‘I HAD never properly decided what Meursault was,” says Neil Pennycook. “Was it a solo project? Was it a band? It had always existed in this kind of grey area between the two.”
The Edinburgh-based musician and songwriter is explaining why forthcoming album I Will Kill Again is only coming out now, when it had been intended as follow-up to the visceral folk of 2012’s Something For The Weakened. Instead, following a Kickstarter-funded mini-album and trip to the US to play music industry convention SXSW in 2014, it was announced Meursault were disbanding. Pennycook would continue to play and record under the name Supermoon.
“During the tour for Something For The Weakened we solidified into a band,” he says. “But it dissolved as bands often do. People started having families, people moved away. There’d always been line-up changes but after that it felt very much I should focus on doing something else. During the transformation of that band, I’d maybe lost sight of how I wanted things to be and what my strengths were as a writer.”
The experience of Supermoon allowed Pennycook to recalibrate. He discovered what he wanted to do was what Meursault had predominantly always been; a solo artist with a revolving cast of musicians enlisted as the situation required. Before they broke up, the band recorded the ten songs which form I Will Kill Again collaboratively.
“That was a great thing and it was very enjoyable, but through the course of events, the music changed,” Pennycook says. “I started to be more focused as a performer and became to have a better sense of what music I needed to better convey the ideas and themes in the lyrics.
Whereas that band effort conveyed a more traditional indie-folk sound, I Will Kill Again circa 2017 has more in common with the compositional subtleties of Pissing On Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues, Pennycook’s 2009 debut, and the sophisticated self-loathing of 2010 follow-up All Creatures Will Make Merry. It was that first album which music writer Matthew Young credited as giving him the impetus to start Song, By Toad as a proper label outgrowth from his blog.
Despite the violence of the title, I Will Kill Again is an elegant, restrained collection, its sorrows and joys kept in check by sparse instrumentation and a wry, sometimes pointed sense of humour.
“There are genuinely unusual moments, the percussion of impressionist current single Klopfgeist and near-jazz title track recalling only musical art troupe Muscles Of Joy, an all-female seven-piece who wrestled and twanged rhythms from a wooden frame and some clothes pegs.
“That’s just my old trusty sampler, the longest-serving member of Meursault, and a lot of cut-up speech and radio chatter,” says Pennycook, who explains that the album is formed upon what he calls “a suggested narrative” between William – “a struggling, cliched, bedsit writer” and Sarah, a ghost.
“Sarah is not a metaphor for any one person,” he says. “She’s every best friend I’ve ever had, every girlfriend I’ve ever had, every dog I’ve ever owned. She’s my relationship with people, with the world. She is both muse and annoyance to William. They have quite an unhealthy relationship. But it’s the only relationship that these two people have.”
This run of dates, which includes some in England and Wales, heralds a bigger tour in May which will coincide with another single to follow-up Klopfgeist. When The National chats to him, Pennycook has just finished rehearsal with the band who’ll accompany him: drummer Sam Mallalieu, bassist Fraser Hughes, fiddler Robyn Dawson and pianist/keyboard-player Reuben Taylor. Newcomer Faith Eliott, whose ice-clear vocals cool the gauzy The Mill and the country-tinged Belle Arnie, will also feature.
“This band is pretty new, so I’ve been teaching them some of the old songs,” says Pennycook, who affirms that these dates will see them dipping into Meursault’s three previous long-players as well as 2014 mini-album The Organ Grinder’s Monkey. “I’ve always been pretty reticent in the past about playing my older songs, but for whatever reason now, I’m pretty comfortable doing my older stuff.”
The album will be launched next Saturday, February 25, at Song, By Toad’s Granfalloon, a special event at Edinburgh’s Summerhall. A “granfalloon” was coined by author Kurt Vonnegut in his 1963 novel Cat’s Cradle to refer to “a proud and meaningless association of human beings”. It’s a great term for the all-dayer, which is hosted by the capital’s scene-saving promoters Nothing Ever Happens Here and features some of the diverse names on the Song, By Toad roster, including the previously-mentioned artist/musician Eliott who released their notable Insects EP in November last year. Performing during the day are Adam Stafford, Lush Purr, Rocky Lorelei, Now Wakes The Sea, Hailey Beavis and the first preview of a new collaboration between James Yorkston and Lau’s Aidan O’Rourke. The label, whose next release will be a split 12 inch in March featuring Willard Grant Conspiracy, whose Robert Fisher was reported on Monday as having passed away, will shortly announce another addition to the Toad family who will also perform.
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February 25, Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2pm, £15. Tickets from bit.ly/Granfalloon March 14, Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, 7.30pm, £8.80. Tickets from bit.ly/MeursTree March 18, Tolbooth, Stirling, 7.30pm, £8 advance, £10 on the door. Tickets from bit.ly/MeurStirling I Will Kill Again is released on February 27 on Song, By Toad www.iammeursault.com www.songbytoad.com
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