Discography.

So here it is, the complete Plastic Squirrel discography, complete with most of the liner notes from the original albums. Enjoy. All these albums are available to buy at cost price, if you just email me at dave@plasticsquirrel.co.uk for details, I will gladly send you a copy.

Puppyfish - 1999

  1. Auton. This track is based around a guitar sample what I done for something else, but didn't use for it in the end. It's quite mellow and trancy, and has some nice moogy noises in it.
  2. Check-out Queue. I wrote this one for a film soundtrack that never got made, it's got a nice expanded bass line and some nice guitar in the background. It's also pretty mellow.
  3. Il Puppino. This was for the same never made film, it originally had a load of Scooby-Doo samples on it, but I cut most of them out, another nice guitar sample in here, but mainly quite smooth still.
  4. Laughing In Your Sleep.(pt.1) A real old gem this one, wrote it in 1997, while I was off work with a busted foot, truly very calm and trancy, music to meditate to. First real electronic thing I did as well, not even a sequencer in sight! Live keyboards I tells ya!
  5. Regime. Another one off of that film. Heavy metal with samplers! I did one of the guitars live and the rest is all sequenced and sampled, but it sounds soooo good still!
  6. Wakey! Wakey! Now this is going back a bit too! Sample from Geoff (singer from Fatal Aura, who I used to play guitar for) a bit of electronic jiggery pokery and some Steve Hillage style delayed guitar work, and a classic is born!
This was the first full Plastic Squirrel album, recorded on an ancient Fostex 4-track, and some even older nastier equipment that we need not go into. Entirely instrumental and mostly electronic, it is made up of the most part from tracks recorded especially for a student film that never got made. The original version contains a remix of Black Sabbath's Iron Man, which has been removed now, in case of copyright infringement. Amusingly enough, the original tape has now deteriorated to quite an extent, and all digital copies were lost (to us at Squirrelworld music anyway) in a computer failure incident in 2001, so any copies in existence now that don't hiss are incredibly rare (and we'd like one if you've got one). Currently undergoing a digital re-enhancement in Steven's Cat studios, we hope to get it back out there soon, as some of the tracks are pretty damn good.

Don't Look Too Far Behind (You Might Unscrew Your Head) - 2001

  1. Bar Prop. Originally did this one the day I first got my ropey old four track, when I'd been sent home from work because of what the glue fumes had done to me! That version was too weird though, so I recorded this one a few months later. It's a bit floyd in places, and a bit Hillagey again here and there. Got some lovely sound effects in it too!
  2. Don't Look Too Far Behind (You might Unscrew Your Head). Big long title, very mellow song, got delayed Rhodes for the main part, and some cheesy eighties bass in it. The words are a little depressing, but I was in a period of great unemployment at the time (or had I just got a job I hated?) Anyhow, it's a nice song.
  3. Food Head. This one was an experiment in using guitar samples and live guitars together, It turned out very nicely as it happens, very cock-rock in places, nice.....
  4. Janis. A great favourite of mine, written while trying to work out a Jethro Tull track, it keeps some of that inspiration for a bit. A lovely folky, rocky, full of hefty geetar chops track.
  5. Mr Hitler. Please listen to the end of this one carefully, THESE ARE NOT MY REAL VIEWS I wrote this track to shock and offend in the vain hope that people might realise that there are people who really think like this in the world. I am not one of them. On a lighter note however, the guitar solo on it is a real killer, and the mandolins not too shabby either. Cheap old yamaha drum machine loop adds a certain character to folk music!
  6. My Dog Thinks He's Elvis. Country and western comedy I reckon! When I wrote this I didn't actually have a dog, I do now, and he does!! Worth a listen cos its so damn funny!
  7. Nothing. Another depressing folky, rocky kind of thing. Some interesting tempo changes and a real nice fat organ sound.
  8. Sense. More folk rock, great guitar hooks on this one though.

This was a retrospective made up of mostly pre-Plastic Squirrel recorded material (for an earlier solo project, tentatively titled "Sturgess") and some later, proper Squirrel stuff. A proper mix of rock, pop, folk and electronica, it contains the highly controversial and entirely misunderstood "Mr Hitler" for which there will never be an apology, as it is just misunderstood. Again, this has a cover attached, which is not on the release version, this time, an acoustic version of Yazoo's "Only You" with a madrigal style multi-tracked vocal.

Time to go Meet Elvis - 2002

  1. I'll Be Your Crutch
  2. So Many Pretty Girls (Part 1)
  3. Christmas 2000
  4. Country Dirge
  5. Laughing in your Sleep (part 2)
  6. So Many Pretty Girls (part 2)
  7. Fantastic Actress
  8. Time to go Meet Elvis
  9. So Many Pretty Girls (part3)

"This album is kind of a concept album in that it started as a bunch of songs that I wrote, and then I realised they were all about the same thing and kind of charted my progression from the end of 2000 to the end of 2001. After a while it seemed only logical to put them in the right order. And the final push was when I rewrote So Many Pretty Girls for the third time, due to yet another change of circumstance, and realised I liked all 3 versions so much I wanted to do them all. This reeked of Pink Floyd and that kind of ilk, and I thought, why not, I'll do a concept album. So here it is, after 2 years of toil I've got it how I like it. Enjoy! Thanks are due mainly to myself for writing and recording all this, but some must go to Rambo for putting up with my mood swings, Tom for helping me with the technology when it all went nuts, Michele for her help with the artwork, and every girl I've ever known for making me this bitter and twisted and thus inspiring this whole album."

The first Plastic Squirrel album to feature full digital multi-tracked recording, this was a concept album charting the highs and lows (mainly the lows) of male-female relationships. It was made up almost entirely of proper guitar or piano based rocky/country/folky/beepy electronic songs. Born out of the misery of a relationship break-up some of the songs are surprisingly upbeat, and "Fantastic Actress" which occurs at the starting-to-cheer-up-about-being-single stage of the album features a full gamut of 7 guitar overdubs. The song "Country Dirge" from this album appeared on the Fiend Records compilation "The Flaw of Lives" which is still available from fiend records. The cover version attached to this album was a fairly metal version of Elvis Presley's "Mystery Train"; some of the copies in circulation still have this attached along with a demo of "Shitphony" which appears in full on the next album Audio Pornography.

Audio Pornography - 2003

  1. Beginning
  2. Dad
  3. Joshua
  4. The Joneses
  5. Terry
  6. The Hornishes
  7. Martin's Folly
  8. The Hornishes Revenge
  9. Joshua (part 2)
  10. Private Martin
  11. End

SO, ONCE AGAIN, ANOTHER CONCEPT ALBUM. IT WASN'T MEANT TO BE, BUT OF COURSE, I GOT CARRIED AWAY AGAIN, OH WELL. THIS ALBUM SHOULDBE LISTENED TO ALL IN ONE GO, LIKE READING A BOOK, OR WATCHING A MOVIE, AS IT TELLS THE STORY OF ONE MAN'S LIFE. IT'S A FAIRLY UNFORTUNATE LIFE, AS YOU WILL FIND OUT, AND I DOUBT ANYONE WILL REALLY LISTEN TO IT ALL IN ONE GO MORE THAN ONCE. BUT IT IS RECCOMENDED THAT YOU DO THAT, OKAY? FOR MORE INFO ON THE STORY, AND HOW THE ALBUM WAS MADE, VISIT WWW.PLASTICSQUIRREL.CO.UK AND FOLLOW THE LINKS. ENJOY.

This was a full-scale concept album assault on the ears. Heavily influenced by experimental artists like John Cage, the Residents and The White Noise, the electronic noises and sonic jiggery-pokery can be disturbing to some. The subject matter is none too tasteful either. A tale of one man's life from his childhood with an abusive mother to his death in a pointless war, featuring anything you might find offensive in-between; the opening track in which the main protagonist helps to conceive his own brother sets the pace for the rest of the tale. A cheery folk-singing minstrel commentates between tracks but doesn't lighten the mood at all. If you're very interested in this album you can read all about how it was created in the audio pornography diaries, still on this site in the weird stuff section. Not for the faint hearted at all, and described by the artist's own sister as "sick, just sick".

Compilation - 2007

No idea why I felt the need to do this one. I thought that 10 years of Plastic Squirrel Music was worth celebrating, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. "Greatest Hits" or "Best of" both felt a little optimistic, so it got called Compilation, a fitting title I thought. The liner notes are intriguing as well, but I'm not putting them up here yet, might prompt a few sales for once. A good primer and filled with 10 years worth of wildly differing music. Anyhow, this one is currently available at the merchandise shop, I make no money on these and they do look good, only $8 or so I think go look and buy.

 

Laughing at Dogs 2007

 

Okay, so I started writing this one as soon as I finished Audio Pornography back in 2003. A year later it became hugely concepty, and I ditched half the songs I'd written for it. After a lot of cocking about I took it into my studio at the end of 2006, and finally got it together in October 2007, with a lot of remastering and stuff. Interestingly, the first track I wrote and finished was Laughing at Dogs itself (way back in august 2003) but by the time I got halfway through the new stuff I had so much new gear, and better studio technique I had to go back and redo it, and it ended up being the last track to be finished. Was begun as a tribute to my dog Rambo, who unfortunately died 3 years before it got finished. Still, he got his picture on the cover. This one was meant to be dreamlike, delicate, fragile and beautiful, and a lot of it is, so good for me. Anyhow, it is currently available at the merchandise shop, I make no money on these and they do look good, only $8 or so I think go look and buy.