jams, wildlife and used to form the interludes and deeply layered background sounds. “I got into a pretty intense state of mind before doing the vocals – it was really draining getting into the mindset of such a fucked-up character,” says Meilyr. “It's kind of based on bits of people I know though, and some of their and my own darker episodes.”

Comprising Meilyr Jones (vocals and bass), Dylan Hughes (keyboards, synths, guitar and vocal) Alun Gaffey (Guitar and vocals) and Gwion Llewelyn (drums and vocals) Race Horses met in the sleepy Welsh town of Aberystwyth - a perfect place for psychedelic pondering. The band are currently based in Cardiff.

“Man In Mind” is the opening track on forthcoming debut album (released January 2010), Goodbye Falkenburg, which has been recorded with producer Dave Wrench (a member of Julian Cope’s Black Sheep, producer for Euros Childs and engineer for Bat for Lashes, James Yorkston, British Sea Power and Hot Chip) in a series of adventurous sessions over nine months. Conceived as a collage of someone’s life memories and taking a loose nautical theme, it’s an ambitious first fling. “We wanted to make our fifth album first, if you know what I mean,” says Meilyr. And when you hear it, we think you will.