King Creosote at Grüner Salon Berlin / Saturday 10.12.2016

All the way from the Kingdom of Fife in Scotland Fence Collective head King Creosote comes to Berlin this December for his first ever German concert.

Kenny Anderson (born January 1967), known primarily by his stage name King Creosote, is an independent singer-songwriter from Fife, Scotland. To date, Anderson has released over forty albums, with his latest, Astronaut Meets Appleman, released in 2016. Anderson is also a member of Scottish-Canadian band The Burns Unit. In 2011, Anderson’s collaborative album with Jon Hopkins, Diamond Mine, was nominated for the Mercury Prize and the Scottish Album of the Year Award.

After having featured in Scottish bands Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra and Khartoum Heroes, in 1995 Kenny Anderson launched the Fence record label and began recording albums under the name King Creosote. King Creosote was one of the original artists to contribute a t-shirt design for the Yellow Bird Project charity initiative, back in 2006. Anderson’s design features an accordion, enscribed with the name “FENCE”; a reference to his DIY record label collective. Anderson founded Fence Records alongside Johnny Lynch, but stepped back from day-to-day running of the label in 2010.

In recent years, Anderson has teamed up with Domino Records who have co-released some of his albums. He also spent some time on Warner subsidiary, 679, which gave him major label backing for the first time. His increasing frustration with the music industry and how digital recordings are becoming throwaway commodities led him to release his material in small, vinyl only runs which were largely only available at concerts. To this end, KC Rules OK was re-released in 2006 with different versions of some songs, and a version of the album called “Chorlton and the Wh’earlies” recorded with The Earlies was available with some purchases. Bombshell was released with an additional disc, a DVD film of King Creosote and friends on tour. In the 2007 film Hallam Foe two of his songs, “The Someone Else” and “King Bubbles in Sand”, were featured.

In late 2009, Anderson released a new studio album Flick the Vs, and crafted a performance only album, entitled My Nth Bit of Strange in Umpteen Years. Anderson also contributed to the Cold Seeds collaborative album along with Frances Donnelly of Animal Magic Tricks, and Neil Pennycook and Pete Harvey from Meursault; which was released on the Edinburgh-based indie label Song, by Toad Records. Anderson, Donnelly and Pennycook all wrote songs for the project, which all four performers then recorded together; each singer often taking the lead vocal role on a song written by another of the artists.

The album was given a special limited release at the Fence Records Homegame Festival in Anstruther, Fife in March 2010, before a general release was announced for June 2010. In 2011, Anderson attended the SxSW Music Festival and played a number of shows, two of which featured fellow Scottish attendees Kid Canaveral as his backing band. The same year, Anderson released Diamond Mine, a collaborative album with electronica composer Jon Hopkins, to critical acclaim. The album was nominated for the Mercury Prize, with Anderson stating, “It feels like this is the beginning of something. And to feel that so far down the line, after putting out forty effing albums, oh my God! It means, I can still do this, it’s not over.”

The duo subsequently released an EP, Honest Words. In 2013, Anderson released That Might Well Be It, Darling, a full-band re-recording of his limited edition vinyl album That Might Be It, Darling. In 2014, Anderson created the soundtrack for a film about Scotland for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. From Scotland With Love is a poetic film exploring the history of the country, compiled entirely from archive footage with no commentary or narration. Speaking to The Guardian about the creative process, Anderson explained that the film was a long way from the typical “tartan, Highland Games, shortbread kind of tourist film”. It was broadcast on BBC Scotland in June.