Here be one of the finest nuggets in the Fence back catalogue, lovingly buffed up by Domino Records, and pressed on 12″ vinyl for Record Store Day 2011.

Here’s what we said on it’s original release back in 2000:

Fence has a box containing dozens of The Lone Pigeon’s four track tapes, and this collection just happened to come out of the box first. LG III, beavering away in his East Neuk studio, made them sound as best he could, and as The Pidge was off on his travels, had no titles for the songs. Two years later, The Pidge posted a full track list on his own website.  Which no longer exists.

This is an extremely limited item, so we suggest buying now without really thinking about it.

Featuring lyrics and vocals from King Creosote sung over musical backdrops arranged and recorded by Jon Hopkins, Diamond Mine is a genuine labour of love, recorded over a number of years without the pressure of deadlines, whenever Jon and KC could get together.

The album, featuring instrumental moments as affecting as the lyrical, consists of newly interpreted obscure delights picked out from 20 years of King Creosote’s treasure chest of a back catalogue. Intended to be heard as a single experience, Diamond Mine produces a near classical suite of emotion ranging from cracked despair to patched-up euphoria. Described by King Creosote as a ‘soundtrack to a romanticised version of a life lived in a scottish coastal village’, the record weaves in slices of Fife life, bike wheels, spring tides, tea cups and café chatter to produce a beautiful, unique and timeless album.

The lead track off of Flick The Vs gets the remix treatment from London producer, Bullion.

Then the remix gets a remix by King Creosote, on the B side.

Amidst Tesco-value tea drinking sessions with members of the near-legendary Fence Collective (James Yorkston, King Creosote, Lone Pigeon, Pip Dylan etc), Tom Bauchop began home recordings for Fifth Column, his debut album. Tom describes Fifth Column as the culmination of a process of compressing four previous attempts at U.N.P.O.C. albums, into ‘something good’… Well ‘something good’ is a bit of an understatement.

Fifth Column is a lo-fi production where the sentiment is high; it’s an out of time pop masterpiece, similar in spirit to Plush’s debut sides. As well as melodic nods to The Kinks, Buddy Holly and The Ronettes, it’s also reminiscent of Roky Erickson’s field recordings and the outsider pop-art of a Brian Wilson. Tom seems to be writing and recording in that same place of self-discovery and intimacy from which a Beach Boys track like ‘In My Room’ once emerged.

With no real catalogue number on the sleeve, and no label officially pressing this any more … is this, one of KC’s most heralded releases, destined to become a great lost classic?

It’s a cracker, that’s for sure.  Thirteen tracks, produced by Jon Hopkins, and recorded with various members of The Fence Collective and The Earlies – it’s unquestionably KC’s most epic album.   Check out Jude Rogers fantastic track-by-track review here.

“Imagine a woozy, self-deprecating romantic, the kind of man who travels through thousands of emotions at all times, suddenly losing his shyness and becoming utterly fabulous” Jude Rogers, The Guardian

Jon Hopkins, a composer, pianist and self-taught studio wizard, is set to release his self-produced third album and debut for Double Six, Insides, on 4th May 2009.

Insides is a big, bold record showcasing Hopkins’ intriguing musical aesthetic to brilliant effect. Insides is about juxtaposition: natural, arcane textures welded to pulsing, hypnotic rhythms, beautiful acoustic melodies set against jarring bass. Above all, Insides is an audacious album which boasts a magical aura all of its own.

King Creosote is still living on the marie celeste that is Crail in north east Fife, and has returned to the good ship Domino for the release of his umpteenth long player Flick the Vs. When asked of his three year mainstream sabbatical, KC had this rather fishy tale to tell…

“If KC rules OK was the sunny and relaxed outcome of spending an afternoon with the Earlies, paddling about in the rock pools of Morecambe, breeks rolled up to the knees, a net in one hand and a plastic pail full of small crabs in the other, then Bombshell felt like a month aboard a modern trawler out near Norwegian waters under the command of new skipper Jon Hopkins, yellow sou’westers and oilskins to fore and aft, battling the elements to fill our quotas of haddock and bream. In comparison, Flick the Vs was to have been a Sunday night’s angling off the main pier in Anstruther, but it didn’t turn out quite so tranquil. This time around skipper Paul Savage sent the Earlies out whaling near Iceland, whilst the Fence boys took a small rowing boat onto Loch Awe for a spot of salmon poaching. Steve Mason himself pulled up a couple of creels out there by the end of the sewage pipe, whilst Hopkins just had to make do with the purchase of a packet of scampi fries to eat whilst sunbathing on the railway platform at Ladybank.”

H’aye.

Time Capsule’, a massive 7 album box set, contains pretty much everything the Lone Pigeon has ever made.  If you’re a Fence Records fan, this is pretty much the holy grail …

Packaged in beautiful mini card LP sleeves with dizzyingly colourful artwork that looks like the inside of a child’s distorted imagination has exploded into reality, ‘Time Capsule’ contains tracks which may (or may not) have been released on CDr in the past, and provides a fascinating insight into the mind of an artist who has remained impossible to pin down.

‘Time Capsule’ also comes with some illuminating sleeve notes from King Creosote, who happens to be Lone Pigeon’s brother, and who readily admits he finds his brother to be as much of a puzzle as the rest of us. He seems to sum things up best in fittingly cryptic terms when he calls his brother, “a wanderer, a pilgrim, a messianic jew, a dervish, a vandal, a prophet, but mainly a lost soul.” Make of that what you will, but it makes a strange kind of sense to us, and probably will for anyone else who immerses themselves in this almost indescribable collection of songs.

King Creosote‘s breakthrough album, and debut for Names/679.  The album features 11 KC penned tracks with fellow Names artists and psychedelic minstrels, The Earlies, on backing band duties. The album, expands the KC musakal palette further with horns, beats, strings and atmospherics, but is still at heart a collection of extraordinarily touching, funny, sad, poignant, heartbreaking and downright beautiful songs. KC Rules OK? You bet your life he does.

James Yorkston’s debut literary venture is a collection of diary entries, that captures the whisky sodden haze and non-vegan menu frustration of modern tour life.  It’s a crackin’ read!

We’re selling our copies for £9.99 – which is a bit more expensive than what certain online retailers are selling them for … but ours are signed by James himself!