Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose

The début album, which also has one of the most astonishingly curious titles of recent times, is finally released on Mute Records on January 24, 2012. If you were not lucky enough to be at EOTR watching this set then let me say something: I had long ago worked out that she was good at what she does but then this was quite something.

Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny....

  

Live on the Garden Stage at End Of The Road Festival 2011, Saturday 3 September.  This is the third time I have seen the whole band live and it just gets better and better. For 2009/2010 coverage of Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny see 'I Will Return, I Promise'.
It is strange, in a very good kind of way, and I trust Mute Records with that.

If you wonder why that is, go listen to Polly Scattergood's 2009 self-titled début album that was also released by Mute. And, by the way, she's busy with the next one and I can't wait for that either.

"I Will Return I Promise" - Beth Jeans Houghton

It has been a couple of years since she first popped up on the scene with the EP 'Hot Toast - Volume 1'. I first heard (of) her, and then immediately bought the EP at the Rough Trade pop-up store, at End Of The Road 2009.
You might be forgiven for thinking that the toast is getting stale, and there certainly hasn't been a second round, but now things are moving fast. Here she is, in the then rather basic 'Local' tent, at EOTR 2009.

It is very easy to forget that this is actually not much more than eighteen months ago.

This may well have actually been her first festival performance but, due to The Horrors having to cancel due to illness, she did a slot on the very much larger Big Top stage later in the weekend, which I did not see, and again to much acclaim by all accounts. There is something very EOTR about all this (as Caitlin Rose proved in 2010)...

The début album has taken a while longer than anticipated, though it is now (May 2011) complete. Nevertheless she appeared again in the meantime with her band The Hooves of Destiny on the Lake Stage at Latitude 2010 on Sunday afternoon.

Both these photos do not however include an absolutely vital part of the live 'Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny' experience, so it is high time to put that right.

Rory Gibson on bass.
  

She is good on her promise too: on Monday it was confirmed that Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny are to appear at EOTR 2011 with, no doubt, the album to showcase.

Now signed to Mute Records the track Dodecahedron is available as a free, legal download in the meantime.

Recording pains - Beth Jeans Houghton

I've never recorded anything original myself, let alone an album, so here are some thoughts by one - who I saw live at EOTR 2009 - about the process of recording her soon-to-be-released first album. The album from, should you have forgotten, the artist who claims she appeared from the depths of Buttermere, simply has to have been worth the wait. Recording it has however not been without some trials and tribulations...

"Frantically finishing recording for the forthcoming album with Ben Hillier.

On Thursday we invited a lot of my friends down to be recorded as a BIG BAD CHOIR on 'Golden' and 'I Will Return, I Promise'. Twenty three people came, including the Hooves, half of Stornoway, Mike Lindsay from Tunng, the boy who sells me coffee in the morning, Dr. S. Tud Luvcub, Jessica Rabbit and Kola, a man I met on the street that morning. The punk song we recorded is called 'Prick AKA Sean' and it's about a drunk Glaswegian man who had a fight with our tour manager in a Travel Lodge in Coventry when we were on tour with Stornoway. The prize line being 'Goodnight, sweet dreams and f**k off'. He [Kola] was lovely, he really was."

If you think that the foregoing sounds improbable in the extreme consider this, the text on the inner sleeve of 2009 EP 'Hot Toast - Volume 1'.