New Music 2016 - Part 46 - three doses of garage rock

I feel like a change from narrating my thoughts on festivals because I haven't written a post on new music for what seems like an age (it's about four weeks in truth) and I mentioned female-fronted garage rock in relation to Seratones at End of The Road Festival 2016. This is about that sort of thing.

The first is the only one of the three albums released as of today but all three are by bands that I have seen live.

The band's latest LP is 'Get Gone' (Fat Possum Records, 6 May 2016).

Released tomorrow is this from the Californian duo of Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards. It is their second full-length release following 'Sistrionix' (2013) and a change of label.

Deap Vally - Femejism (Cooking Vinyl, 16 September 2016).

Towards the end of the year Scottish duo Stina Tweedale and Cat Myers pitch in with their own second album. The first, released in 2014, was self-titled.

Honeyblood - Babes Never Die (FatCat Records, 4 November 2016). Vinyl, CD and d/l.

Babes Never Die - Honeyblood

• Babes Never Die
• Ready For The Magic
• Sea Hearts
• Love Is a Disease
• Walking at Midnight
• Justine, Misery Queen
• Hey, Stellar
• Cruel
• Gangs

I imagine all the smallish people had a lot of fun playing the parts in this!

Three bands (two from the US and one from the UK) released on three different independent record labels (one from the US and two from the UK). Track listings, more details and live pictures to follow soon.

New Music 2015 - Part 19 - Girlpool - Before The World Was Big

Just when you thought all-female garage rock couldn't get any better and with Girlpool confirmed as booked for End Of The Road Festival 2015 it is now a real challenge; can Cleo Tucker (guitar and vocals) and Harmony Tividad (bass and vocals) better the set that Deap Vally produced on the Thursday evening in 2013 at EOTR, only to then better it themselves with an astonishing one at Truck Festival 2014 when playing on the main stage?
Here is the reason that I mention this. The stakes are suddenly raised for the début Girlpool LP has come to be known...

Girlpool - 'before the world was big' (Wichita Recordings) 1 June 2015 in the UK. (2 June in USA & Canada.)

Maybe I should have shared this, the first single lifted from the LP, yesterday.

Truck Festival 2014 - a miscellany.

I wasn't intending to blog this evening but so what. I'm still thinking about Truck and in two weeks I shall be off to the orthogonal word of festivals once again, so I had best keep up.
After two posts comprising the goings-on at one small stage, this is going to be a bit different. I did visit the main stage, quite often actually, and the Veterans and Virgins Stage too. I visited the Shed Stage, if only once and briefly.

It is a fairly modern agricultural shed, and it smells the part but has a certain charm I suppose. At times it was, I am told, more crowded than a veal crate, but with willing humans. To the point that security, which generally has very little to do at Truck, had to restrict entry on valid grounds. It would certainly be more atmospheric when it was dark outside.
On the other hand, and on the main stage, I saw two bands that I first saw at End of The Road Festival 2013 (EOTR) on the Thursday on a small stage. I was very impressed then and remain so now. Both are Truck-friendly, guitar-wielding types and they went down very well with a sizeable crowd basking in the scorching sunshine on Friday.

North Wales five-piece Catfish and The Bottlemen, Truck Stage on Friday afternoon.

They nailed this and that will give them much to savour - the début LP 'The Balcony' is released in the UK on September 15 and in North America in early 2015.
A little later, so Friday early evening, came a band well accustomed to playing in such adorable weather - Los Angeles duo Deap Vally.  I purchased the 2013 début LP Sistrionix (on vinyl) after seeing them live at EOTR. This bought back a comment from then, which is that "nobody takes pictures of drummers". This is often because they are hidden right at the back of the stage, I guess.

 Since Julie Edwards was not so hidden, and the light was terrific, here she is.
Whilst I am on the subject of Deap Vally, what the hell?  This is both of them.

A little later that evening I headed, on a strong recommendation and one that proved to be absolutely spot on, to the Veterans and Virgins stage to see an artist that I had never seen before and was only very faintly aware of and quite probably neither are you. Let's put it this way, she is from a musical family.

Mary Epworth.

Her music is percussive and heartfelt, based around anything from UK folk to south-eastern European rhythm via prog and psych rock, including Greek influences; bouzouki infiltrated UK folk from Asia Minor, via Greece, in the 20th century so why not? Her only LP to date is 'Dream Life' (2012).

If that description sounds like a recipe for a train wreck then, given the degree of control exercised here, it is most certainly not. Live however, it is quite the thrilling ride. One of the best acts at Truck Festival 2014.

To summarise the last four posts Truck is a great festival for (especially) new music, is well run, very friendly and remarkably good value for money. This last point applies not just to the tickets but on-site catering and bars. The drinks were marginally cheaper, like for like, than the equivalent in any worthwhile pub in my home town of Frome, Somerset.

And so to finish as I started with another picture of the first act that I saw - Heavy Heart.

In a curious twist of fâte my post today included the début album 'Not Kings' from the first act I saw at Truck Festival 2013, Candy Says, on 180g 12" vinyl. Some things are well worth the wait.

2013 In Music - Albums - Part 2

Despite what I said I might do in the last part of this review series, this is not EPs and mini- albums of 2013. It is the second tranche of 'albums of 2013'. The former category is proving far more fascinating, and therefore complex, than I imagined even a couple of weeks ago. It will have to await my attention this coming weekend. The first part afforded you one album that was largely sung in a foreign language. This will include another but the comfort is that at least both of them are sung in the same foreign language. I make no excuses about this, the links, or indeed the variety of music included. You won't catch me adding a link to NME very often but here I chose to do so:

• Danni Nicholls - A Little Redemption
• Deap Vally - Sistrionix
• Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo - Dear River
• Ethan Johns - If Not Now Then When?
• Joanna Gruesome - Weird Sister
• Joanne Shaw Taylor - Songs From The Road
• Lanterns on the Lake - Until The Colours Run
• Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin - Mynd
• Siddi - Un Tro
• Texas - The Conversation
• Troubadour Rose - Find An Arrow
• Wild Belle - Isles

I've seen seven of these acts live, four of them more than once, and the other five are well and truly on my list of 'ones to see'. Choose your own favourite, not from these, unless you really want to do that, because it is your turn. Write about it - somewhere, anywhere legal.

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!