New Music 2016 - Part 55 - Fara - Cross the Line

I have been waiting for this ever since I saw Fara play Cambridge Folk Festival 2015. One of the first acts that I saw simply blew me away...  and I'd never even heard of Fara before.
That it was a was a wake up call for me is an understatement. I knew that I had been caught blind-side as soon as they started playing Stage 2 on the Thursday evening.
That was then. This is now. A young four-piece from Orkney it comprises Jennifer Austin (piano) with Kristan Harvey, Jeana Leslie and Catriona Price on fiddle.

Cross The Line - Fara (Fara Music, 28 October 2016)

Cross The Line is their first full LP and it is a treat for lovers of fiddle music in the tradition of the Northern Isles. The majority of the eleven tracks are tunes. Some are old and some are new, such as the playful 'Cheeky Vimto'. The opening one 'The Dragon' gives early warning of what to expect.

There are five songs with vocals (v) of which 'Games People Play' is the least traditional in both its sound and lyric. 'I've Endured' is a sad song that is sung a capella in close-harmony. It provides a memorable point on which to end what is a very fine album indeed.

• The Dragon
• Three Fishers (v)
• Whisky You're The Devil (v)
• Bright Grey
• Changing Plans
• My Heart's in the Highlands (v)
• Cheeky Vimto
• Games People Play (v)
• Billy's Short Leg
• I've Endured (v)

Since I already know that Fara is exceptionally good live, it is high on my list of bands to see again. I suspect larger stages and audiences await in 2017.

This was an impromptu performance in the bar tent. Cambridge Folk Festival 2015.

New Music 2016 - Part 54 - Yola Carter - Orphan Offering

Another post and another perspective.  This is released next week and the excitement around it is as deserved as it is palpable. What it is not is the sudden appearance of a new artist.  A change of moniker, yes, but still the star that she always was.

Yolanda Quarty as she was then known is a singer and, very importantly, a song writer from just outside of the Bristol metropolitan area of the UK. Far enough outside the city, which is significantly multicultural, to be a real problem. She toured the world as vocalist with Massive Attack, playing to crowds numbered in the tens-of-thousands, but that was no outlet for her song-writing.  She also became the lead vocalist and songwriter of a band called Phantom Limb. Yes they were good, very good indeed.
I first saw Phantom Limb live when they played The Griffin in Frome one Sunday afternoon in August 2008 playing to an audience of tens (just a few tens). I wrote about that here. They recorded two studio albums, Phantom Limb and The Pines (2012) as well as Live in Bristol (2009).

Now Yola Carter is the new best thing. This is her, writing for herself, with a band chosen to make that what she wants it to be. 
My first comment is that it is amazing. It doesn't really matter if you have or have not heard the earlier works but you might well find them interesting. There are some stunning songs on both LPs and the live versions certainly don't disappoint. In fact that is the way to seek them. Yola Carter is therefore very much towards the top of my list of artists to see live in 2017.

Yola Carter - Orphan Offering (Ear Trumpet Records, 1 November 2016).

Yola Carter - Orphan Offering:

• Home
• What You Do
• Orphan Country
• Heed My Words
• Dead and Gone
• Fly Away

Orphan country, live at The Golden Lion, 244 Gloucester Road, Bishopston, Bristol. I'm not sure who is playing percussion here but that aside, l - r, this comprises Nuala Honan (guitar), Kit Hawes (guitar), Yola Carter (lead vocals), Beth Porter ('cello) and Aaron Catlow (fiddle).

New Music 2016 - Part 53 - Red Butler - Nothing To Lose

Red Butler is shortly to release its second LP and the follow-up to 2014's 'Freedom Bound'. In that time the Brighton-based four-piece has been garnering fans and acclaim both in the UK and further afield. I first saw the band live here in Frome, as part of the Blues, Rhythm and Roots festival in May 2016. It proved to be my favourite act on the day.

Guitar tomfoolery was adeptly done, but that alone is not enough to really make an impression.

Red Butler still did that however; this band writes most of its songs as a co-operative outfit and occasionally also reinterprets a cover in a very interesting way.
It's the real deal, clinched by the distinctive but wholly appropriate vocals of Jane Pearce.

Red Butler, Cheese & Grain, Frome - 8 May 2016.

Most of this set was taken from their début album 'Freedom Bound' (2014) but a few new songs were included too and we were told that they were to be included on their second LP and that this was to be produced by Wayne Proctor, who also happens to be the drummer for King King. These songs sounded very promising indeed. I would travel to see this band live once again - no doubt about that at all. This is an album that I really want to hear. Gone, it seems, are the days when beyond the start of October the only releases were those aimed at the Christmas market. That is something for which we should give thanks and spend some cash.

Red Butler - Nothing To Lose (self released, 11 November 2016).

New Music 2016 - Part 52 - Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker - Overnight

I have seen a great deal of live music in 2016 and this is the latest release from one of the highlights of those endeavours. I know that this duo is a Marmite thing in UK folk circles. I make no apologies. I'm totally on-board here.

Overnight - Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker (Rough Trade Records, 14 October 2016)

• Nine Times Along
• Something Familiar
• Sweet the Sorrow
• Dawn of the Dark
• Dark Turn of Mind
• Weep You No More Sad Fountains
• The Light of His Lamp
• Sleep
• Milk and Honey
• The Waning Crescent
• Overnight
• Light of Day

'Dark Turn of Mind' is a Gillian Welch cover but what you are really hearing here is the pushing of boundaries. Most of these songs are originals. Most of them are tales of loss and regret. Therefore there is a clear bond with traditional folk themes.

This is the Garden Stage, End Of The Road Festival 2016.

Seeing the duo play live is something else. Josienne is quite the compère spinning the miserabilism and self-deprecating threads, between the songs, to the point that it becomes impossible to divine reality from construct. Then there is her voice.

'Something Familiar'

Bob Dylan - A Nobel Laureate

I have to admit that when today dawned I could say that my knowledge of the works and the authors that have been deemed worthy of the Nobel Prize for Literature was very limited indeed. I had no reason to expect that situation to change any time soon.
What I certainly did not expect was to end the day listening to (original) vinyl, that I already own, written by a Nobel Laureate. This was astonishing development in a world seemingly so weighed down with rancour and atrocities of almost every kind imaginable.
It is recognition not only of the lyrics Bob Dylan has actually written, many though they are, but also for all those that he has inspired others to write.

There is nothing more for me to write; I'm going back to listening.

New Music 2016 - Part 51 - Bel Blue - Our Places

Not very often does this happen. I'm delighted to share it when it does. This is self-released on Wild Dog Rose and all nine tracks are self-written. It is almost entirely acoustic, a smidgen of electric guitar features on two tracks, but more importantly it is astonishingly whole.
This time last week I'd never even heard about Bel Blue or, if I had, I had forgotten all about it. Hearing three songs from it on Monday evening made me think that the latter scenario is very unlikely indeed.
It was bought to me by the twin powers of local radio and the worldwide access to it via the internet. In this case the distance between Hailsham FM (in Sussex, England) and my location in Frome, Somerset, England is barely 125 miles. The result was I purchased the LP there and then - on that slightly old-fashioned format that is CD. Royal Mail delivered it to my door today.
Here it is:

Bel Blue - Our Places:

• Longing's Gone
• Our Places
• In Its Time
• Waterfall
• Wild Dog Rose
• River of Dreams
• Somewhere
• Nant Ddu
• Along the Way
• Our Places (live by the River Ely)
• In Its Time (radio edit)

Bel Blue - In Its Time (radio edit, official video).

It is a début album but I suggest that if I had told you otherwise then you might well have left the fact unquestioned. It is also independently released. I'm not, although a few may think otherwise, out to denigrate major labels. They have made a few steps to attempt to rescue their tattered corporate reputation but thus far only a fraction of what might be required, if that is indeed possible.
That is not what really excites me and makes me want to go to certain festivals. This sort of music is exactly the kind that does.

I've been quiet for a reason...

I haven't written a post for ten days now, which is not actually particularly unusual. Indeed I am saving some festival commentary for the long evenings of autumn and there is more than one reason for that.
I have been making an inevitably incomplete long-list of the recordings - LPs, EPs and those that fall somewhere in between - that I think might be worthy of  inclusion in my end-of-year consideration. Needless to say there will be some yet to be released (I have a watch list for those too) but nevertheless the list is long. Longer indeed than ever before.
I have previously listened to each item all the way through at least twice after long-listing and before making the decisions and I intend to do the very same once again. With the list likely to reach an estimated 160 items, each with an average length approaching 40 minutes, that is set to be a Sisyphean task, at least in endeavour if not necessarily ultimate futility. One thing is guaranteed: it will, of necessity, be accompanied by really good music.
Some items will be well known to many and more to those that have read these pages. I hope that there will also be some surprises for everyone.

Here is one of the recent additions to the long-list:

Elizabeth Cook - Exodus Of Venus (Agent Love Records, 17 June 2016).

• Exodus of Venus
• Dyin'
• Evacuation
• Dharma Gate
• Slow Pain
• Broke Down in London on the M25
• Methadone Blues
• Cutting Diamonds
• Orange Blossom Trail
• Tabitha Tuder's Mama

Country, blues, soul, rock.
Please arrange these descriptors as you see fit depending on the song and your reaction at the particular time of listening. Needless to say her band are totally on the ball but not overpowering. The same is true of the production.
It even includes a paean to that English nightmare that is the M25 motorway (freeway is a word that it has rarely, if ever, deserved) that orbits London at a distance of approximately 20 miles from the centre!