New Music 2011 - Part 14 - and festivals - Part 1

What a remarkable week. While my computer seems, to all intents and purposes, to be working normally someone seems to have installed spy-ware in my mind!
So many acts recently announced - for both Latitude and End of The Road festivals - that were on my must-see-live list.  The next problem, I just know it, is what to do when more than one of them are performing on different stages at the same time. It is however one of the more pleasing problems to have...
  
So where to start?  Well... The big names you will probably know about already and so I'll leave those amongst them that particularly excite me for later. They can wait. While many of the acts on smaller stages are yet to be revealed, I'm going to start with one of those that already has been confirmed for EOTR 2011.
She released her self-titled first album in 2007, having sent the demo to Bob Dylan, and it is still available but currently costly on CD at least in the UK.  EOTR have announced that Sarabeth Tucek will be appearing and her début was one good album:

I've never had the opportunity to hear her perform live but the album is still just as impressive as it was almost four years ago. It is gently reflective in mood and therefore should suit the EOTR surroundings well but that is not all.

Her sophomore release 'Get Well Soon' is released in the UK on April 4, 2011 on vinyl, CD and d/l (label: Sonic Cathedral) and, curiously, the cover artwork could very easily be a view across the lake at Henham Park (home of Latitude); I'm thinking looking across towards the reeds (that one passes on the path to the Sunrise stage) from the area to the right of the bridge when looking across the lake from the main part of the arena.
This is not 'sudden impact' music but if you like the insidious liquidity of much Americana - and I for one certainly do and it is part of a canon that is becoming increasingly important - it and much more too is well worth investigating.
Incidentally there will be two bridges across said lake at Latitude this year, to relieve the overcrowding, and apparently also an improved entrance to the arena for much the same reasons. The latter in particular is overdue - as it was an issue in 2009 also - as would trying to stick to the advertised open-gate time. If there is a real issue then fine, in which case a bit more in the way of effective communication would be appreciated by all.
Things inevitably do go awry sometimes and most people can appreciate and accept that. It would also make life more pleasant for the festival staff too; I know that, if I were one of them, I'd be pretty frazzled if I was repeatedly asked 'WTF is happening?' when the fact of the matter was that I didn't even know myself.