FOUND Go Underground

Heard earlier that the Edinburgh-based art-collective-with-a-band-attached FOUND have just signed up with Chemikal Underground to release their third long-player, due in the spring of next year. This is, quite obviously, jolly good news for all concerned, and not only because it means there’s a new FOUND album coming out.

You see, in these recessionary, shitty years we’re living through it’s getting harder and harder to find things that actually make sense. You work fucking hard, you still get laid off. You study like a goon and you end up not being able to afford to go. You pay your taxes and end up owing money you don’t have. You run a bank into the ground and end up richer than Croesus, without the hassle of having to even work for a living. All of which makes no logical sense whatsoever. There’s no point fighting it (although shouting at things helps a bit), but it eats away at your insides, slowly eroding what little remaining faith you have in mankind, leaving you eyeing up either the immigration laws of sunny foreign countries, or the wares in the local rifle store.

FOUND getting another uber-smart, taste-making, universally well-regarded and (crucially) Scottish label to release their next LP is one of those small chinks of light in an otherwise lunatic world. It means that certain parts of the grand machine are still functioning as they should, that hard work and talent do – occasionally – win out. Granted, the BAFTA for the internet cupboard probably didn’t hurt, but hard work and talent is what I’m dealing with tonight.

For those of you who notice such things, it says here that the FOUND album is all recorded and everything, and had Paul Savage doing knob-twiddling duties. I was only aware of his involvement with the very excellent Phantom Band, but he’s done Franz Ferdinand, Mogwai and King Creosote as well, so he’s quite the handy studio man by all accounts. Apparently, I should check the production credits more often.

Anyway, congratulations to FOUND, delighted that we’re going to get another album out of them.

And, with another (Edinburgh-based, hurray!) cracking band on a cracking Scottish label, may this sort of encouragement of native talent long continue. We’ve never needed it more, in fact.

Just because I’ve gone back and watched it for the first time in ages and forgot how much fun it was to do, here’s ‘Anti-Climb Paint’ from the FOUND session we did for Off The Beaten Tracks last summer: