Altsounds - THE VOLUNTARY BUTLER SCHEME-Trading Things In

Title track Trading Things In is a perfect example of why people are tripping over themselves to praise The Voluntary Butler Scheme – it’s a dippy love song with tweeting melodica and grinding bassnotes that fantasises about “listening to La Bamba on your MP3 player” and makes the rather sweet statement, “Just like coffee and tea, I need you regularly.”

Over the rest of the disc, more warm, observational pop polaroids. Arctic Climate is a dreamily summery shuffle, Heart Too Bored To Beat is a banjo-twanging slice of melancholy and Vending Machine switches from luscious frilliness to dirgy stomp in the blink of an eye. Also available on the seven-inch release is new track I've Seen You Send a Better Heartbreak Letter and an exclusive iTunes bundle will include remixes by PRDCTV, Grasscut and DCLC.

The Voluntary Butler Scheme is the alter ego of Rob Jones, a 23-year-old pop prodigy penning songs of classic sound, vivid imagination, and tin-pot ingenuity. Rob’s studio may, by his own admission, be nothing much – “just a bedroom full of wires and keyboards” in his native Stourbridge in the Midlands – but his sound is not lo-fi, nor hi-fi, but a sweet marriage of the two.

The key to Rob’s music is sweet simplicity. “I read something that Phil Spector said in some sound magazine about the recording of ‘Be My Baby’,” says Rob Jones. “He was asking, ‘Is it dumb enough? Are people going to get it?’ I’m not trying to make my music dumb, but I think maybe there’s something in that… stuff feels so much more honest when it’s simple.”

The Voluntary Butler Scheme’s previous singles have been championed by the NME, BBC Radio 1, 2 and 6 Music and XFM, and Rob has played sessions for Huw Stephens, Marc Riley, Dermot o' Leary and Jon Kennedy. Declared “one to watch” in publications as diverse as Q magazine and The Sun, even that old nutty boy Suggs has stepped out and declared himself a fan.

As for the name, it comes from Rob’s time living near Bourneville, where voluntary work schemes were set up for laid-off Rover workers at the Longbridge plant.. “I imagined a voluntary butler scheme – it made me laugh for about 10 seconds – and I haven’t laughed at it since!” says Rob.

Catch TVBS unique one man band live show when he tours this September and October:

Thurs 17/9 Slaughtered Lamb, LONDON
Sun 20/9 Rockhouse, DERBY
Mon 21/9 Masque, LIVERPOOL
Fri 25/9 Bar House, CHELMSFORD
Tues 29/9 Cellars, PORTSMOUTH
Sun 4/10 Moles, BATH
Thusr 15/10 Windmilll, LONDON
Fri 23/10 The Railway, WINCHESTER
Sat 24/10 Musicport 09, BRIDLINGTON
Sun 25/10 Oxjam Kilburn, LONDON