New Music 2016 - Part 5 - Applewood Road

One day in 2014 three songwriters met in a coffee shop in East Nashville. They had not met before but they wrote a song called Applewood Road.
Shortly afterwards the three - Amber Rubarth, Amy Speace and Emily Barker - recorded it and decided to expand the project to a whole LP. In 2015 they had written the whole set and returned to the same place where they recorded that first song. This is that record and what you get is three part harmony and sparse acoustic accompaniment.

It was recorded at Welcome To 1979 Studio in Nashville around a single microphone to two-track tape using all analogue equipment.  The tapes were edited together and mastered at Gearbox Records, again using all analogue process and the acetate masters lathe-cut there too.

Applewood Road:

1. Applewood Road
2. To the Stars
3. Old Time Country Song
4. Home Fires
5. Honey Won't You
6. Give Me Love
7. Sad Little Tune
8. Lovin' Eyes
9. Josephine
10. I'm Not Afraid Anymore
11. Bring the Car Round
12. Row Boat
13. My Love Grows

It is released by Gearbox Records on 12 February 2016 (vinyl, digital). Here is a little preview:


Note added 10 February 2016: You can currently listen to a legal stream of the full album courtesy of For Folk's Sake, ahead of its release this coming Friday, here. Or indeed, courtesy of The Bluegrass Situation, here.

Behind The Castle Festival 2015

It is almost 13 April as I write and Behind the Castle Festival is therefore just two short months away.

Get your tickets here and especially if you wish for camping on Saturday for these are very limited and will all be gone soon. The line-up is of course stunning from start to finish. There is nothing not to cherish, which it just as it should be. With three stages there will be some agonising choices to make; I have been promised that. Bring it on, this as a festival compact enough to see part of one set and then part of another without missing much whilst between them.
I'm not saying, because I won't decide until the very moment, what I want to see most.  Here is a Spotify playlist including some, but not all, of the artists that will be there on the day. It is entirely my own choice of songs, of course, but hopefully provides some idea of what is on offer. 
There will almost certainly be additions and updates. I just needed to post something at the point that I had got to. It might just help fend off some of that the Monday feeling too - it is nearly 100 minutes long.
The Spiral Earth Awards 2015 have now been announced and two of the winners, both for albums, are playing BTCF 2015:
Moulettes - best album - Constellations
Larkin Poe - best Americana album - Kin
If that weren't enough another  of the winners -  Blair Dunlop , best solo artist, is playing Marnhull Acoustic sessions this coming Sunday (19 April) and that is not all; Emma Stevens is supporting.

Come and see live music.

Right then. Spring is coming, sooner or later, and it is time to stop making excuses and start making plans for the summer. If you have never really engaged with live music but thought that you might, be it indoors or outside, now is the time to make some decisions. There has arguably never been such a choice as there is just now. I'll say it now, loud and plain, even vinyl isn't a patch on live performance.
The tired old excuses - about the kids, food, camping, toilets, whatever.... well they don't really hold water any longer. You can have anything you want - from a couple of hours at an intimate indoor gig to four days camping in a field - and it is up to you. What is more is that it doesn't need to cost the earth either. The one thing that you will have to find minders for, if it is more than a short escape, is your pets. Your cat may have other ideas of a good weekend whilst you are away but that's not my problem.

Here is a selection, biased to those that are reasonably local to me but not entirely so:

Nine dates in cities across the UK and Marnhull Acoustc Sessions in a hall that seats about a hundred.
For more about the artists see here  ---  Blair Dunlop  ---  Emma Stevens. At the same venue the following Sunday Megan Henwood and on 10 May Canadian artist Annabelle Chvostek (formerly a member of The Wailin' Jennys). She has a brand new LP 'Be The Media' coming out on 1 June.

Then on 13 June comes the second edition of Behind The Castle Festival and, as it says, it is held just behind Sherborne Castle, Dorset in beautiful parkland. Bigger and better than last year, which was great this one-day family-friendly festival now has camping overnight on the Saturday (but you need to book that and soon) and will have enhanced catering and bar facilities as well as more stuff just for kids.
Here is the upper crust of the line-up. The rest won't disappoint.

In the way such things can happen, one of the artists not on the above list has been forced to cancel owing to illness. The replacement, who would otherwise have been on the list above, is to be announced tomorrow. It will be worth watching, trust me.
That is not to say that the others in the running list are any less worthy of your attention or indeed mine. I'm a firm believer in always arriving in time to see all of the support sets at any gig and, in so far as is possible, turning out to see the opening acts on festival stages even at 11am on Sunday morning.
You might just get the live music bug. If you do then the longer festivals beckon.
When summer is fading in to autumn  it will be time for North Dorset Folk Festival. That is a long time off and we must not wish all those months away.

If I were to write such a piece then it would not come out much different to this very recent preview:
http://www.rock-regeneration.co.uk/wordpress/2015/04/news-behind-the-castle-music-festival/

A live recording to assuage the January blues.

It is not the best time of year for new music, or indeed much else to be quite honest. Here is a live recording by a band that has exercised my mind much over the last five years or so but has recently declared hiatus.
Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo 'Live at Swindon Arts Centre' in 2011 and recorded during the tour that followed the release of the LP Almanac is now available to download. I certainly love live music and thus also have a soft spot for live recordings convincingly done. This newly affordable recording possibility is one of the virtues of the digital world.

That is not to say that 2015 will be without interest: all four members are still very active in music. Emily Barker is playing Behind The Castle Festival 2015. There is however a great deal more than that to come.

Old Music. New Music. - Photos. Fires. Fables.

I know that, as Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo embark on their tour and it is likely to be the last for a little while as the various members pursue their many other projects, Photos. Fires. Fables (2005) is soon to be re-released on CD and this news will please many people. It is in no way a curiosity simply because it was her first release as a solo artist. It still stands as an incredible record.
I am one of the lucky ones: I snapped up the very last copy at the Rough Trade pop-up shop at End Of The Road Festival back in 2009 - and I knew absolutely nothing at all about the artist until this point - about ten minutes after I heard her play live. When music does that to me then it really matters; it is history in the making.

Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo headlined North Dorset Folk Festival in 2013.

New Music 2014 - Part 17 - Vena Portae

This is what I was intended to write about yesterday. As it happens I seem to be in a blog-posting mood at the moment so that's not an issue. This is in part spurred by the abundance of interesting new music and also, just today, by the fact that my ticket for End of The Road Festival arrived in the post. That has somehow made the 2014 festival season seen real, even though it is (currently) the last one that I shall be attending this summer.

This album is a new project and is not released (vinyl, CD, d/l) until 18 August 2014. Recorded in Sweden in the winter of 2012/13 it isn't very summery. Indeed the lead track is 'Summer Kills' and it can be streamed below.

[post in progress --- to be continued soon]

North Dorset Folk Festival 2013 - Part 3

I was sold on North Dorset Folk Festival 2012 pretty much from the get-go and was quite happy to buy a ticket for 2013 without knowing any artists - just as I do for End of The Road Festival (EOTR) - I simply trust that it will be excellent and I have never been let down yet. On the other hand, when I discovered that Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo was to headline NDFF 2013 I could hardly believe what I was reading - and I checked that it wasn't 1 April. It certainly wasn't, and I wasn't dreaming about it either. I first saw them, previously quite unknown to me at EOTR 2009 and was totally taken. Here is that occasion:

No drummer back then. The kit was there for other bands on the stage to use as required.

Other than that the line up remains the same. Here is how it turned out at Marnhull Village Hall on 26 October.

L - R (in both pictures): Anna Jenkins, Jo Silverston, Emily Barker and Gill Sandell.
  

Emily Barker and Gill Sandell in an acoustic guitar and piano accordion duel.
It is easy to forget in the seamless sound the individual contributions of each member.

Anna Jenkins on fiddle.
  

Nostalgia really doesn't get much better than this.
  

If percussionist Nat Butler thought that he was not going to be mentioned on account of his very recent inclusion in the Red Clay Halo then that is not so.

Percussion and bass underpin much of Dear River. Jo Silverston on electric bass.

That two of the artists have also recently released music as side-projects is very worthy of note. Gill Sandell's second solo album, Light The Boats, in September 2013 and the second after Tarry Awhile (2010 and which is also excellent). Emily Barker also participates in London-based collective Arctic Circle that released its first five-track EP 'Lantern Waste' today. Here, taken from it, is 'Hushabye Mountain' to stream and the EP to buy. I have to say that I have a particular fondness for track 4 ' Unreasonable Dreams'.

North Dorset Folk Festival 2013 - Part 2

So there. That (as in Part 1) was the lower half of the running order and how good was that, I thought to myself a week ago yesterday, sometime mid-afternoon. My only concern, though I dismissed it, was whether it was possible to maintain this momentum.
The next to play was again a duo - Jack McNeill and Charlie Heys. This is the point at which folk, or folk inspired music, actually becomes quite challenging both in subject and treatment. They played a number of new tracks from their forthcoming LP (due early 2014) too.

One to watch, for sure, and so NDFF 2013 powered forward with Boat To Row as the next act to take to the somewhat small stage. I had heard a short section of a Boat To Row set at an outdoor festival earlier this year and I wanted more. This was my chance to put it right.

All five of Midlands-based Boat To Row. North Dorset Folk Festival 2013.

Deriving from a university solo project this has developed quite some momentum.  Hannah (far left above) is the latest addition and, just a few weeks in, she is a fully integrated band member - which is as well as they have a distinct tendency to swap instruments, some of them rather unusual.

Faye Haddon on table-harmonium.

The first support needed no introduction in so far as I was concerned. Emily Baker is the the only artist to play both editions of North Dorset Folk Festival as a named artist and this was also the fifth time that I have seen her play live.
This time she did so live and unplugged - never fear - you could hear it all perfectly from the back of the hall. The highlights, some of which she previewed at NDFF last year, are songs from her 2013 album All At Sea.

Emily Baker, playing as first support, at North Dorset Folk Festival 2013.

Headlining was Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo and this was the first time that I had seen them live since End Of The Road Festival 2009. They amazed me then and proved more than equal to the task of doing so again last Saturday night. The same four as back then but recently with Matt on drums too. The 2013 album Dear River was just a part of this.

'Nostalgia' live. This set actually deserves a post all its own. It will happen sooner than later.

Just a thought... North Dorset Folk Festival

This is what you are missing as I write and, indeed, so am I.

O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire is an all-seated venue of approximately 2000 capacity.  It is now too late to go to this concert anyway. On the other hand the very same are headlining North Dorset Folk Festival on 26 October. The venue, Marnhull Village Hall, is much more intimate and as of an hour ago there were about twenty tickets still available. See you there? 

2011 in Music - Albums - Part 1

No real change in presentation here from last year; two lists of albums strictly in order alphabetical by artist. The difference is that this year I'm going to publish the lists first and, only when you have had a week to consider (and comment - see below), shall I add the links and my thoughts on why they are included and, perhaps, others are not.
In no way is this intended to be a balanced list, far from it in fact: It is quite utterly biased to what has caught my attention in a lasting way in 2011.

• Adele - 21
• Amy LaVere - Stranger Me
• Austra - Feel It Break
• Bella Hardy - Songs Lost and Stolen
• Emily Barker - Almanac
• Esben and The Witch - Violet Cries
• Jessica Lea Mayfield - Tell Me
• Lanterns On The Lake - Gracious Tide, Take Me Home
• Seapony - Go With Me
• Thea Gilmore - John Wesley Harding
• Widowspeak - Widowspeak
• Yuck - Yuck

Please feel free to add comments, queries, suggestions or questions. It is what this is all about, whether negative, positive or simply mystified!  All comments are moderated (by me alone, so you know that I read them) and while I prefer it that you can put your real identity to your piece, because you should believe in what you are saying and be prepared to stand up and be counted, I will sometimes sanction the publishing of "anonymous" comments. Comments that are defamatory, offensive or simply irrelevant in content or context will not be published regardless of source.
I'll attempt to answer valid questions and comments either in comments of my own in reply or in a more general 'round-up' post.

New Music 2011 - Part 7 - Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo

OK, I was planning on doing more on new music this weekend.  It would certainly have been tomorrow, rather than just now, were it not for this.  In all probability you have already heard at least a snippet or two of the work of this artist even if you were quite unaware of it...

It is released (in the UK) on February 7, 2011 and Almanac is their third album.

This is the track list for Almanac:

• Billowing Sea
• Reckless
• Ropes (which was in the live set at EOTR 2009)
• Little Deaths (also in the live set at EOTR 2009)
• Dancers
• Pause
• Openings
• Calendar
• Light
• Witch of Pittenween
• Bones

Further posts on New Music 2011:
Part 1  ---  Esben and The Witch

Part 2  ---  Yuck

Part 3  ---  Duke Spirit

Part 4  ---  Low Anthem
Part 5  ---  Go!Team

Part 6  ---  Rhosyn
Part 8  ---  Those Dancing Days
Part 9  ---  Some things I am looking forward to.
Part 10  ---  More things I am looking forward to.
Part 11  ---  New Heads On Old Shoulders?
Part 12  ---  Snowglobe - Jesca Hoop
Part 13  ---  Queen of the Minor Key

Fields of June - lyrics

I detect a theme this week and if the prominence of lyrics of tracks by Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo is surprising you - the requests for them are certainly surprising me - then please, please try and track down the two albums. This track, Fields of June, is from the earlier of the two and that is Photos, Fires, Fables. It is unusually a call-response duet; the male vocals are provided by Steven Adams of The Broken Family Band while Emily sings the female ones and also plays banjo.

Fields of June

The sky is grey now not blue, she doesn't love me like she used to
there's a cold wind blowing in these trees along the track
She doesn't love me love me like she used to.

Today I told my darling in the fields of June
that I do not love him like I used to
Well the wind began to blow and the sky turned from blue
when I told him that I do not love him like I used to.

Chorus 1:
I burnt my hands trying for our love
and I broke my nails too
so now do not accuse me of going back on our vow
I'm gonna bury you in the fields of June.

How the hell did it ever come to this? How does she not love me like before?
I'm lonely and I'm sorry and I don't know what to do since she told me
that she doesn't love me used like she used to.

Well baby I have reasons that you never listen to as to why
I do not love you like before
And you might be sorry and not know what to do but don't
bother me for I do not love you like I used to.

Chorus 2:
But I broke my hands trying for our love
and if you go I'll split in two
so don't you leave me now and don't go back on our vow
and don't you bury me in these fields of June.

Chorus 2: (repeat)

This Is How It Its Meant To Be - lyrics

Nostalgia - lyrics

Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo, live at EOTR 2009

There's a blackbird singing. It's the coming of the spring.

Oh lyrics, oh lyrics!
It is always interesting when someone pitches a question about lyrics and this has been some week for that! Of course this is none more welcome than when they are by an artist or act that I really believe should be better known - in this case Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo.

Blackbird

There's a blackbird singing from a winter tree and his tune is soft and
haunting, it's the coming of the spring
All the leaves are being restored and the vagaries getting bored
there are new dreams on the way.

There's a road that I walked down just the other day
and it forbid me turning around, I admit I lost my way
and then I heard you like a whisper, telling me to keep on straight.
that mistakes are like like dirt and in time they'll wipe away.

There's a clock and many seas that come between you and me
but the hours are weak and the water isn't deep.

There was an arguing ensuing and I was in the wrong
there were words being thrown like bullets from a gun.
And then into the equation shone the light of your good self
everything was redeemed, you put that fight on the shelf.
And now those valley stars shine like a jury up above
and when I don't know where I'm at, at least I know

where I'm from...

[Chorus]
I need you to love me
And help me when I'm losing
And in return I will love you
and help when you don't win.


There's a leaf that is skirting across the pavement grey
you're the soul beneath my shoe and you ride the words I say
and when the blackbird sings he reminds me from his tree
that we always gain more than we lose though at times
it seems the other way.

There's a clock and many seas that come between you and me
but the hours are weak and the water isn't deep.

[Chorus]

If you have any doubt about just how good this is then try and catch them live.

Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo live at End The Road Festival 2009.

If it comes to casting a vote for those that deserve to be given a chance on the greater stage then I'm not unwilling to nail my flag to a tree. Music certainly is not politics but at their best, in their ability to unite or divide, they aren't that different either.

This Is How It Its Meant To Be - lyrics

Nostalgia - lyrics

Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo, live at EOTR 2009

Fields of June - Emily Barker - lyrics

This Is How It's Meant To Be - lyrics

Thanks once again to whosoever asked and here are the lyrics to the first track on this album.

This Is How It's Meant To Be

He only sees shadows behind shadows and he's been like this a while

for he keeps forgetting every shadow needs light to survive.

He has been lost and I followed like any good friend

and I carried him as far as I could but when I let go he just turned back.

Chorus:
This is how it's meant to be, apparently this is for a reason
This is how it's meant to be, but we can't seem to find a reason.

He is the victim and culprit of his own crime
And I tried to be a mirror so that he may realise
I've been breathing for the two of us and now I am so tired
my patience has fallen hard for he's not even trying.

This is how it's meant to be, apparently this is for a reason
This is how it's meant to be, but we can't seem to find a reason.

This is how it's meant to be, apparently this is for a reason
This is how it's meant to be, but we can't seem to find a reason.

It is a cracking album, just as worthy of you attention as 'Despite The Snow', and she played the second track on it 'Blackbird' in her set at 'End Of The Road 2009'. One of my personal favourites is the call - response duet 'Fields of June' (track 6). How easy it now is to come by is another matter: I got my CD from Rough Trade, London in September 2009 and although they do not seem to have it in stock as of today they may well be able to provide a helpful suggestion.

Other posts about this artist:

Nostalgia - Emily Barker (lyric)

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-is-new-what-is-not.html

Oh! Memories from, and thoughts of, festivals...


Note added October 31, 2010:
This album/tracks on it are now available from amazon.co.uk on download. The CD is also available again.

Nostalgia - Emily Barker

To whoever asked, I like lyrics and so thank you for asking. This is the best I can do.

Nostalgia

Tram wires cross Melbourne skies
Cut my red heart in two
My knuckles bleed down Johnston Street
On a door that shouldn't be in front of me.

Twelve thousand miles away from your smile
I'm twelve thousand miles away from me.
Standing on the corner of Brunswick
Got the rain coming down and mascara on my cheek.

Oh whisper me words in the shape of a bay
Shelter my love from the wind and the rain.

Crow fly, be my alibi
And return this fable on your wing.
Take it far away to where gypsies play
Beneath metal stars by the bridge.

Oh write me a beacon so I know the way
Guide my love through night and through day.

Only the sunset knows my blind desire for the fleeting
Only the moon understands the beauty of love
When held by a hand like the aura of nostalgia.

Link to earlier posts on this artist:
http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-is-new-what-is-not.html

What is new, what is not?

This is an interesting question right now... I'm thinking about all the new music I have heard - live, recorded and in some cases both - in 2009. That has also made me think more about the music, regardless of release date, that I have listened to most frequently in the last two months.

Much of it falls into both categories and a yet a considerable proportion does not. More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that even when it does I have never explicitly mentioned it. 'The Local', at EOTR 2009, might not be the most prepossessing tented venue in festival land but, for everything it lacks in that regard is more than made up in other ways. It is not particularly well appointed...

...and, if you are playing, you need to fix it for yourselves. It was also home to many artists that you simply don't yet know, but needed to see and hear, and this is is one of them.

Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo, live at EOTR 2009 and...

...this is the set-list for it.

These tracks come from two albums: Photos, Fires, Fables (2007) and Despite The Snow (2009), both of which I bought after seeing this live performance, and have played countless times since. An act that employs piano accordion always stands a good chance of getting my attention and, as my luck would have it, this was just one of several that I have seen this year. Yesterday someone ended up here searching for "unusual musical instruments", a category that is in some ways in the ear of the beholder. I have seen a few played live this year, including bassoon, auto-harp, stylophone, several xylophones and also a few toy instuments too...

Related links:

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2010/01/this-is-how-its-meant-to-be-lyrics.html

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/12/nostalgia-emily-barker.html

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2010/05/theres-blackbird-singing-it-is-coming.html