Tan Coul
A love letter to early 1980s Scottish indie music without in any way being a pastiche, this proves there is indeed no end to Mr Capalid's talents.
Favorite track: Impossible Youth.
Strange Seawolf
It is, like the first track suggests "beautiful and weird". It draws you in and makes you see scenes and create stories in your head from the music and the lyrics. One story for each song? Heck, no! Several stories for each of the songs, lines, chords... beautifully done!
keefmaniac
Capaldi's vocals have always drawn me in since I first heard them in 2014 on the dream boys (Only ?) Ep. There is a clear draw from the later works of bowie and late 60s rock artists. I took a gamble pre-ordering the record; but with amazing instrumentation, Production, writing and vocals, I'm a very happy owner of a brilliant album.
Favorite track: The Great Magnificence.
“St. Christopher” is a debut collection of songs by the actor Peter Capaldi, produced by Dr Robert and released on the Monks Road Records label.
Peter is probably best known as the acid tongued Malcolm Tucker on television’s The Thick of It. But in a long screen career he has also played the twelfth incarnation of Dr Who, while recent film roles include “The Thinker” in James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” and Siegfried Sassoon in Terrence Davies soon to be released “Benediction.”
What is less well known is that he started his performing career in music. As a graduate of Glasgow School of Art, he inevitably put together an art school band, and joined the thriving music scene of 1980s Glasgow. The fervour of youth was not quite enough, however, and the band went the way of countless others. But Peter never lost his love of music.
In 2019 Dr Robert of the Blow Monkeys invited Peter to a recording session for the Monks Road Album ‘Humanism’. Peter said, “Watching the musicians work, something drove me to scribble out a song, just for the chance of having them play it, and when they did I knew immediately this was something I wanted to do again. So, I set about it.”
“Robert patiently endured these efforts, encouraging some, letting others slip quietly away, until eventually we felt we had enough ideas to go into the studio… And then it was March 2020 and everything stopped.”
Lockdown forced a rethink. “We had demos, computers, Robert’s address book, and a very clear diary so, through the magic of modern technology, we sent the tracks back and forth until finally, with the help of some brilliant musicians, we found ourselves with something that very much appeared to be an album.”
These songs are the result of Peter’s re-connection with a simple desire to make music again, songs that don’t stray too far from his art school roots. The lure of electric guitars and synthesisers is a hard one to shake.
Keenly aware of his musical gaps, Peter set out to make something honest, using his experience as a writer and director to forge the ideas, and brought to life by the veteran skills of Dr Robert and a group of highly talented musicians. Written largely in the US and recorded in lockdown the album is an opportunity to explore the atmospheric musical ideas that drove him to perform in the first place.
He says, “Whether in the end these songs work is for others to judge. But the chance to try them out, with such skilled musical support, has been a wonderful experience. In some ways absolutely new, but in others… well in a way I feel I’m just picking up where I left off.”
supported by 8 fans who also own “St. Christopher”
Never was a fan of Tom Baker beofre this, but gave it a chance. Happy to say I'm sold. The delighful linguistics would stump a lesser actor. Mike Williams