New Music 2016 - Part 7 - Aurora - All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend

Well, now that I'm thinking about festivals in 2016, this memory from Green Man 2015 is worth all the rain and more.
I wandered away from the Mountain stage during a lull in proceedings and took this image of folk making the best of a soggy day whilst on my way...

When you see something live, that you are previously at best only slightly aware of, and it wildly exceeds all expectations you don't need to do anything except be there; you can't do anything about it because it just happens. This was one such occasion for me.

Aurora, Walled Garden stage, Green Man Festival, 23 August 2015.

Running With The Wolves EP started the ball rolling and the title track is on the forthcoming LP. Aurora Aksnes is quite something to behold live.

All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend (Decca-UMO, 11 March 2016).

She is also good for a cover song from time to time, and I'm not talking Oasis and the John Lewis Christmas 2015 one here, although that certainly garnered much publicity and attention for her. This, although she could not have known it at the time of performance in June 2015, is now far more topical. It is not much short of acapella.

Is There Life on Mars?

New Music 2015 - Part 78 - Aurora Aksnes - Running With The Wolves EP

This seems to have been one of the biggest 'stories' in a whole slew of UK newspapers for a couple of days. Yes, I am going to comment on it.
Whatever you think about pre-Christmas hubbub or the much-commented-upon John Lewis Christmas TV advertisement that isn't an issue for me. John Lewis Partnership, a UK chain of department stores, has a history of choosing an artist to cover a well known hit song as a sound-line to their annual campaign. The song and the artist chosen are often surprising juxtapositions. In 2012 it was Gabrielle Aplin covering Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the track 'The Power Of Love'.

That the press seems to think that the singer Aurora Aksnes, chosen to cover Oasis' 'Half The World Away' on it, is unknown is quite the issue for me. Where have all you supposed music sleuths been?

She released the 'Running With The Wolves EP' in May this year (Decca, Universal Music Group --- so hardly an underground release) and she certainly hasn't spent the time since then hiding in a cave somewhere in her native Norway.

Aurora, Walled Garden Stage, Green Man Festival, Sunday 23 August 2015.

I guess you just had to be there to realise that something beyond the usual was going on. Always keep your eyes and ears open, and not just for the music alone...
Don't worry about Oasis (they'll love hating the cover and blaming each other all over again), or indeed this saccharine version designed to serve a single purpose. I don't blame Aurora for taking this opportunity to gain exposure without having to allow any of her own music to be compromised by its use in the advertisement.
Her brand of Scandinavian electro-pop might have been a bit too dark for the target market anyway...  This is the title track.

Unless that is you fancy spending Christmas dancing in a deserted quarry backed by a mysterious metropolis.

The four-track EP is far better than the song covered. Aurora's début LP is due for release in early Spring 2016.

Dyn Gwyrdd 2015 - Green Man - Part 4 - amrywiaeth

Amrywiaeth. What's that all about?
Well this post is about a lot of things that haven't made it into the previous three posts on Green Man 2015, so what to call it was a mystery. Welsh has this one word that encompasses several English ones - such as miscellany, variation, variety, assortment - and is more appropriate in this instance than any one of them. That is my excuse.
The tented Far Out stage is large and, whilst I didn't spent as much time there this year as last, I have mentioned it hardly at all since seeing Gwenno play it on Thursday afternoon. First support Sunday evening was an Australian artist rapidly establishing herself as one of the break-out acts of 2015, following the release of her first full LP 'Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit'.

Courtney Barnett. Far Out Stage,  Green Man 2015, 23 August.

She is not the most forthcoming of artists on stage, however, tending to lurk in the shadows towards the edge and there were many such in the Far Out tent. The performance was simply breathtaking -  verging on the confessional.

In keeping with my oft-stated policy of favouring the smaller stages and the opening acts on any stage here is the smallest stage - Green Man Rising - and the opening act of the Festival on it, Seren the Heron.

A Crickhowell native, she has just released her début album Scrambled Mess. Give it a listen. Here and now.

One thing about the Green Man Rising stage is that as well as having a lovely setting overlooking a pond and a with couple of wasp nests for some excitement, it has a fantastic view across the arena of the neighbouring Mountain stage.

Here on the Green Man Rising Stage, and when I found a wasp nest for myself, Saturday lunch-time...

London three-piece Girl Ray.

It is impossible to sum up a three day festival in four posts and with twenty-something pictures, however much one might wish to try. The truth is, really, you just have to be there. Some things are so unpredictable that they can only ever be memories and this could very easily have been just another one of them.

St. Vincent, headlining The Mountain stage on Sunday evening. 

Green Man - Dyn Gwyrdd 2015 - Part 3 - The Mountain Stage

The Mountain Stage, the main one at Green Man Festival, has a strong claim to being as perfectly situated as any at a UK festival. When The Garden Stage was the main one at End Of The Road Festival, before the addition of The Woods Stage in 2012, then that was probably the one but the Mountain Stage is far bigger and its situation in an amphitheatre, the result of a long vanished country house garden and with views of the mountains (weather permitting) as a backdrop seals it. 
On early Sunday evening, with a low sun illuminating the stage, it was pretty amazing.

Jessica Staveley-Taylor of The Staves, Mountain Stage, Sunday evening.

The sun was an even rarer commodity on Saturday but during the couple of hours when it graced us with its presence one of the beneficiaries was the awesome Marika Hackman performing completely solo.

Without any doubt this set was one of the highlights of the weekend.

Indeed, Saturday afternoon on the mountain stage was on good form generally. She was followed by the always heart-warming, and every-time-better-than-the last The Leisure Society.

While, despite the release of five LPs, still not really well known in the UK Australian Darren Hanlon deserves to be more so. This was the first time I had seen him play live and it was time well spent. Songs based on observations of detail and a very special way with words.

A bonus of going to multiple festivals is that, when they share the same acts it is possible to ameliorate the situation as regards clashes somewhat. Natalie Prass, from Richmond VA, also appears this coming weekend at End Of The Road 2015.

 The other possibility, and it happened to me a couple of times last summer, is that one simply decides to see them twice!

New Music 2015 - Part 27 - Waxahatchee - Ivy Tripp

This artist, and her new album 'Ivy Tripp', handily combines the themes of artists from across the Atlantic and those that I'm looking forward to seeing live at a festival in 2015.
Waxahatchee is the project of Katie Crutchfield, originally from from Birmingham, AL and this is the latest LP. It is already released in the UK/EU/RoW by Wichita Recordings. In North America it is released by Merge Records. This, taken from it, is 'Under A Rock' and there is a whole lot more than this one song to be gained from this LP. I'm set on the idea that the tracks released as "singles" may not be those which are most important live - that is hardly a revelation but it is an important consideration nevertheless. I'm not even convinced that this is one of my favourites in any case, which is far more a recommendation than at first it might seem.

She plays Green Man Festival 2015 and that is where I intend to see her play live; something that I have not experienced before.
There is a video to this song too, as has now come to my attention.