Fancy Barrel | Aidan Smith's debut album Fancy Barrel

Catalogue Number: ACAT010CD/ACAT010
Released: 24 October 2005
Running Time: 45:24
Format: CD & Vinyl

Track listing:

Listen to full tracks @ Myspace.

Purchase Fancy Barrel @ Amazon UK

iTunes - Fancy Barrel is also available to buy from iTunes - Download iTunes from apple.com/itunes.

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Q Magazine - January 2006: His three mini-albums have had their moments of erratic genius, so it's probably appropriate that on his debut full-length, Manchester's Aidan Smith should display roughly double the unpredictability. A songwriter who possesses an uncanny ability to rattle out piano-based tunes, Smith is just as likely to sabotage things. This, though, seems to be very much in line with the eccentric character of his songs. It might take a while but ultimately they'll win you over.

NME - December 2005: Up until now, the Salford suburb of Eccles is best known for giving its name to a currant-dotted cake with the consistency of flaky concrete. Aidan Smith may just be its next big thing. A librarian by trade, his gentle, acoustic-based homespun philosophy and laconic Manc wit unsurprisingly call to mind his mate Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy. There's a hint of 'Abbey Road'-era Beatles on the accordion'n'brass-backed 'The Cuckold' while 'Everytime I Lean I Fall Asleep' shows that Smith can do James Taylor-ish acoustic love songs too. The oddball, tea-fixated 'Jam Will Suffice', however, will have you wondering if Smith has a dog called Gromit and invents rabbit-catching devices for fun. Whatever the truth, 'Fancy Barrel' is a right little cracker.

Touch Magazine - December 2005: Alternative Album of the Month. Aidan Smith has one of those voices. You know the ones. The ones that have you hooked from the very first second. Which is odd because from a technical point of view you could say his singing is a bit shoddy. He quite often sings his folky pop songs out of key and sometimes out of time, but he delivers his lyrics with such conviction and honest emotion its hard to shake the impression that you are witnessing a giant British talent. You might think that song titles like 'Jam Will Suffice' and 'Aeroplanes, Pigs Etc' don't sound particularly promising, but you would be wrong. 'Fancy Barrel' should have Ed Harcourt quaking in his boots. One to watch for in 2006...

FACT Magazine - December 2005: Beauty, banality, sharpened kitchen sink-isms and pastoral oddity on a debut that sounds much like Badly Drawn Boy with the volume turned down and the engaging fragility 'whacked' all the way up. A charming cut above most new singer-songwriters doing the rounds.

Boys Toys - December 2005: If you haven't yet heard of Aidan Smith, its definitely time you introduced yourself to this charmingly non-corporate Badly Drawn Boy-like singer-songwriter from Manchester. After three critically acclaimed mini-albums, this is his first long player, and its a suitably random affair too, featuring everything from bittersweet love songs to kitchen sink dramas and experimental tracks, brought alive by flutes, accordions, mellotrons and the like. Catch this ramshackle, multi-talented and beguilingly idiosyncratic storyteller at the start of what could be a fascinating career.

DJ Magazine - November 2005: Aidan Smith might only be 24-years-old but if this debut album is anything to go by he has already mastered his craft. A steady collection of imaginative and original songs, Fancy Barrel shows Smith's musicianship as confident, his instrumentation esoteric (banjos, flutes) and his storytelling versatile and imaginative. Balancing poetry, comedy and wisdom across a broad range of musical styles - from reverie-inducing acoustic cuts to eccentric tracks like 'Jam Will Suffice' and 'Everything Is Boring' - this is an impressively accomplished and fun debut.

City Life - November 2005: "I sing my songs in Manchester...I seem to care if people like them there", sings Aidan Smith on his debut album's standout track 'Song for Manchester'. Its a lyric that perfectly sums up Smith's idiosyncratic songwriting approach: humble, parochial, but always sweetly endearing. A singer-songwriter in the best English eccentric oddball tradition, Smith will always draw comparisons with Badly Drawn Boy. But it's unlikely that BDB could deliver an album as phantasmagorical as this. Smith's songs draw you into a magical schoolboyish world, like Monty Python crossed with Elliot Smith, songs that veer from deadpan humour ('Everybody Thinks I'm A Millionaire') to ones with a supine twist ('Love Song With Aneurysm'). Here's an album the people of Manchester - and hopefullly the world over - can enjoy.

Leeds Guide - November 2005: Aidan Smith's full-length debut comes amid a storm of understated hype, with proclamations of his genius whispered rather than shouted. Brimming with short, chirpy tracks, Fancy Barrel is a brilliant album album and yet still goes some way towards silencing those whispers. Listening to a number of the tracks, the comparisons with Paul McCartney, both Beatles-era and beyond are obvious. The simplistic piano and orchestral flourishes underpin songs that could easily belong to those hallowed albums, but while tracks like 'Jam Will Suffice' may demonstrate all the whimsy of Beatles-era Lennon, lyric-wise they're closer to 'The Frog Chorus': "Pork sauce and rice is very nice, is very nice, but jam will suffice...take another slice". But its hard to criticise lyrics that are so unique and so often winsome. Where successful, their ability to evoke emotion is outstanding, cutting deep without over-elaborating. "Don't crush my heart, 'cause its my most important part" sings Smith on 'Everything Is Boring'. The songs can be strikingly beautiful, as with the plucked guitar acoustics of 'Alone, Askew', in which Smith manages to dress profanity in such dulcet tones the result is nothing but inoffensive; while 'Vaudeville' is effortlessly jaunty and boasts a classic simplicity that epitomises much of the album. Smith remains a genius-in-the-making rather than a bona fide one: Fancy Barrel is eminently listenable and improves with every listen, and yet it sometimes trips up over its youthful charm. But if he can retain something of that adolescence through his artistic growth, even the doubters will have to believe the hype.

Rocksound - November 2005: Its oddly appropriate that Eccles maverick Aidan Smith has, for some years now, been described as a troubadour par excellence, since this, his debut proper, is awash with similar anachronisms. Calling one track 'Vaudeville' is bold enough, but 'The Cuckold'? Why, he could easily be written off as an irrelevance were it not for the fact that, after a string of patchy mini-albums, he's finally developed a fully compelling streak. There are dozens of moments of Badly-Drawn-Kloot wonder on here, ranging from the audacious sweetness and self-depracation of 'Everybody Thinks I'm A Millionaire' through the skewed sensibilities of 'Love Song (With Aneurysm)' and into the gorgeous piano flurries that propel 'Aeroplanes, Pigs Etc' with only the occasional lapse into whimsy threatening to trouble the spell Smith casts. Its new acoustica from a bizarrely old soul, perhaps, but his time finally deserves to be now.

The Sun - November 2005: This singer/songwriter hails from Eccles and his debut full-length album features as many musical tricks as there are currants in one of his town’s famous cakes. Inevitably, someone who dabbles in quirky lyrics set to all kinds of musical backings gets compared to Badly Drawn Boy. But Aidan’s skewed pop brilliance is both engaging and original. Underpinning the zany stuff are Beatles-esque melodies and vocals. One track that typifies his approach is Love Song (With Aneurysm), an off kilter slice of piano-driven nonsense. So if you FANCY some musical creativity, this has it by the BARREL-load.

Manchester Online - Review - November 2005: ‘I SING my songs in Manchester… I seem to care if people like them there,’ sings Aidan Smith on his debut album’s standout track ‘Song For Manchester’. It's a lyric that perfectly sums up Smith's idiosyncratic songwriting approach: humble, parochial, but always sweetly endearing. Read more >>

The Epoch Times - Review - November 2005: You’ve got to love a guy whose songs include titles such as ‘Everytime I Lean I Fall Asleep’ and ‘Jam will Suffice’. Aidan Smith’s debut album Fancy Barrel opens with glorious breezy abandon and continues with quirky, engaging piano and guitar songs, embellished with brass, wind and percussion, all to fabulous effect. Read more >>

The Guardian - Review - November 2005: As a quirky Manchester-area songwriter who achieved local fame via some lo-fi mini-albums on the Twisted Nerve label, Aidan Smith was never going to avoid being compared to Badly Drawn Boy. Read more >>

Mojo - November 2005: Debut full-length from Eccles’ freewheeling pop prodigy. Twenty-four-year-old Smith caught the attention of Manchester’s Twisted Nerve imprint with a 70-song cache of home recorded demos, which were cherry-picked for two mini-albums in 2003. A change of label has seen him upgrade from 4-track to professional studio, without compromising his skewed lyricism or stylistic promiscuity. Fancy Barrel is a vaudevillian pot-pourri of Macca melodies, sly wit and artful arrangements, often recalling the kaleidoscopic joy of Harry Nilsson’s late ‘60s output. First-contact highlights include the air, piano-based charmers Love Song(With Aneurysm) and Aeroplanes, Pigs etc, the latter underscored by some wonderful jazz drumming. Subsequent spins reveal a warped logic to avant-lounge odysseys Bert’s Violent Rage and Basslines & Shapes, while The Cuckold’s trumpet and accordion lilt cradles a doomed narrative that would make Randy Newman proud.

Nuts - November 2005: After a sprinkling of infectious mini LPs, Badly Drawn Boy’s less-beardy disciple burst forth with his first album proper – a wonderfully crafter acoustic gem.

Flux Magazine - Nov/Dec issue 2005: This is an endearing debut that goes from good to sublime after about the fourth tune. It's rainswept stuff mainly arranged with cello and piano and a few other instruments, several of which seem to be in Waltz time. There is an edge to some of the lyrics - he wants to hammer nails into the sun on one tune, while 'Song for Manchester' is more about songwriting than Manchester. What a following this man is going to gain.

Dazed & Confused - November issue 2005: The second best thing ever to come out of Eccles, Aidan Smith's first album of eccentric acoustic jams has a moreish quality, just like those damn sticky cakes.

musicOMH - Review - October 2005: Kicking off with the pitter patter of tiny drum beats on Aeroplanes, Pigs Etc you immediately think you know the score with Aidan Smith's new CD Fancy Barrel. Here is a wistful album of childlike masculine simplicity and joy with more than a passing resemblance to a barrel of influences from Badly Drawn Boy and Blur to The Kinks, Sid Barrett's Pink Floyd and even The Small Faces. But listener beware: inside Fancy Barrel is a web of intelligence that will capture you with its charm and cunning musicality. Read more >>

dots and spaces - Mini review - October 2005: Aidan Smith’s Fancy Barrel is out now on Analogue Catalogue and finally, after the nibbles, the entree and the aperitif, this is the main course. There are some wonderful songs, the bittersweet of "Alone Askew", the fun of "Love Song (With Aneurysm), old favourite "Everything is Boring" and some daft moments "Jam will suffice". Read more >>

BoomKat - Review - October 2005: Manchester has a habit of producing people like Aidan Smith; outwardly upbeat and with a serious ear for melody, then dipped in that special something which instils it all with a melancholy that never nudges into the realms of angst. Read more >>

Manchester Music - Review - October 2005: Clever, entertaining and intelligently musical, Aidan Smiths album so intrinsically different, that its relevance is undeniable. It’s good fun too. Read more >>

Poptones - Review/preview - September 2005: Some will herald Aidan Smith’s much anticipated debut album as the second coming of Christ. But hysterics have a funny way of living. So let’s move them aside for a second and let’s discuss the new album ‘Aidan Smith’s Fancy Barrel’ out soon on Analogue Catalogue. Read more >>

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Aidan Smith - Fancy Barrel

Track listing: