KING POST KITSCH "Don't You Touch My Fucking Honeytone"

There’s nothing wrong with the name Charlie Ward but it’s not a patch on King Post Kitsch. What a monumentally brilliant name to be releasing records as: a whiff of stage-swagger, an aura of grand mystery but also faintly ridiculous and self-mocking. After a free digital EP, the second King Post Kitsch release “Don’t You Touch My Fucking Honeytone” is out this week.

The title track sounds as raw and loud as the portable guitar amp in its title: fiercely twanging rockabilly-garage power-pop – Johnny Burnette with a razor tie? – filled out with a sharp dash of 60s organ. Although ‘Penny Red’ maintains the home-studio rough-and-ready guitar sounds, albeit easing off the pace slightly, the third and fourth tracks spin off elsewhere. ‘Alaska’ opens with lo-fi ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ mellotron before resembling a stripped-back, off-kilter take on ‘I Am Walrus’ as though Lennon was recording in a Glasgow flat on his own rather than at Abbey Road with George Martin, and swapping orchestral accompaniment for some film dialogue about bears and Alaska. The older ‘Monomaniac’ sounds precisely what Low covering a Broadcast song would, again if they were in a small Glasgow flat... well you get the idea.



From vintage guitar riffage to retro-futurist sounds in four tracks is an impressive but cohesive span. Given this and the initial coarse feel to the songs it therefore came as a surprise to learn Charlie Ward is a professional sound engineer. But then again... maybe not such a surprise. As King Post Kitsch he has a very clear audio aesthetic he wants to create - an old-fashioned roughness with a mellow immediacy - and knows how to get the best out of bedroom studios set-ups to achieve this. And in doing so has fashioned some damn exciting music.

This debut release on the excellent Song By Toad Records is handsomely presented in 7” white vinyl (with download code) and a delicious appetiser for the long-player from King Post Kitsch to follow in June (pre-order here) with only one of these songs on that ten track album. If you require further evidence of the quality and range of output from Song By Toad Records you should also download the free 14 track digital label sampler for 2011.

King Post Kitsch - Don't You Touch My Fucking Honeytone by Song, by Toad

King Post Kitsch Don’t Touch My Fucking Honeytone [BUY]