Peanut Albinos

‘Starkly unsettling backwoods folk…

This EP’s a pretty tricky one to write up. It’s been played on repeat for the last week now and it’s still difficult to form an opinion that can be put into words. It’s a fascinating spindly gothic thing, rich with flavours of acrid campfire smoke curling through strange backwoods canopies, trees rotting in the middle, crushed leaves underfoot with sinister things buried underneath them. It’s a melting pot of things you recognize but couldn’t put a name to, strange tastes on the tip of your tongue. It’s also really quite good.

The Albinos hail from the south of England and there is an ever present sense of traditional Celtic black humour, but you can imagine their music being teased out of homemade instruments on some creaking back porch in the dark heart of rural America. “Just Another Day” lopes along over banjo rolls and brushed drums, bursting into a loose, whiskey-throated chorus. It’s raw and untidy stuff but there’s skill behind it. “Cartiheyna” is belted out over a moving minor chord progression that creates an intensity and dramatic sense of grandeur, turning its lyrical world-weariness into something more defiant than resigned. Closing track “Eleanora” is based around a two chord pattern, building up a tension that is resolved as the song swells into something lovely and soaring.

Ultimate release of tension or not, the music here stays under your skin and at the back of your mind like something growing out of your brain. “Falling From the Saddle of a High Horse” is a dark and elliptical record that is hard to place in any context other than its own, and the possibilities it hints at are strange and exciting.’

Alex Cleary – Americana UK

‘Peanut Albinos sound like whisky, jubilation, hobos, successful failure, hallelujah, and a pub full of shouting drunks. It’s like pirates battling punks for control of the asylum. It’s a raucous, poetic, beautifully orchestrated shambles. The band play banjos and saws and they bang on boxes and scream at the audience…’

Leif Kendall (Words by Me)

‘Imagine a band that look like a bunch of old-fashioned tinkers, who play skiffle banjo, mandolin and brushed drums with a masterful depth of dark gothic and celtic soul, but are mercifully devoid of any carousing Irish accents… Peanut Albinos, in soft, battered, slept-in suits and hats, have an English take on longing, regret and coming to terms with consequences, all while making you think you are in a late night lock-in with Tom Waits on the Kilburn High Road.’

Paul Carrea – Nightshift, Issue 152

‘Truly enthralling… Believe me they are great.’

2000trees Festival

‘The Peanut Albinos offer a compelling mixture of speakeasy jazz, Pogues-style aggression and beguiling ol’ timey country. For some reason, I found them rather scary; perhaps it was the beards and hats, or the rasping king-of-the-drunks excellence of the singer, but there felt an undercurrent of evil about some of the songs, especially the jazzy ones with their funereal banjo and air of mocking world-weariness. When the Great Depression hit and banker after banker took the plunge from the forty-first floor, you can imagine the Peanut Albinos playing away on the street corner as the emergency services searched the sidewalk for all the body parts. This sense of menace dissipates on the country songs where note-perfect harmony (with a spirit not far from The Band’s ’Rockin’ Chair’ or even the odd track by our own Epstein) and instrumental tenderness are the watchwords, although the chord progressions are a little more sophisticated than in most country tunes.

Still, even with these lyrical interludes I couldn’t help thinking that the Peanut Albinos’ appearance may be a harbinger of hard times ahead, as if they were a group designed for some future Perfect Storm: Sub-Prime, Credit Crunch, Stock market Crash and Beckham being picked for England again. Put it this way, if they succeed, it probably means the rest of us are in the shit.’

Colin MacKinnon – Oxford Bands

‘Authenticity, there’s a vexed musical issue. How much does it matter when appropriating sounds and techniques, and at what point can doing something inauthetically become a tradition in its own right? If you want a handy analogy, try the British curry house: despite claims to the contrary stencilled in the bottom of restaurant windows, we all know that the madras you buy on a Friday night is not quite like what has been prepared in Madras for generations, but would it be wrong to say that the British curry menu is now a culinary heritage in its own right; and anyhow, if it tastes good, does it matter?

These thoughts float in the back of the mind as the Peanut Albinos’ EP opens with “The Most Insignificant Things”, a gorgeous concoction of bass, percussion, mandolin and bowed saw with a distinct North African flavour. However, although it’s probably nothing like what might get played in Tunis on an average evening, it does fit seamlessly into the 60s spy theme exotica sub-genre – think The Man From UNCLE visits Marrakech – and could easily be drawn from the dusty depths of some Ninja Tune artist’s crate marked “Obscure Samples”. Like a good prawn balti, the really significant fact is that it’s deeply satisfying, the bass creating a rubbery backdrop for some plucked strings so clipped and sharp they sound like needles dropping into lakes of crystal. The whole piece exhibits the most wonderful poise and delicacy, when it could so easily have become a knowing pastiche. Follow up “To Be A Number” introduces some vocals and ups the drama quota, but could have come from the same imaginary soundtrack.

“Just Another Day”’s unexpected banjo lope drags us unexpectedly across the globe to some sort of hillbilly campfire, where the rest of the CD seems content to kick back and relax…except the unexpected encroachment of some drunken lumberjacks on the chorus does break the spell somewhat (although the Albinos somehow get away with it). From hereon in we’re in the world of the backyard country ballad, all brushed drums, finger pickin’ banjos, guitar strums and world weary laments. Once again, the sense of restraint and control is quite astonishing, and almost unheard of at this level, but perhaps the compositions are somewhat pedestrian: only “How Do You Sleep, My Dear?” makes any sort of bid for the listener’s memory on the EP’s second half, resembling something Springsteen might knock off in one of his quieter moods.

Still, despite the feeling that it slopes off rather unobtrusively after it had started with such colour and tension, this record is still a real treasure with an understated style that’s as unexpected in Oxford as the melange of influences. If they could get a bit of Tom Waits grit into the vocals we could have one of the most intriguing live acts around. Note to self: go to Peanut Albinos gig.’

David Murphy – Oxford Bands

‘”Falling from the Saddle of a High Horse” is a strong starter-set from the UK’s Peanut Albinos. It starts of with the wonderful (other)wordly instrumental “The Most Insignificant Things”. This ditty focuses on the musical saw so it is bound to find a place in my heart.

The second track, “To Be a Number”, somehow marries an American country feel with a funky roll. It’s a nice attention grabber that leads into this collection’s strongest track: “Just Another Day”.

This third tune is a grand ride. It mixes a touch of twang with a threat of violence then throws the concoction into the back of a rattle-trap wagon driven by Shane MacGowan. Always worth the trip.

From there the CD settles into some solid, but middle of the road, acoustic rock pieces. None of them are bad, and “Cartiheyna” has a nice full-bodied feel, but they’re just not as distinctlve as the first three tracks.

I am curious which half of the ep is the sign pointing where they’re headed, and which shows where they’re coming from.’

Sepiachord