ARTIST: Costeau
TITLE: Nova Scotia
LABEL: Endevour Records
GENRE: Rock
BITRATE: 197kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 41min total
RELEASE DATE: 18 Apr 2005
RIP DATE: 18 Feb 2005

Track List

01. Sadness                         3:06
02. Sometime                        4:38
03. She's Not Coming Back           4:56
04. There She Goes                  3:09
05. To Sail Away                    4:26
06. Echoes                          4:11
07. Black Heart Of Mine             6:35
08. Highly                          3:46
09. PIA                             2:32
10. Happening                       4:17

Release Notes:

It's incredibly fitting that London band Cousteau's third album is named after
Canadian province Nova Scotia. After enduring the stormy Atlantic, the
pioneering British settlers who founded this 'New Scotland' territory in the
1600s never lost sight of their goal - a fresh start in a distant land with past
regret left far behind. Such grit and determination was crucial in overcoming
the harsh challenges their new world presented. They weren't heroes - just
people with a vision and an innate instinct for survival. For them the past
really was another country.

Cousteau, meanwhile, have had their own unexplored terrain to negotiate and
inherent difficulties to overcome since the release of two glorious, critically
acclaimed albums (‘Cousteau’ in 2000 and ‘Sirena’ in 2002). Towards the end of
an American tour, the band found out that their songwriter and creative lynchpin
Davey Ray Moor was leaving to do his own thing. Vocalist Liam McKahey recalls a
gloomy gathering with guitarist Robin Brown, drummer Craig Vear and bassist Joe
Peet in Boston airport bar, ‘We thought it was the end and we were all feeling
really emotional. But after a few pints, we’d decided to carry on and do it (the
songwriting) ourselves. It was sink or swim, and we decided to swim.’

McKahey had always written songs, yet never taken it that seriously. Once he
did, he couldn’t stop. Although he doesn’t play an instrument he crafted some
‘rough diamonds’ with the aid of his Suzuki ‘Q Chord’, an electronic auto harp.
These songs were then knocked into shape and arranged with the rest of the band
– the aforementioned Robin, Joe and Craig, plus keyboard player Dan Moore (no
relation to Davey). Some tracks were recorded quickly in their rehearsal rooms
at Terminal Studios and then others were laid down at the now-closed Roundhouse
in Farringdon. Two new songs, Sadness and There She Goes, were added in the
Summer at the expense of the title track (which fans may yet hear as a future B
side). These were recorded at central London’s Whitfield Street Studios where
their new label Endeavour has an office and where, many years ago, Liam had dug
the lift shaft and dreamt of returning as a recording artiste.

Whilst ‘Nova Scotia’ is undoubtedly a Cousteau record, possessing McKahey’s
trademark Scott Walker-esque baritone and Robin Brown’s distinctive atmospheric
lines, it does perhaps signal a subtle shift away from a Bacharach-ian pop
sensibility to a rawer, more rock-borne sound. Perhaps it’s the sound of the
band finding freedom in a new set up which was much more about collaborative
ideas. ‘I think people might hear the Zeppelin in us’ says Brown. Bassist Joe
also suggests that there's a shade of the Iseley Brothers to soul ballad
'Echoes'.

One reviewer once picked out ‘Sirena’s lyrical obliqueness as its Achilles Heel
and suggested that a more intimate and personal Cousteau would be ‘sexy rather
than just interesting.’ It would be difficult to aim the same criticism at
McKahey’s brutally honest songs, all derived from tough life experiences.
Although he’s happily married and a hugely proud father, he’s had a ‘weird’ year
surrounded by death and disintegrating relationships.

‘Sadness’ is about his father, who died last year. ‘I had a lot of baggage around
him and it all came flooding out. It was incredibly cathartic.’ It started out as
a melancholic slow song but then got arranged in an upbeat, radio-friendly way
complete with handclaps and sunny acoustic guitars. ‘The funny thing about having
parents is that duality of loving and hating them’ says Liam, whilst explaining that
his father was a clever and charismatic man who passionately loved and collected music
but was also an alcoholic womaniser who disappeared from his son’s life between the ages
of 8 and 18. Liam did spark up a relationship with him as an adult yet found that the
‘romantic notions’ he’d built up around his Dad were misplaced. Perhaps unsurprisingly,
he has three more songs about him in the bag.

Liam’s own favourite track on the album is the stark and hymn-like ‘Pia’. Written about
a good friend’s daughter who died of a brain tumour aged 9, it was his way of dealing with
‘all the pain and hurt. It killed me.’ Meanwhile, the elegantly yearning ‘She’s Not Coming
Back’ (which, at face value, might sound like a typical relationship breakdown song) was
inspired by the tragic death of Paula Yates in late 2000, someone who he admired from afar
yet he felt got a rough deal from the media. ‘I always had a thing about her’ he says, ‘She
seemed like an intelligent woman and a good mother who just happened to like sex and life.
Yet they hounded her to her death. She was racked with despair when Michael Hutchence died
but they kept on and on at her when they should have left her alone.’

On a lighter note, ‘There She Goes’ is a good old-fashioned declaration of love for his wife.
And just to further display the depth of talent within the band, ‘Sometime’ is written by bassist
Joe and features him on lead vocals (although at first listen, you’d be forgiven for thinking it
was Liam). ‘This is the first song I ever actually finished writing’ he says, ‘It’s loosely based
on a love affair which didn’t turn out right. And what happens when you go headlong into something
and find out later that there’s all this baggage floating to the surface which you’ve got to wade
through just to get back to where it all started from.’

Whilst Liam owns ‘everything that Scott Walker and The Tindersticks have ever done’ and finds all
the comparisons to them hugely complimentary, he’s recently been listening to Copenhagen, The Divine
Brown and Clinic. And whilst Robin rates Kasabian, The Futureheads and new singles by Athlete and Hal,
both of them confess to a (perhaps surprising) mutual affection for the Scissor Sisters. The last year
has seen them both return to their prior trade as painters and decorators (with a brief break for a tour
of Italy), yet they can’t wait to hang up their overalls and put away their paint brushes and reconvene
with Joe, new keyboard player Chloe March and new drummer Paul Wigins (Grand Drive) to promote an album
of which they are justifiably proud.

Cousteau are back, battle-hardened and stronger than ever.