NEW Soft Hearted Scientists

Posted on 27/05/2023

‘Waltz of the Weekend’ by Soft Hearted Scientists is 72 minutes of wondrous sounds from Cardiff’s wizards of psychedelia. Order it here

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Worth the time…

Posted on 31/05/2023

“The album is too good for me to comprehend, right now. (I’ll need a month, I think).”

Adam Walton

INTERESTING AND QUITE HUMBLING TWEET FROM BBC RADIO WALES PRESENTER ADAM WALTON ABOUT OUR NEW ALBUM “WALTZ OF THE WEEKEND”.

I agree it takes quite a while to take in the 75 minute beast we have created. It took 600 hours to create and I’m still taking it in myself as it sprouted several new tentacles at the mixing stage and grew in front of our eyes and ears.

I’m so glad I spent so many days in Franks studio through a shitty winter in Grangetown finalising this epic. I can’t imagine a more productive use of my time and a bigger two fingers to bleakness.

Listen to Adam’s 27 May show here, where he plays “What Grows Inside the Garden?” from “Waltz of the Weekend.”

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AT LAST! THE RETURN OF THE SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS!

Posted on 18/05/2023

After quite a long hiatus, not helped by a global pandemic and various unpleasant life events, the Scientists return with “Waltz of the Weekend,” their biggest and most ambitious studio album yet!

Order here

“Waltz of the Weekend” is a 75-minute double album wild beast crammed on to a single CD to keep the cost to an outrageous £9.99 for the standard CD.

It features 12 tracks.

Four of these are compact radio friendly psychedelic pop singles with huge choruses. They are “What Grows Inside the Garden?”, “Rode My Bike”, “The Fixer” and “Vicious Vivian”. Each one is stuffed to the eyeballs with vocal and instrumental hooks that take several listens to become fully apparent.

Stream, download or order CD

But there are also many tracks that stretch out and enter new territory.

Waltz of the Weekend” is a psychedelic waltz inspired by a day trip to Tintern Abbey. It features an outrageously over-the-top haunted middle section that sounds like “Bohemian Rhapsody” performed by ghost monks, with Hank Marvin playing surf guitar in another dimension.

Sea Anemone Song” is a huge heartbroken psych ballad, channelling a lot of the awful things that have happened in the last 3 years, with an end section that gradually disintegrates on an asteroid belt.

Gadzooks!” is the coda to “Rode My Bike” and starts out as a psych rumble that gets progressively more insane, featuring a sly echo vocal nod to Bowie’s “The Bewlay Brothers”, crazed guitars, a string section, speaking in tongues and an ending FAR more over the top than a Bond theme.

Who Loves The Moon?” is SHS guitarist Paul’s favourite song EVER by SHS. It’s a multi layered lament to lost love with a haunted, ancient, Disney/Night of the Hunter movie feel, and SEVEN vocal tunes. Cashback!

The Things We Make” starts as a psychedelic ballad about musical creativity itself, but with verses recounting a haunted evening in North Wales many years ago. Halfway through it falls apart after being hijacked by the ghosts of King Tubby and Lee Scratch Perry and becomes an echo laden effects laden dub.

Order/purchase “Waltz of the Weekend” here

Creepers and Vines” is a tongue in cheek “I’ll never get intoxicated again” hangover song that again transforms halfway through into a series of transitions, sections and sound events that might have your head spinning even without intoxicants.

The Venus Flytrap Song” is a full-on story song in which Nathan is unjustly on trial for an unspecified crime, but escapes the clutches of a corrupt judge, jury and hangman baying for his blood. It is the most symmetrical song we have ever written. With added ELO vocoders!

Lastly, the longest and perhaps most ambitious song we have ever released. “Lost Mariners” is an 11-minute psychedelic seafaring ghost story sound journey epic, featuring an enormous amount of sound effects, sound events, San Francisco acid rock guitar solos, transitions, and a symphony of analogue synths at the end, hinting at the horror of haunting the seabed.

Frank Naughton produced the album and quite honestly he is a polymath and genius. He even invented some of the special effects on this album. 

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‘Waltz of the Weekend’ in final stages

Posted on 24/04/2023

The new album, having been produced by super talented Frank Naughton is now being mastered by the super talented Gaz Williams in Bristol and will soon be ready for the factory.


The tracklist of the beast is as follows

  • What Grows Inside the Garden? – 4 minutes 38 seconds
  • Waltz of the Weekend – 6 minutes 14 seconds
  • Sea Anemone Song – 7 minutes 35 seconds
  • Rode My Bike – 3 minutes 54 seconds
  • Gadzooks – 3 minutes 44 seconds
  • Who Loves the Moon? – 8 minutes

Intermission

  • The Fixer – 3 minutes 46 seconds
  • The Things We Make – 8 minutes 23 seconds
  • Vicious Vivian – 2 minutes 56 seconds
  • Creepers and Vines – 7 minute 46 seconds
  • Venus Fly Trap Song – 6 minutes 58 seconds
  • Lost Mariners – 11 minutes 19 seconds

Total playing time – 75 minutes

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A magic realist psychedelic waltz

Posted on 19/04/2023

from Nathan

“I’ve seen the Tombs of Tremorfa,
The Sphinxes of Splott,
I’ve seen the Witches of Whitchurch
I like them a lot
I’ve seen the Gorgons of Grangetown
But I looked away
I see the Harpies of Habershon Street
Every day”

From “Waltz of the Weekend” by Soft Hearted Scientists, 2023.

Ever wondered what a magic realist psychedelic waltz about a trip from Splott to Tintern Abbey, with a middle section that resembles “Bohemian Rhapsody” on a budget mashed up with “Stonehenge” by Spinal Tap sounds like? You won’t have to wait too much longer.

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