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The Shakes

by Savage Mansion

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Formed as a vehicle for the effervescent, speak-sung, slice-of-life songs of guitarist and vocalist Craig Angus, Savage Mansion features long-standing members Andrew Macpherson (guitars), Jamie Dubber (bass) and Lewis Orr (drums and percussion) plus newest member Adam Forbes (keys). One of Lost Map’s most prolific bands, they released their debut album Revision Ballads on the label in 2019 (★★★★ – The Skinny), swiftly followed by 2020’s Weird Country (★★★★ – The Scotsman) and 2022’s Golden Mountain, Here I Come (★★★★ – The Scotsman). Savage Mansion have toured the UK, both as headliner and as support for artists including Pictish Trail and We Were Promised Jetpacks, and played at festivals including Electric Fields, Estrella Galicia Monkey Week in Sevilla, Tenement Trail and Lost Map’s Howlin’ Fling.

    Recorded live to tape with minimal overdubs at Analogue Catalogue – the Newry, Northern Ireland analogue studio of producer Julie McLarnon (Lankum, Junior Brother, The Vaselines, Brigid Mae Power, Barbarossa) – Savage Mansion’s new album The Shakes is full of raw and instinctual playing, happy accidents embraced and not glossed over. It’s the end product of months of patient and painstaking groundwork, Craig working closely with co-songwriter Andrew Macpherson to shape and re-shape ideas, until they represented the best version of the band we’ve heard yet. “As part of the writing of this album I would cycle out to Paisley and just listen to music with Andrew,” says Craig. “We would get a bit high and put a few records on. The man has an amazing record collection.

    “There was,” Craig reflects, “a conscious effort to take a bit more care writing this album. To preserve the immediacy of an exciting idea, but envelope it in something more sophisticated and reflective.”

    Opener ‘Myths Persist’ orbits a rakish groove inspired by Sly and the Family Stone, and draws lyrics from among other unlikely places the Bible (“what’s it there for if not that?”). ‘In The Garden’ continues the spiritual tip with a song “about the forbidden fruit and why we’re compelled to take it”, and features more tightly interlocking guitars that fast become a signature of The Shakes. ‘There Goes My Habit’ is a meditation on ageing drawing inspiration from the poetry of Dave Berman and the esoteric pop of Arthur Russell. The album’s title track is one of the most unusual songs the band have written to date, an “insistent, driven, borderline danceable thing,” as Craig describes it, with shimmering synth lines that reveal a lot of the fresh input and energy new member Adam Forbes brought to the group. “Despite not considering himself a keys player,” says Andrew, “he had a lot of insight into parts and seemed really at home raiding Julie’s amazing collection of vintage synths, organs and keyboards.”

    Adam’s playing further elevates another of The Shakes undisputed standouts ‘Total Colombia’ – originally a spiky garage rock number that was progressively re-written with input from the whole band until it sounded like “a confluence of ‘Lo Boob Oscillator’ by Stereolab, ‘Spiders/Kidsmoke’ by Wilco and the original ‘Total Columbia’ by Savage Mansion,” says Craig. Closer ‘The Second Life’ – “a sad song about a relationship that has to end even though neither party wants it to” – was very nearly just guitars and vocals, until an eleventh-hour decision was taken to drop the whole band in for a last loose and swaying jam before sundown. The perfect end to a record full of authenticity and feeling.

    1. Myths Persist
    2. In The Garden
    3. Present Tense
    4. Autofiction
    5. O Sister
    6. The Shakes
    7. Night School
    8. There Goes My Habit
    9. The Way Out
    10. Total Colombia
    11. The Second Life

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Shakes via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Shakes via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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1.
Seems history’s to blame! In a tangle of wined breath, I’m dead — worse than dead. Freedom leads to ashes scattered where the freedom happened. I’m dead — worse than dead. Strong men lay the forest low. Big mouths, ravenous, feast. I’m dead — worse than dead. A list of demands, long forgotten, in a rented suit pocket. I’m dead — worse than dead. To Caesar what is Caesar’s! To God what is God’s! I’m dead — worse than dead. And I’ll collapse from inside like a lung, without your love. I’m dead — worse than dead. The misfortune to live in the final days of a dying empire. There’s nothing to do, nothing to do here but remember, so myths persist. Loyal to a lost cause. Consolation cactus. Loyal to a lost cause, ‘til I find another. Then suddenly I was in the opening credits, with fear in my blood, at the chessboard gates of the abattoir. Suddenly I was in the opening credits, and a cover band played a song that I wrote before the invasion. Suddenly I was in the opening credits, watching the full moon hovering over cigarette skyscraper Suddenly I was in the opening credits, word to the wise, all future crumbling to the past. Suddenly I was in the opening credits.
2.
Temptation, temptation, and the first stone thrown. A different kind of hunger. Nothing to protect, no need for walls, in the garden. I wanted to feel it. I wanted to have known, to taste the fruit and to learn to say that it’s my own, in the garden.
3.
Michael, don’t think about it. You have forgotten more than they’ll ever know. You’re saying that she’s older, old before her time but you’ll never know just what goes on. She’s been chasing the postscript. First through the door, the last one out. Don’t tell a soul about it, don’t act on your power, if word got out you’d be done. Your present tense has gone. Your present tense has gone, it’s gone. Your present tense has gone, Your present tense has gone. Love your second wife, so much so you married twice. But a rumour gaining power, you’re no Johnny Proctor. They won’t see it that way. Your present tense has gone. Your present tense has gone, it’s gone. Your present tense has gone. Your present tense has gone, it’s gone.
4.
Autofiction 02:34
Will I ever get used to it? The dull gaze of routine and the long lines of people destined never to meet? I wanna see it one last time, before it slides away into the ocean, and my hair turns grey, and I slow ‘til I’m stopping. This is your corner. This is your end. Take all your steps with a strength of conviction. Autofiction. Graffiti in the Gothic Quarter, poignant and true, you can’t listen to that song anymore, it reminds you of you. ‘This is a disaster,’ well that’s what I think it is, water, water everywhere, and not a single drop to drink. This is your damage. This is your plight. Withdrawals from a new addiction. Autofiction.
5.
O Sister 02:28
Feelin’ like Morvern Callar with my Sunbathing Tapes looking out. I watch the morning boats I try to wrestle with the current’s doubt. The past is another land, the future’s another girl. I quit trying to live with it and I killed the ghost of her. There was trouble in transit, I think that houseplant’s had it’s time. Though some graves recovered, some things are best left behind. The past is another land, the future’s another girl. I quit trying to live with it and I killed the ghost of her. Maybe I might want children, just didn’t want to have ‘em with you. Wanted to leave the country, I guess this place will have to do. The past is another land, the future’s another girl. I quit trying to live with it and I killed the ghost of her
6.
The Shakes 03:19
There’s something hiding under the ice, an imitation of a sound. There’s something standing behind the door. Would you like to know more? Freeform delusion taken from the memory tapes — but not the answer to your problems, oh no. I’ve known sad, known sad, but I’ve never known a sad, I’ve never known a sad song like it and in my bones, oh and in my soft pixelated skin I’ve never known a sad song like it. There’s something hiding under the ice, something’s trying to lasso the sun. There’s something that you shouldn’t say and something that shouldn’t be done. There’s third tier Arnold — and ringing in the new year along watching third tier Arnold, oh no. I’ve known sad, known sad, but I’ve never known a sad, I’ve never known a sad song like it and in my bones, oh and in my soft pixelated skin I’ve never known a sad song like it.
7.
Night School 03:59
I fell in with a phantom inside the half dream room, and babe, it ain’t no cure for the summertime. They said that I was punch drunk. There was something in that lie, running round my echoplex. There goes my other life. There is another way, you can do it without me. I’ve thought about the hows, I’ve thought about the means. I only want to live on the edge of a precipice, in the season of the wildfires. Up to my old tricks. Love, after it’s done. Love, after it’s done. Moved to the desert, starting a cult. Here it comes again! Will I ever be free of it? Another parting shot to the gut, my tainted love. Love, after it’s done. Love, after it’s done. Moved to the desert, starting a cult.
8.
There goes my habit, there goes my crypto love. The sky about to rain — washed out, washed out. There goes my control, as I slip inside the new identity programme singing ‘how’s this for a delusion’. In the youth that was, surprise followed surprise. There goes my habit! A long forgotten song coming up on the screen in a Hong Kong movie. Here comes the trouble of my own design. I thought that I’d grow old with you, Kelly. Here or somewhere else. In the youth that was, surprise followed surprise.
9.
The Way Out 03:25
Unthank delegate, celosia for brains. I was out on the delivery run when Maradona passed away. And the way out is a painted hole. Working on a road scheme I sing a drinking sound. At night, I make fiction happen so that I’m still around. And the way out is a painted hole. New wave, no way, impossible, spilling the guts, sweeping the floor, reverberates, under the ground. Better the devil you know. Sad eyed lady of the Shawlands, say goodbye. Best you go your way, likely I’ll go mine. And the way out is a painted hole.
10.
Flowers bend to you on the back roads. First day of spring on the east coast, lost myself in a rush to live and endured the day without an end. Take secret knowledge that I don’t want, go total Colombia. Flowers bend to you when I go round dead city centres and new towns, the concave concrete where teenage dreams bleed out — and later, tongues are crossed. There is no time like the first. Flowers bend to you. What’s wrong with your eyes? Nothing. What do you do in San Francisco? What do you do in Odessa? What do you do on canvas, friend, down in the theatre of the pretend? Some things end in media res — it almost doesn’t matter. So far from Hydra — for what it’s worth — Dylan T on his thirtieth, Manila folder for my manuscript but Dominique! This isn’t it! in through the door, but out by the gutter. What’s wrong with your eyes? Nothing. Cranberry dreams, 1994, Melody Electronica. The closer that I got, the clearer the sound but the faster it burned. If you see it, walk on by. Keep your head down, walk on. What’s wrong with your eyes? Nothing.
11.
You were born, born into the wrong. It would be easier to hold a grudge, or to be at war, than carry round an atlas stone, follow you into the pending, learn to be alone. But the first day of your life was the day you had to die. Die, die, die, in my mind. Found a man who cries at action films, but I wanna be your lover not a therapist. Another man who doesn’t say a thing and it’s like watering the plants when I go with him. Lonely in the south, I’m redrafting my lines. Autocorrect working overtime. Think that I might try to live alone, Well, if I can find the money. Rent’s out of control.

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released February 16, 2024

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Savage Mansion Glasgow, UK

A band from Glasgow.

The Shakes, released February 2024 via Lost Map Records

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