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Artist
The Balky Mule
12+ albums
singer-songwriterfolkindieLo-Fiindie folk
about
The Balky Mule is the alias of Sam Jones, a self-taught home recordist and song writer, who over the past decade or more has been a key member of the vibrant Bristol post-rock scene, contributing live or in-studio to numerous bands, including Movietone and Crescent (alongside his bandleader brother, Matt), Flying Saucer Attack, Minotaur Shock, and Third Eye Foundation. During this time the majority of his output under the name The Balky Mule had been CD-Rs on request and tapes swapped among friends, although he had also recorded a handful of remixes (of Pram and Vase tracks) and songs for compilations, including one of his first ever tracks making an appearance on FatCat’s 2001 compilation, ‘No watches. No maps’, which comprised material sent in to the label as demos. The Balky Mule's debut self-titled CDR album was released in a small (and hard to find)edition on his brother's Archipelago label in 2000,and is comprised of instrumental four-track cassette recordings featuring the strange harmonies of malfunctioning bootsale keyboards,manipulated tapes and 'saxacorder'(a cheap approximation of the more popular 'saxophone'). Self-recorded either side of a move between the UK and Australia, The Balky Mule’s last album ‘The Length of the Rail’ was released on FatCat in March 2009,and marks the fusion of his home recording techniques with his guitar based song writing. For his first solo set back in 2000, Sam was booked to open for Pram at the legendary Cube Cinema in Bristo
