New Music 2017 - Part 36 - The Railsplitters - Jump In

Based in Boulder, Colo. The Railsplitters is a quintet and a string band that displays not only its independence of traditional constrictions within the genre - traditional bluegrass did not involve women; lead vocal here in the charge of Lauren Stovall, originally from Jackson, Miss. - but also its own ethos as to where it should head musically and therefore the sort of topics that the songs relate to follow likewise.
The band members are as follows:

• Lauren Stovall - lead vocals
• Dusty Ryder - banjo
• Peter Sharpe - mandolin
• Joe D'Esposito - fiddle
• Jean-Luc Davis - upright bass

This is the band's third LP. Like the two that came before it, self-titled 'The Railsplitters' (2013) and 'The Faster It Goes' (2015), it has been entirely cloud-funded and self released.

Jump In - The Railsplitters (self-released, 10 November 2017).

The Railsplitters - Jump In:

• Everyone She Meets
• Jump In
• Lessons I've Learned
• Durango River
• To Do
• Somethin' Sweet
• Citronella
• Lemon Lime
• Bay of Five
• Baxes

This is a true touring band. As I write this their schedule shows that the next gigs are at the Woodside Folk Festival in Queensland, Australia between Christmas and New Year. An extensive tour of the UK follows early in 2018 and I am intending to see the band live. The dates for this tour are as follows:

Jan 25 Thu --- The Old Fire Station, Carlisle

Jan 26 Fri --- The Hippodrome, Eyemouth 

Jan 27 Sat --- Letham Nights, Letham

Jan 28 Sun --- Birnam Arts, Dunkeld

Jan 30 Tue --- Celtic Connections, Glasgow

Feb 1 Thu --- Eastgate Theatre, Peebles

Feb 2 Fri --- Sage Gateshead, Gateshead

Feb 3 Sat --- The Greystones, Sheffield

Feb 4 Sun --- Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea

Feb 6 Tue --- Helsby Bluegrass Club, Frodsham

Feb 7 Wed --- Musically Monstrous at The Three Horseshoes, Towersey

Feb 8 Thu --- South Holland Centre, Spalding

Feb 9 Fri --- Selby Town Hall, Selby

Feb 10 Sat --- Sands Sessions, Farnham

Feb 11 Sun --- Whitstable Sessions at St Mary's Hall, Whitstable

Feb 13 Tue --- The Canteen, Bristol

Feb 14 Wed --- Biddulph Up In Arms, Stoke-On-Trent

Feb 15 Thu --- Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal

Feb 16 Fri --- The Live Room, Saltaire

Feb 17 Sat --- The Lights, Andover

'Jump In', live from Albino Skunk Music Festival, Greer, SC, October 2017.

New Music 2018 - Part 1 - Stick In The Wheel - Follow Them True

Divining the future has to start somewhere. I have chosen this as my starting point for music in 2018, not least because Stick In The Wheel is exactly between the future and the past.
I have no idea what the songs on this, the second LP, will be but I'm happy to trust that I shall like them and so I have pre-ordered it on vinyl.

Follow Them True - Stick In The Wheel (self released, 26 January 2018).

This is the follow-up to astonishing 2015 début 'From Here' and I can't think of an act better qualified to be my first suggestion for music that is to be released in 2018, but there are plenty more snapping at the heels.
This is 'Over Again':

In 2017 the band released a record of other artists singing traditional songs live and that is well worth an hour of your precious time too. It features well known artists and also many less so but no less worthy.

FROM HERE: English Folk Field Recordings (From Here Records, 2017).

The idea was to capture what the essence, the making and the performance of English folk music means in the here-and-now.

New Music 2017 - Part 35 - Angelina - Vagabond Saint

This follows from my previous post in that I realise sometimes it takes new music time to reveal itself to me. This is a more extreme case in that I first heard it almost a year ago. It has more recently become a a go-to album especially when I find myself in a somewhat ambivalent mood. There is something about it that works for me. That mood is not actually the case just now and probably why I have finally seen my way around to writing about it.

Vagabond Saint - Angelina (WONDERFULSOUND, 2 December 2016). D/l & vinyl.

Vagabond Saint - Angelina:

• Dark Heart 
• Rose Cascade 
• Mandolin Man
• I Don't Cry 
• January Butterfly
• Prayers and Grace
• Vagabond Saint
• Smokes Like A Dream
• Manola
• Wild Cloud
• Sometimes

It's soulful, smoky, southern, pastoral and she wrote the songs too. The artist comes from the nearest that the UK has to an island in the delta, the Isle of Wight, but don't let that put you off.  Had I found it in time last year it would have been on my year-end list. That it was released when it was is a great commitment to the fact that fine new releases no longer stop at the start of November in fawning to the 'don't-offend-anyone' Christmas market fare of decades past.

It is better to buy (or give, or be given) an album you love and an album you detest than end up with two albums that don't evoke much response either way. 

New Music 2017 - Part 34 - The Delta Bell - Hold Fast the Fire

The Delta Bell is the work of Brighton-based musician and song writer Kate Gerrard; performing solo or as in the case of this, her second full-length, with a full band.

• Kate Gerrard - vocals, guitar, hammond
• Beth Chesser - backing vocals, keyboard, piano
• Andrew Blake - guitar
• James Bandenburg - bass, harmonica
• Bob Baker - drums
• Mark Jesson - cello
• Sophie Jesson - violin

 The first Delta Bell LP was 'Bow Out Of The Fading Light' in 2015 and I wrote about that here.

Hold Fast the Fire - The Delta Bell (Random Acts Of Vinyl, 27 October 2017).

Hold Fast the Fire - The Delta Bell

• Berlin 
• Lonesome Song
• Little Girl Lost
• Rain On Love
• Catacombs
• Modern City
• Golden
• Killing Heart
• Ride Out
• These Days

Some albums are immediate in their appeal and although I liked it from the start it is not exactly one that I would describe in that way. For the 'shuffle playlist' generation this will likely not be a big deal unless something snags your ear, resulting in a kind of musical emergency brake application.
I hardly ever listen to music on shuffle.  That is why I am only writing about it almost a month after its release, despite the fact that I had pre-ordered it on vinyl several months before release.  Immediacy and longevity are certainly not two mutually exclusive sides of a coin but neither are they to be conflated. I would suggest that the very title of the record indicates the side of this divide it was intended to inhabit.
It takes some growing into. That's not to say that is an effort, less a burden, but it takes time none the less. The lyric of 'Modern City' seems to sum that for me and the repetition of them heightens that further.
A similar construct straddles its shapes of isolation and inclusion:

'I pulled up my roots and hang from the branch'
...from opening track 'Berlin' doesn't seem hopeful on the face of it but things work themselves out in one way or another. It's a recording that really requires your attention, almost certainly best alone and with coffee and some cake, played end-to-end before if gets to you. You'll know when it does. It's actually very reassuring.
Not may artists write albums that require this singular level of attention any more. You might, like I am, looking to find more somewhat like it.

The Delta Bell is also a fine live act, be it Kate playing solo or any combination of musicians beyond that.

The Delta Bell - Saloon Bar stage, Truck Festival, 16 July 2016.

Joanne Shaw Taylor - live at The Royal Festival Hall

It is rare that I venture to London for live music. Last Wednesday was an an exception and with good reason. It was for to see this artist live a fifth time but the fact that I had never set foot inside the iconic Royal Festival Hall did no harm either.

Photo credit: John Bentley

The artist was Joanne Shaw Taylor and despite a cold that had caused the cancellation of the previous day's show at Bristol Colston Hall we were treated to an awesome set. Her voice held but, sensibly in the circumstance, the guitar parts and the addition of an entirely instrumental number were to the fore. It was to be quite stunning. I have never seen and heard guitar played quite like that by anyone...  the acoustics of the room playing a full part here. The whole set seemed to go so very quickly but was not in fact any shorter than might have been anticipated.
Support was provided by the impressive South African blues-rock artist Dan Patlanky and his band of which I have to admit that I was previously quite unaware. On the other hand I really like being caught off-guard by new music.
Rather suspecting that I would not be permitted to use it I didn't take a camera. In some ways that was liberating too. The whole evening, involving company and travelling to London and back, seems to have pressed some sort of reset button in my mind.  Since the summer's festivals I have been listening to absolutely loads of music but had somehow lost the wish to write about it for a month or two. It has to be spontaneous. It isn't something that I can make myself do though I often think in some detail about what I might post even when I don't actually do it.