MOD-Garden|EP Review

Words by Craig Carrington-Porter

Craig awoke and pulled on a dressing gown. Tying the felt rope that came with it around his spoilt gut, he knew that he would have to do something today.

The lockdown days were hitting closer to 50 and all he had achieved were putting down (humane) mouse traps to catch his new friend Mickey, who lived under the fridge.

He stood in the shower sighing, he got dressed sighing and brushed his teeth sighing while the moist minty paste dribbled negatively down his unwashed t-shirt.

Craig hadn’t seen anyone in weeks.

Becoming comfy in his furniture he put on MOD’s new EP Garden. Throwing on fat headphones, he drifted as the loopy intro began to filter through his sluggish mind. The opening track Mark had an inviting haze to it, almost like an Alice in wander land translucency to it. Over a minute later the somewhat calming psychedelic waves crashed onto the shore of a more harsher, rugged terrain and Craig was finally awake from his slumber.

Invoked and wanting further creative drive he switched from headphones to speaker and listened to Me In The Town as he boiled the kettle, poured instant coffee and began to think of adjectives, musical comparisons and what he liked about the track. Craig reckons that it is the fuzzed, purposely D.I.Y feel to the whole song that made him favour it. It reminded him of PAWS, twelve point buck, DIIV and The Wytches. This EP was making his day less filled with sighs. Me In The Town had an angsty, point proving shove to it. As well as that, the chorus had a nice hook to it too.

Conceptually and quite smoothly the tone shifted into the next song, Sheep Sleep. Still harvesting the raw, quite filthy melancholy of the previous tracks (and the shoe gazing bands of the 90’s), it was the fluttering wham of the guitar intro and the almost Beck (the artist) related deliverance of the vocals that sold it for Craig. Returning from the kitchen, he was comfy in his furniture again and imploring the heavy dose of music that would serve as his breakfast.

Impressed, he put Sheep Sleep on repeat as he read up about the band.

Alex Gyllos is the man behind the band MOD spending the last two years wanting to create something that wasn’t your average rock record. Released through Negative Hope Records, he brought Sean Mitchell on drums and Lukas Clasen on bass. Garden is a confidently made submission (recorded, mixed and tweaked by Gyllos himself) into the Glasgow music scene. The EP further proves that there is no shortage in the life expectancy of this city’s catalogue of quality driven bands and artists.

Craig was nearing the end of the EP, absorbing the final four tracks of the seven in total with some tracks being shorter than others and In The Shower striking out from the rest. This track would become one of his favourites.

Listening to the end of Labrador (the final track on the album) with the recorded message of, “This is the end of this record for side one…” Craig now fully understood the concept of this EP. Relatable to a cassette- being able to hear it click into play at the beginning of the first track- he thought it was a genius idea and was always a sucker for a conceptual collection of work. He was ready to write now but wanted to do something different.

Still being sat, comfy in his furniture and with no instant coffee left in his mug. He began to type, ‘Craig awoke and pulled on a dressing gown…’