Master touch for True Gents’ EP

Aug 18 2009 by Andrew Welsh, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

A PERTHSHIRE band has enlisted the services of acclaimed producer Robin Wynn Evans on their debut EP.

Folk rock outfit The True Gents have just put together a self-titled offering partly recorded at studios in Dunning owned by the former Manic Street Preachers soundboard maestro.

Wynn Evans produced the five-track EP’s opener Beautiful End and another number, Maybe Baby, at his T-Pot Studios, where Dundee favourites the View previously laid down three tracks for their Hats Of To The Buskers album.

The veteran producer was famously at the helm for classic Manic Street Preachers early works like Motown Junk and New Art Riot, and efforts by Sam Brown and Dodgy.

The remainder of the groundwork on The True Gents EP was done in the less starry surrounds of fiddle player Dave Macfarlane’s flat in Perth, using the band’s own recording gear.

When recording was complete, the tracks were taken to legendary songsmith Dougie Maclean’s Butterstone Studios.

Maclean’s son Jamie did the final mixes, before Macfarlane added mastering back at his flat.

True Gents, who formed two years ago in the woods of Invermay, by Forteviot, have gradually grown from the songwriting duo of Toby Jeffrey and Euan Nicol to become a fully-fledged musical ‘collective’.

Now also featuring Rich Minto, Heidi Proff, Ian Scobie, Dave Macfarlane, Gordy Duncan, Steve Bairstow and Ross Ainslie, the nine-piece’s influences draw on Scotland’s rock landscape, songs of the sea and contemporary folk.

Underscoring both their potential and their prolific output, Jeffrey and Nicol won the songwriting competition run through Maclean’s Perthshire Amber festival last year.

The band’s CD will be available shortly from www.thetruegents.co.uk and via iTunes, with a forthcoming gig at Perth’s A Month of Sundays festival also set to raise their profile.

The True Gents will be playing at Greyfriars Bar in South Street on August 30, before taking part in the Eden Festival in Dumfries and Galloway and the Portobello Festival in early September.

This weekend, A Month of Sundays features Apollo 440 collaborator Ewan MacFarlane.

Tickets for the singer songwriter’s show at Greyfriars Bar on Sunday are available from the venue.