Modern Studies‘ debut album Swell to Great is out on digital, CD and vinyl on Song, by Toad Records on the 12th September 2016.
Modern Studies are a chamber pop band from Glasgow-via-Yorkshire. Their quietly experimental landscape songs are played on analogue synths, cello, double bass, drums, guitars, a wine-glass orchestra and, at the creaking centre of things, a Victorian pedal harmonium.
The band came together in early 2015, when Glasgow songwriter Emily Scott recruited old pals and collaborators Pete Harvey (King Creosote, The Leg), Joe Smillie (boss of Glasgow’s The Glad Cafe) and Rob St. John.
Working throughout the year at Pumpkinfield – Pete’s rural Perthshire studio – the band shaped a set of Emily’s skeleton songs, drawing largely from the salt and spray of the sea. This communal arts-und-crafts-werk resulted in their debut LP ‘Swell to Great’ (named after a stop on the wheezing old harmonium), which will be released on Song, by Toad Records of Edinburgh, Scotland in September 2016.
The band also began an ongoing collaboration with London-based label Earth Recordings in 2015, contributing a Shirley Collins cover ‘The Bold Fisherman’ to the ‘Shirley Inspired’ tribute LP. More releases with Earth are planned for later in the year.
Modern Studies will play a selection of UK shows and festivals throughout 2016.
The Fat Angel Sings 