The Balky Mule

Sam Jones, the England-born multi-instrumentalist and songwriter now based in Australia, records under the Balky Mule name. Earlier he contributed to multiple well-known Bristol post-rock groups such as Movietone, Flying Saucer Attack, Minotaur Shock, and Crescent, the last of these founded by his brother Matt. From the late 1990s onward Jones pursued solo work, circulating self-released cassettes and CDs while also remixing material by Pram and Vase. The Balky Mule’s debut full-length, issued on the brothers’ Archipelago imprint, arrived in 2000. A demo submitted to FatCat was included on the label’s 2001 anthology No Watches. No Maps. Five years of recording, during which Jones moved to Australia in 2006, produced the follow-up The Length of the Rail, assembled with aging and frequently faulty gear that included a Bentley Carousel home organ. The album appeared in spring 2009.