Currently residing in Melbourne, Australia, The Balky Mule is the alias of UK ex-pat Sam Jones, a highly talented, self-taught multi-instrumentalist, who over the past decade or more has been a key figure in Bristol’s vibrant post-rock scene, playing alongside his brother Matt in both Crescent (guitar / drums) and Movietone (guitar), as well as in Flying Saucer Attack (guitar), Minotaur Shock (bass / marimba), and Third Eye Foundation (echoes / samples).
Whilst also active as The Balky Mule throughout this time, Sam’s home-recorded material (almost entirely instrumental) had been confined to just one self-released album (an eponymous debut in a small edition on Sam and Matt's Archipelago label in 2000), small runs of CDRs pressed on request and tapes swapped amongst friends, plus a handful of remixes (for Pram and Vase) and tracks for compilations.

Sam has never stopped making his own music, but has either remained shy about it, or not felt a need to share it and thus 'finish' things into a releasable form. Self-recorded either side of a 2006 move from the UK to Australia, latest offering and first physical release in 8 years, ‘The Length of the Rail’ is a beautifully balanced, intelligent and captivating album that sounds like little else right now. A fully coherent, organic mix of acoustic and electric instruments and neat electronic detail, it marks the start of a more focused, significant period of activity for The Balky Mule.

Created over a period of 5 years, most of the songs here grew out of a library of existing short sound-snippets Sam built up from experimenting with old boot sale-find keyboards, analogue synths and scavenged electronic kit (Arp Axxe, Casio SK1, Rhythmatix analogue drum machine) - guided by their inherent personalities and discovering what sounds could be coaxed from these manual-less and sometimes malfunctioning objects. Attracted to the notion of lost / redundant technology, some of the album’s sounds came from a Bentley Carousel - a huge home organ bought from a charity shop and left in a shared house he moved into. A minidisc of odd noises and collaborations with these idiosyncratic machines slowly accumulated, before Sam’s impending relocation to Australia acted as a deadline, prompting a push to finish things off and finally utilize these sound fragments. Listening through them, certain little melodies or rhythms suggested themselves, and to complement these Sam had a final play on the instruments he'd gathered (acoustic and electric guitars, drums and percussion, zither, harmonica, sampler and keyboards, Copycat echo box). The recorded results soon began to sound more like songs in need of words. Intentionally separating this next phase, Sam decided to add words on the other side of his journey, occasionally transplanting lyrics from previous songs that he felt fitted the mood or rhythm of one of these newer tracks.

The Balky Mule can be placed within a rich vein of very British outsiders like Hood, Pram, Disco Inferno, Bark Psychosis, Talk Talk, The Pastels, Robert Wyatt and Syd Barrett. Sam’s vocal is unmistakably English, its grain / tone recalling The Kinks’ Ray Davies, whilst lyrically it’s close to Syd Barrett’s everyday references. Like Crescent and Movietone, there’s a very tactile, weathered, home-baked feel to the music and a similarly grounded lyrical impressionism. Yet it’s both musically more electronic and quite a bit more upbeat / lighter and more humorous.

www.myspace.com/thebalkymule