This blog is intended to do "exactly what it says on the tin" so below are some of my 'Thoughts on Music'. They predominantly concern recent matters but will not always do so. I'll also happily turn to matters of the music industry more generally if and when I feel so inclined. So there!
If you don't agree with something please feel free to add a comment. They are moderated by me (so I'll get to read it) and I might even reply. Above all however just enjoy whatever music you like!
Richard
It's never been rare that I feature artists from Canada performing in the folk, roots and Americana space. This is another one of them - the artist here hails from from Grande Prairie, Alberta. It is an EP as good as I have heard this year but perhaps not something I might have expected to be released on a major label. It is acoustic.
Tenille Townes - Living Room Worktapes EP (Columbia Nashville, 13 April 2018).
Where You Are
Jersey on the Wall
Somebody's Daughter
White Horse
Four tracks is all you get but it is a triumph of quality over quantity. I'm not in the business of making comparisons but I'd say a full album is worth the wait, however long that may be.
I'm minded to take an audio 'road trip' through recent Canadian music sooner rather than later. There's plenty on my mind, several of which I am looking forward to seeing play live at festivals this summer.
What awaits here is no less than forty-something minutes of acoustic-string-band music virtuosity, courtesy of Brittany Haas (fiddle), Paul Kowert (upright bass), Dominick Leslie (octave mandolin) and Jordan Tice (guitar). Some of it is actually recorded live with an audience and these pieces are intercut with the studio recordings.
Next in my 'Spring Homework' series about artists that I have never seen live before and inspired by the artists appearing at festivals that I am attending this summer. This is one from the programme of the all-new festival The Long Road. In contrast to the largely UK folk theme of my last post we have swapped genres to that of Americana and alt-country but with things never being simple in these matters the artist in question is in fact from Spain but sings in English and is signed to UK label Loose Records; a label that is the home of very many good things. In 2017 she released her latest LP and this is it:
Joana Serrat - Dripping Springs (Loose Records, 29 September 2017).
This latest was recorded in Texas by Israel Nash (see him live if you get the chance - I have and you certainly won't regret it) at his studio near the small town that gives this album its title. He also plays guitar on some tracks. The rest of the band is absolutely top-notch and so is the production. The whole thing is however carried by the lyrics and vocals of its prime creator.
It is her fourth LP within the space of five years, so rest assured that she has no shortage of material from which to choose. This of course meant that my "homework" involved listening to all four albums. I can say that it was not a chore. I can't wait to see what her live playlist throws up. As for my personal favourites? I need a few more listens to decide. There will certainly be some from the earlier albums, that much is true.
Right. It is time to jump in and mention the artists and acts that I want to see at the festivals that I am attending this summer. This post is just one from the first of those festivals. The rule of engagement is that it must be one that I have never seen live before. It's not going to be difficult, apart for the choices between candidates that simply need to be made. I shall start with some folk, much but possibly not all of it, traditional. In any case, what exactly qualifies as traditional?
Kim Lowings and The Greenwood - Wild & Wicked Youth (self-released, 2017).
Other versions of several of the songs on this record have appeared recently; 'The Cuckoo', it appears courtesy of Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker on their 2017 LP 'The Bird', is one.
More remarkable, at least in contrast between versions, is 'Oh The Wind and Rain', Kim Lowings and The Greenwood and 'Bows' as it appears on the LP 'From Here' by Stick In The Wheel (2015). Both are versions of the same macabre tale of sibling murder and mysterious retribution. The source is Child Ballad 10 and the UK version of the song is likely of Northumbrian origin. 'The Twa Sisters' is yet another, more local name for it. The similar stories in other Northern European folklore traditions (see preceding link) are interesting in that, amongst other differences, the drowned sibling is as often as not brought back to life, but the means to this end vary considerably.
There is plenty more from this band and indeed this LP alone is quite sufficient to justify its inclusion in this list. She is not averse to covering Anglo-Scottish-Irish songs either. This, a lyric from which the title of the album comes, is the well known song 'The Newry Highwayman':
Kim Lowings and The Greenwood play Beardy Folk Festival main stage on Saturday 23 June at around 4:30pm.
You might like to check out the rest of the line-up too. I have seen quite a few of them before and there isn't one amongst them that I wouldn't see again. As for those that I have never seen live it is open season.
In previous years I have been rather lax about doing pre-festival homework aimed at investigating acts and artists about which I have little or no existing knowledge. There are plenty. Whilst I regard absolute spontaneity as one of the greatest luxuries of attending a festival as an individual I am also acutely aware that this has caused me not to see bands which hindsight has revealed that I ought to have seen. I made much more effort in this direction last year, by starting my homework earlier at the very least, but this year I feel I should try harder again and that is something I'm now doing and, furthermore, thoroughly enjoying That's fine and I have done so, but this is a two-edged sword as it is now clear that at all the festivals I attend it will be quite impossible to see all the things that I already know that I want to. I'm quite sure that I will, as always, make spur of the moment decisions some of which I might regret. On the other hand such decisions have taken me in new, uncharted directions on many occasions too. Sometimes the deciding factor had been as simple as deciding to remain in a tented stage rather than leave it to see a band on an outdoor stage when it is teeming with rain. On some others it was a combination of incompetence and serendipity: this is how I came to see (at that point utterly unknown to me) Vukovi at Truck Festival last July; I headed off at the right time but to the wrong stage! That actually worked out very well indeed; the band I failed to see then was Goat Girl and I got to see them play at End Of The Road Festival some weeks later. If all of the above wasn't enough of a problem what I have discovered is tending to reinforce an impression that I have had for a long while. This is that as I get older I am actually getting to seek out and enjoy a wider variety of music. This seems to run against the grain of many studies and articles thereon that suggest that one's taste in music is largely guided by, if not defined by, that which one liked in late teens and early twenties. I only started writing this on a whim this evening. I didn't really expect to get beyond the preamble. An hour or so later what has happened however is slightly different. My thoughts have crystallised rather rapidly. This is something of a 'Thoughts on music' version of the State of The Union. It has also rekindled my enthusiasm for writing more often. I go through phases when that doesn't happen. I also tends to coincide with times when I listen to the most music. I'm fascinated by what I am discovering. I'm not yet sure how to present this but possibly an act that I have never seen before from each of the five festivals that I'm booked to attend. The only hard part of that is likely to be choosing which one from each.
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