Aidan Moffat And The Best-Ofs How To Get To Heaven From Scotland on LP!
Last time we heard from Aidan Moffat (Arab Strap), it was with the wonderful, darkly humorous, spoken word album and book package I Can Hear Your Heart, which received rave reviews upon its February 2008 release. Less than a year later, the 35 year-old Moffat is back in a new guise, as frontman of Aidan Moffat and the Best Ofs.
"It's not really a band," says Moffat, "So much as an open-door club where anyone with a talent for something I like the sound of is welcome." There's no line-up in any traditional sense and members come and go according to their availability, but for this album, the band includes Stevie Jones (Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan's band) and Alun Woodward (ex-Delgados/Lord Cut-Glass.) How To Get To Heaven From Scotland was recorded simultaneously with I Can Hear Your Heart.
"I decided it was time that I attempted to write some positive love songs, which is incredibly difficult to do if you want to avoid cliche and repetition," explains Moffat. "You have to try to make them both personal and universal, which also can be quite difficult; you have to try to forget other people are going to hear them while also making sure it will appeal to an audience. There's a lot more sunshine and happy endings on this record, plus a song about my grandfather's non-existent ghost and a lullaby about the terror of impending fatherhood. Hopefully I've managed to keep it at least diverting for the 37 minutes it lasts."
Aidan Moffat And The Best-Ofs How To Get To Heaven From Scotland Track Listing
1. Lovers Song
2. Big Blonde
3. Atheists Lament
4. Oh Men!
5. A Scenic Route to the Isle of Ewe
6. Thats Just Love
7. Ballad of the Unsent Letter
8. Now I Know Im Right
9. The Last Kiss
10. Lullaby for Unborn Child
11. Living with You Now
12. My Goodbye