On Monday, January 20, Transgressive North, the Scottish arts community, will be putting out two albums and a film as part of Everything Is New, their ace project supporting the charity Scottish Love in Action, who fund the Light of Love Home and School children’s home in India. One is BOATS, a double-disc compilation, featuring brand new cuts from Four Tet, Gang Gang Dance, No Age, Dan Deacon and more, and the other is Sun Choir, a new album by Edinburgh band Marram, which takes in a number of guest artists, including Jarvis Cocker, Irvine Welsh and Owen Pallett, alongside The Light of Love Children’s Choir (who also provide the source material for the tracks on BOATS).
Ahead of the releases, we’ve got a first spin of ‘Valuables’, the Sun Choir track featuring Marram, Welsh, Oakland-based rapper Doseone, the Light of Love choir and a huge number of primary school children from Welsh’s native Scotland. Says the author about the track: "’Valuables’ is a crazy track. It has gone round the world since I first wrote the lyrics in 2008, and it’s pretty thrilling to hear what has become of it – over 1000 different parts, recorded in three different continents. It gives these kids a voice, and a pretty loud one at that. Help us get it heard." Listen below, scroll down for Jamie Chambers of Transgressive North giving the back story to the track and head to Everything Is New website for full details and to get hold of the albums:
Jamie Chambers: "’Valuables’ started life with Irvine’s words (penned somewhere between Edinburgh and L.A.) – a punk, poetic, kid-attuned chorus of joy and anger. From there we shaped it into a form we thought would sound TRUE when bellowed out by an army of ballsy, beautiful kids at the Light of Love children’s home in Tuni. The Tuni recordings then came back with us to Edinburgh, where they went round 30+ primary schools (many from Irvine’s home-stomping ground in Leith) for the kids of Edinburgh to add their voices to the mix, and then toured all round Scotland for instrumentalists far and wide to add clarinets, cellos, trombones, trumpets, fiddles and flutes. THEN, Mr One came on board, and ‘Valuables’ flew to Oakland where Dose swallowed the track whole and spat it out backwards, with new lyrics, new production and a whole new lease of life. On the receiving end back in Edinburgh, we stroked our chins for what seemed like weeks, months, puzzling out how to take it home. Then we knew – obvious, it was what Everything Is New was all about – follow the voices. So here it is, ‘VALUABLES’. Please help us get it heard!"
