Acoustic+ - live in Frome

It has been a couple of months since the last Acoustic+, with the customary summer hiatus following the Frome Festival Food Feast. It returned to the Cheese and Grain yesterday evening with aplomb, despite the fact that the venue is part way through a comprehensive £500k re-configuring to bring it up to the standards required of a regional venue and one of the four acts being forced to cancel at the very last moment due to a temporarily voiceless vocalist! The good news is that at the eleventh hour a quality replacement was scrambled and The Black Feathers have now been rescheduled for Acoustic+ on 22 November.
The evening started with Frome-based duo Seasons.

Bertie Harrison-Broninski on Irish bouzouki and Fin Scholefield on guitar.

Their original songs were very interesting and far from wholly traditional - so their chosen bookmark as alt-folk is very much warranted - but the choice of cover versions was no less remarkable.

The bouzouki is an instrument that has expanded its territory vastly in the last century or so; it made its way to Greece from Asia Minor as late as the start of the 20th century, Celtic-influenced folk by the late 1960s and is now in common use in Scandinavia too.
I seems that I need to 'look sharp' when it comes to the act that stood in in place of The Black Feathers and not least because Sloe Jam is appearing on Frome FM this evening (from 9pm BST/UTC+1).

Francis Hayden on guitar.

Sloe Jam is no flash in the pan - that should be obvious - so here is what I thought about Sloe Jam in 2009 and you really do need the album.
The third act to play was Albatross Archive. Once a four-piece, latterly a three-piece, and as it happened yesterday (because their saxophone player was in San Francisco presenting a research paper on Post Modernism) just a duo for the very first time. It was astonishing and not least because most others would have given up long ago. Then there was a faulty lead and then Coleridge smiled (possibly and posthumously). 

Everything went well thereafter.

   
To close was the band Three Corners fronted at least to a great extent by the organisers of Acoustic+. That said, this was Three Corners in full band mode and I'm not actually sure that I managed to get everyone in a single picture.

This is as good as I got.

    

You could take a completely different perspective of course.

New Music 2013 - Part 31 - Mahoney and The Moment

I wrote a preamble yesterday and I'm sticking with it. It was, indeed, probably indicative of a more fundamental truth than I realized at the time I wrote it.
After seven years of blogging about music some things are still difficult; starting new posts is often one of them and yet any resulting criticism is not so, strangely.  This, however, is the hardest thing of all...
Mahoney and The Moment is an act that chose to introduce themselves to my attention and I'm not sure that I really deserve that.
It has therefore taken me about a week to get my head around this. The title of their second and again self-released LP 'Don't Say No!' rather sets the tone to one of expectation rather than denial. That is when it gets really tough for me... so the only thing to do was listen to it. Once, twice... lots.
Very early on in the writing of this little blog I set down a policy of not writing about things that I don't like and I've been pretty good at sticking to it.

Don't Say No! - Mahoney and The Moment (2013)

    

As it happens I didn't have to worry about that, so here it is. They describe the music (Steve is from London and Emily from Boston, MA.) as transatlantic folk or Anglo-American folk rock. Those labels, whilst accurate, seriously under-sell this album - although perhaps better describe their self-titled début album.
The deal is that this is very good and it is quite distinctive too. Given the current situation concerning the cross-over between UK and US folk/roots/alt-country-rock, and every conceivable hybrid thereof (that is all to the good) this is one phenomenal achievement.

Track-by-track reviews are something I rarely do but, since I rate this album highly as a whole, I might just make an exception in due time... not least because the opening track 'Who Is Archie Lane?' begins with the lyric "I don't like you...", before some seconds later the brass section comes to the fore. What's not to like?
So good it is, indeed, that I shall share it with you.

EOTR 2013 - more from the Garden Stage - Part 2

As the title might suggest this continues directly on from my previous post. One thing I should add is that, for all the wonderful things that go on at the other stages, the Garden Stage is probably my favourite and certainly so for photography.
Here, early on Saturday afternoon, is someone probably better known as a producer of other people's records - including Laura Marling's last three albums - 'I Speak Because I Can' (2010), 'A Creature I Don't Know' (2011) and 'Once I Was An Eagle' (2013) but the only time I had previously seen him play live was (twice) at Latitude 2010 as a guitarist in Sir Tom Jones' live band when the latter was performing the album 'Praise and Blame', which Ethan Johns also produced. In fact he produced much of The Staves début album 'Dead and Born and Grown' too (see previous post).

EOTR likes tying things in knots, which only adds to the fun!

Whilst clearly busy with all of that Ethan Johns is also a sometime songwriter, singer and (mostly) guitar player and his set on the Garden Stage was all about that and his recent album 'If Not Now Then When'. On the other hand some of the prickly critics of such reinvention failed to curl up in a ball and proved to be rather soft-centered; PopMatters was just one such and they did not stand alone.
This however did not give us real insight into Ethan Johns' own music, although logic surely suggested roughly where it might lie. It is true that this assumption was not confounded but - and this is a very important but - neither was it derivative or a pastiche of any of the aforementioned artists. This is important in the evolving relationship between UK and US music and I shall return to it later - probably towards the end of this year.

The next is another band I had not seen before, and they do hail from the US, but the story of how the band came to be is as remarkable as it is improbable.

The Barr Brothers.

    

In one way perhaps the biggest winner on this stage was Fossil Collective. The band unexpectedly opened proceedings at noon on Saturday because Jessica Pratt (not to be confused with the Australian classical soprano singer with the same name) was unable to play songs from her self-titled début LP. Fossil Collective also played their booked set on the Tipi Stage late the same evening of course. I saw all of both sets making them one of the few acts I have ever seen perform full live sets twice in the same calendar day. Many, but far from all, songs came from the album 'Tell Where I Lie' (2013). You could likely write reams on the influences this band may have but then so could I and you might not want that. The point is, if it sounds good, does it actually matter?

It doesn't. Here is Fossil Collective, Garden Stage, End of The Road 2013.

EOTR 2013 - more from the Garden Stage - Part 1

The Garden Stage was, until 2011, the main stage at End of The Road Festival, by when its audience capacity was becoming a serious issue and therefore the larger and more open Woods Stage was added too. The Garden Stage however remains the most beautifully atmospheric stage, surrounded as it is by Victorian follies, one of the most remarkable of which is in fact almost invisible behind it.
This is a picture across the Garden Stage audience on Saturday evening.

   
On Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of watching Serafina Steer, who I had never seen live before, perform on the same stage.

The majority of this set was devoted to songs from her recent album The Moths Are Real.
Not before I saw Joanna Newsom live did I really consider the concert harp and its place in modern music but rather in the context of a sepia tinted throwback - more fool me!  As this was my first day using a new camera for music photography the fact that harpists can't move very far or fast was much appreciated! This evening I have been listing to the album Week of Pines by Georgia Ruth, and that is often led by her harp and vocals too.
   
Back then I never suspected how my liking of, and interest in, Americana and roots music would develop to parallel my long-standing liking of UK and Celtic folk music.
Earlier still, Friday lunch time, Diana Jones had performed solo and took the sun-drenched Garden Stage audience for a trip courtesy of much of her very recent LP Museum of Appalachia Recordings.

I was already aware that it is garnering excellent reviews on both sides of the Atlantic and here it was quite obvious to see why - you could have heard a pin drop during the quiet moments of her set.
   
This is indeed Part 1 - I shall return to the Garden Stage soon with amongst others, Ethan Johns and The Barr Brothers. In the meantime here is another from Daughter's set just after dark on Saturday evening.

Why wasn't If You Leave nominated for the Mercury Music Prize?

New Music 2013 - Part 30 - three forthcoming rock/blues albums

I said early last week that this would be the next in my 'New Music' series and it is. That various things including more on End Of The Road 2013 that came between them is just how the cookie crumbles.
In the last few years I have got to like blues more than ever before. In particular in that I no longer regard it as an semi-historical genre. That is something that I should have known was not true. In many ways I have my friend John to thank for this: we had intended to see Gary Moore, who we both much admire, live but ultimately we left it too late.
About the same time I saw Bex Marshall live in Frome, supporting Seth Lakeman, and that rekindles my interest in modern blues artists especially. This forthcoming album is by US artist Samantha Fish from Kansas City, MS.

UK release date (physical): 23 September 2013 (Ruf Records).

This is her second studio album, following Runaway (2011) and 'Girls With Guitars 2011', a live album also featuring Dani Wilde and Cassie Taylor.

    This next is the second studio album by an artist that, whilst I had no idea who she was at the time, I caught very briefly on one of the smallest stages at Latitude Festival. Once I had worked out that it was Lissie Maurus (from Rock Island, IL) I bought the two EPs that preceded the release of her début album Catching a Tiger (2010). It was a surprise hit in the UK charts and UK audiences also took to her live show, which can be understood and resulted in a  CD/DVD Live At Shepherds Bush Empire (2011).

Back To Forever is slated for UK release (Columbia) on 14 October 2013.

The last of these three is UK artist, although now resident in the US, Joanne Shaw Taylor. Three studio albums into her career the live CD/DVD treatment follows soon (all on Ruf Records), This was recorded at one take during an intimate performance at The Borderline in London earlier this year. I saw her at Tavistock Wharf last October and shall do so again at London's Shepherds Bush Empire in November.

UK release: 25 November 2013.

EOTR 2013 - acts to see live again.

For all that I say that festivals are largely about seeing acts that I haven't seen live before there is always the pleasure of seeing one's favourites for a second, third or.... *whistles* ...time.

One of those was The Staves, three sisters from Watford who specialize in close harmony vocals, that I first saw at Deer Shed Festival in North Yorkshire in July 2012. In the meantime they have recorded an album 'Dead & Born & Grown', released by Universal - so at least the major labels are finally sensing the way the wind is blowing. Here are Camilla, Emily and Jessica on the Garden Stage at EOTR on Sunday afternoon.

This next I had only seen as recently as Truck Festival 2013 but I was happy to see their quite esoterically British show all over again. As a matter of fact, as often such things are, it was better the second time around because I noticed so many things that had passed me by on the first listen. I was right at the back of the Big Top stage and so I couldn't take pictures, which allowed me to give my full attention to the performance. This picture is therefore one taken at Truck Festival 2013 and then I found it difficult to capture what makes Public Service Broadcasting worthwhile watching (and listening too; I had the EP before seeing them live).

Public Service Broadcasting, Market stage, Truck Festival 2013.

    

I am interested to see in what direction J. Willgoose Esq. and Wrigglesworth go next but I am quite sure that, given their awareness of history and its context, they have long ago considered this issue. The Yorkshire Post wondered, somewhat less charitably, about this too following a gig at Leeds' Brudenell Social Club.

  

I have to admit that the first time I saw The Leisure Society play live I was slightly underwhelmed but, perhaps sensing this was odd, I bought their first album anyhow. I saw them again last year and, as timings worked out that way, for a third time at EOTR 2013. At last I get it!
To be honest 17:15 - 18:15 on the main stage Saturday is not prime time; well in one way it is... after 36 hours many people are suffering from mid-festival lassitude, thinking more of food than music.  The food, and the choice thereof, at EOTR is pretty good too.

The Leisure Society - Woods Stage - End of The Road Festival 2013.

  

 [post in progress - to be continued soon but I am getting hungry]
  

There will be now be an intermission. There is nothing wrong with your TV set.

Please do not adjust your eyes or ears.

That was only supposed to be temporary but the

 cauliflower cheese was good, even if I say so myself. 

I shall finish with the artist who, as far as I am aware, I have seen more times playing live than any other. For readers of this blog she probably needs no further introduction. She played twice at EOTR 2013 and I saw all of both sets. The first was on the Woods Stage as part of her on-going UK tour. That is admirably summed up, though her apparent ennui is likely affected rather than genuine, by this review from the London Guardian of her subsequent show at Shepherds Bush Empire. It is no secret that she is not a fan of large venues and early stage times (17:45 start on the Woods Stage). Similarly you can have all the recorded music she has made, and I pretty much do, but it just isn't the same.

She reappeared about 1:15am Monday morning at an unannounced (at least in the printed programme) set on the small, tented Tipi Stage...

... and this truly was Caitlin Rose live: The real deal.

    

If I still had the slightest doubt that I would buy a ticket for End Of The Road Festival 2014, without any knowledge of the line up, it had well and truly vanished by this point. I have one and 'early-bird' tickets had all sold out less than 48 hours after their release on the Tuesday. It is fair to say that that is a public vote of confidence on quite some scale. See you at EOTR 2014?

New Music - Part 29 - Plu

Only yesterday I wrote that my next my next post on forthcoming albums would be from acts and artists at the rockier, more electric end of the spectrum. That will happen very soon but, in part due to very much consideration of the acoustic aspects of EOTR and particularly sibling acts, that plan got wrecked by discovering this.
My excuse is that on a technicality this album does not contravene the forgoing as it is already released.

Plu is a sibling three-piece comprising Elan, Gwilym and Marged Rhys who hail from Bethel in Gwynedd, North Wales. The best short description of their music I can provide would be of imagining that Sweden's First Aid Kit suddenly discovered they had a brother and then all three decided to write and record in Welsh, rather than English. I know that might be a little tricky even if you are well acquainted with the music of First Aid Kit, so here is a sampling of the music of Plu.


The album Plu has thirteen tracks and the listing is below:

1. sgwennaf lythyr
2. gyfaill
3. cwm pennant
4. tyrd yn ol
5. garth celyn
6. hiraeth
7. geiriau allweddol
8. fyddai'm yn ddiarth
9. glaw du
10. blodau oll
11. fel llwynog
12. yr ysfa
13. tra bo dau

It is released on CD by label Sbrigyn Ymborth (SY016) and the best place to source it is Sadwrn where you can also find a fascinating range of other music from Wales.  If you are aware of of the work of Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog, that includes brothers, another Sbrigyn Ymborth act, and Siddi (again siblings) then you will have a better idea of where I am coming from.

'Plu' is the welsh word for 'feathers'. If you search Google or similar for plu you will also discover that it is an acronym for many and varied things.

EOTR 2013 - its not just about the live music...

The main reason I go to festivals is almost certainly quite apparent; it is to listen to music live and also to take photographs of that. It is not the whole story however, and this issue was thrown into sharper context at EOTR when I was asked how (festivals aside) I came across new music to listen to...
The truth is that I hadn't really thought about that in the "business-like" sense that this question implied I might. That was something of a shock. My first thoughts were "it just happens" and then "much of it finds me", but neither is a satisfactory answer to the question, although to me it might appear to be that way.
Indeed this is the point when it occurred to me that this is exactly how I had seen it. The truer answer, in so far as I have thought it through, is this. Listen, talk to people (I'm good at talking - like I need to say that - but I can listen too) about everything and anything they have to say, remember stuff and the apparent links between them. Then just go explore...
This is no real answer either, if only because of its generality, but I'll attempt a little more detail in a forthcoming post.
The other thing is to watch not just the acts but their audiences and indeed the festival milieu in general. At festivals such as EOTR you have already selected yourself to be part of a somewhat like-minded subset of the population, even the festival-going population! By that last comment I'm thinking that the EOTR subset of festival goers would be rather different to that at, for example, Leeds/Reading and it would be interesting, at least to me, to know more about that kind of social phenomenon. I expect it either has been, or currently is, the topic of several Ph.D. theses or research papers.
I'll leave that to someone else, as it all sounds like hard work, but please feel free to send me links to any such research because I'd love to read someone else's thoughts.

Here instead are images from EOTR 2013 that don't actually include any artists performing but are of other aspects instead. There are five such images, presented in the the order that they were taken between Thursday evening and Saturday evening. The caption with each is just a snapshot on my thought at the time that I took it. That has reminded me of another issue - always take a pencil and paper - a combination that can survive wet conditions although this was not a necessity on this occasion.

'Home for the next few days'

'The shadow audience at the Garden Stage'

'Sunshine always makes things better'

'Waiting for Warpaint'

'Watching Joe Gideon and The Shark'

You can add your own thoughts too [all comments to this blog are moderated by me - so at the very least you know I have read them] and start a cloud-thesis...

New Music 2013 - Part 28 - three forthcoming albums

I was intending to continue with my commentary on EOTR 2013 this evening but have decided that, with the tidal wave of forthcoming new releases, I would look at a few that have caught my attention. In many cases the artists involved first came to my attention at one festival or another.

The first album is Until The Colours Run - Lanterns on The Lake (Bella Union, 7 October).

This is the follow up to the 2011 début Gracious Tide, Take Me Home and is, as the artwork attests, likely to be ideal music to accompany the long, dark evenings of autumn. The lead single for this second LP was Another Tale From Another English Town. It is currently available as a free download from amazon.co.uk here.

The next is Find An Arrow - Troubador Rose, a band that I saw live at Truck Festival 2013 and mentioned here.

This is released by Clubhouse Records on October 16.

Last but not least in this frequently largely acoustic trio is the second EP from north Somerset based three-piece Wolfhound. 

Tales of Truth & Lies is released by Jelli Records on September 21.

The next selection is likely to be much more oriented towards the electric-influenced end of the music space that I routinely inhabit.

EOTR 2013 - New Music 2013 - Part 27 - The Graphite Set

I was going to continue my thoughts on EOTR with some of the various artists that I really wanted to see live again and I very soon shall do that, but then I decided to do this instead. The Graphite Set falls neatly between acts that I have seen before and ones that I haven't and also becomes one of the few to feature in my 'New Music' series of posts twice in the same year.
How does that come to happen? These Streets EP featured when it was released late spring. It is true that I have seen The Graphite Set's Lily Buchanan live before, and also at End of The Road in 2011, but in her previous incarnation as Lily and The Hackabouts. I wrote about that too but not, for some reason now forgotten, until early last year.

I'm not going to make any bones about this, and we chatted at the weekend about it. That was good but The Graphite Set is in a different league. These Streets probably won them many new fans and this performance on the Big Top Stage should have won them many more, not just those who were there but subsequently by word-of-mouth too, whether that be face-to-face or by social media and, in the increasingly DIY new music industry, it is one of the most powerful tools that there is and although an old cliché:
Talk is cheap when the story is good.

The band are awesome and the new material too. The next single, Grayson Perry is out very soon.

I have it on very good authority that an album is to follow in the New Year and the word is that the new material might well be a little more poppy and with lyrics that tell real stories...

EOTR 2013 - acts to see live for the first time.

As ever EOTR for me was a mixture of acts and artists that were known to me and that I wished to see live for the first time, ones that I wanted to see again (and again in one of two cases) and the usual sprinkling of ones about which I was previously unaware. This last category is one on which I rate festivals very highly and EOTR has over the years been exemplary in this regard.

Taking the first category first as the subject of this post I shall start with London-based Daughter. On the basis of their 2013 début album 'If You Leave' and a couple of preceding EPs I had them in my sight and watching footage of their live performances at Glastonbury earlier in the summer only made the London three-piece an absolute must-see. They played the gloriously situated Garden Stage on Saturday evening and certainly didn't disappoint.

Daughter, Garden Stage, EOTR 2013, 31 August.

I was very fortunate to get as close to the front of this set to get such pictures as this. I had to hotfoot it from the main Woods Stage as soon as another of my must-see acts has finished their set. This is one of the great advantage of the compact but not cramped EOTR festival site.

This was one act where I struggled to take photos that captured the moment.

Emily Kokal of Los Angeles four-piece Warpaint on the Woods Stage.

The band performed a number of new songs strongly hinting that a follow up to 2010 LP The Fool and 2008 EP Exquisite Corpse is soon to be unleashed on a waiting world.

Surprise opener on the Big Top Stage on Friday, in place of the unavailable Four Mile House, was Widowspeak from Brooklyn. I'm really not sure how I became aware of them but I bought their 2011 début album very soon after it has appeared - in fact I think I had to import the vinyl version from the US so I had obviously convinced myself of its worth and, as it happens, I was right. Now a duo rather than a four-piece they have recently released their second album Almanac, which I do not have yet. On hearing them live that will very soon be remedied!

Robert Earl Thomas and Molly Hamilton, Big Top Stage, 30 September.

How I might choose to classify their music is open to debate, but then they don't seem to consider pigeon-holing it themselves a priority either. Indie guitar certainly but some of the flowing guitar parts and melodies are beguiling in the extreme and sound as if they come from an earlier time.

End of The Road Festival 2013

I'm back from the forgoing festival and anyone that has paid more than passing attention to this little site will likely have noticed that it is in fact anything but the end of a musical year for me. It is indeed the start of a new one and for more than one reason.
For a start I have already bought my ticket for End of The Road 2014, and that harks back to the issue of trust that I mentioned in my last post, but also because it has now become so important to the writing of this blog that I associate one with the other. I simply can't list the music that I have heard, the people I have met because of it, and all because on a whim back in early September 2006 I decided to comment on someone else's blog post (about Bat For Lashes' début album Fur and Gold) and to do that (at the time) I had to create a blog account of my own. I didn't then imagine for a moment that today I would be writing a piece about the seventh anniversary of that wilful post. It is one of the happier accidents of fâte.
This year I made a particular effort to arrive in time to see all the "warm-up programme" on Thursday evening. King Charles in that rôle last year made me determined to do this this time and it was well worthwhile - five acts, with a predominance of electric guitar taking to the Tipi Stage from 17:30.
I have mentioned before my policy of watching opening acts on any stage as well as those those on 'lesser-stages' generally as a matter of priority. It may not be Simon Cowell's idea of entertainment but, on the other hand, it does have its own merit I believe.
I don't always do this but I think in this case it makes sense. I will list the five acts from Thursday evening and then add some pictures and comments about each:

• Evans the Death
• Annie Eve
• Catfish and the Bottlemen
• Tigercats
• Deap Vally

Evans the Death had two problems here and neither were of their own making. The first is the real and well documented one of being the opening act at a festival. The other is that I always take a few hours to get into the mood to take half-decent pictures. Only a fraction as gloomy as the band name might suggest they were an admirable choice. They are currently working on finishing their second album, they are signed to independent label FortunaPOP!, and I rather lean to the idea of buying their self-titled first.

Next up was Annie Eve, already mentioned, but that to me seems no reason not to do it again not least for the reason of her recent eponymous EP in a year that at least for me has been remarkable for their number and quality.

One thing you can say about East London's Tigercats is that they favour playing, if not all bare-footed, at least shoeless. I have no photographic evidence of their drummer in this regard.

I know that some will find their kind of indie-pop irksome in the extreme. I am not one of them and should I be feeling slightly down I might well add their 2012 album Isle of Dogs to my playlist, along with those by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and others including Los Campesinos.
Catfish and the Bottlemen are much in favour over at Amazing Radio at the moment. This is probably how I first became aware of them and it was gratifying to see them live. I know my fellow blogger Geoff Spence enjoyed this band and is looking forward to their forthcoming show at the Westgarth Social Club in Middlesborough. This is, it seems to me, exactly the kind of venue that up and down the country we need to be supporting.

The same cannot be said of the next band, the evening's head-line act and it is rare in my experience for one to warn its potential audience of factors concerning loudness. Welcome to the garage rock world of Californian duo Deap Vally. Often, seemingly for want of any other touchstone, likened to The White Stripes I rather favour the opinion that they exist in their own space and time.

I any case I would find the idea of Jack White dressed in the attire of Lindsey Troy more than a little disturbing. They are actually signed to Universal - and you may be aware of my thoughts about major labels but that is a story for another time. Sistrionix, as well as having a rather inspired title, is actually a good LP but live they are quite something else.

Trust - the mark of a true Festival

It is, more or less, the end of the outdoor festival season in northern Europe.
Here's a thought: such festivals are more about trust, in the organizers and their ability to select and book acts, than about the headline acts. 
This is why I already have a ticket for EOTR 2014 and why I'm going to mention anything other than the three headline acts.
You know me, maybe. I'll be heading off to see the first acts to perform at any opportunity and End of The Road provided five such on the Tipi Stage on Thursday afternoon and evening.
Annie Eve was one of those...  and I wonder how many of us were aware of her then because I certainly wasn't, but this only serves to underline my point, and I am now so here she is.

That scrap of paper, just beyond the bottles of water at the far right of the picture, is her set list. If you are wondering now, then a week ago so was I.
Here is that very same piece of paper.

You can just about see the imprint of her boot on it too!

End of The Road - A Festival Sunset

I'm just starting to get to grips with EOTR 2013 and I've caught up with some of the lost sleep too. So was it worth it?
You bet it was and then some. Indeed I have already booked my ticket for EOTR 2014, and the 'early-bird' ones are selling like hot cakes so I am told. I am not at all surprised.

This is what happens when taking photos, whilst wandering around between sets and maybe via the Somerset Cider Bus.

This next one is from the first act on Saturday - Brooklyn duo Widowspeak playing in the tented 'Big Top' stage.