New Music 2015 - Part 20 - Mad Dog McRea - Almost Home

At last I get to review a band from Plymouth.  I am going to see  Mad Dog McRea, trailing the latest album 'Almost Home', this coming week. More on that after the event.

It is released on d/l on 15 March and on CD 23 March 2013 in the UK.

It is perhaps appropriate to start with an introduction. Mad Dog Mcrea is a six-piece comprising the following artists:

Michael Mathieson  ---  guitar and lead vocals

Dan Crimp  ---  whistle and flute

Nicki Powell  ---  fiddle

Podmore  ---  bouzouki, banjo

Jimi Galvin  ---  bass

Pete Chart  ---  percussion

With much garnered from the ranks of the folk-punks that have come before, comparisons with the likes of The Pogues, the Levellers and others come all too easily but that they are indeed worthy of such comparisons does not necessarily follow.
The former is certainly no criticism and that they are worthy is certainly not the only thing to admire. What I like as much as the foregoing is that, with the flute and fiddle, one or two of the softer songs made me recall the very best of Jethro Tull.
I don't say that lightly. It may not be a fashionable comparison, to be fair, but it is a complement nevertheless.

Almost Home

• Almost Home
• Talking Through The Walls
• I've Seen Things
• You Can't Find Me
• Cher
• The Sound
• The Devonside
• Heart of Stone
• Whiskey Man
• The Juggler

That is the track list of the album.
Buy. Listen. Enjoy.

New Music 2011 - Part 11 - New heads on old shoulders?

If the title of this post seems strange then it is defiantly so.  I have been listening to much new music recently and imagining those artists that I might wish to appear at festivals this summer; particularly artists perhaps alien to those who merely concern themselves with the headline acts at Glastonbury.  
One place that has often turned up trumps is the 'Lake Stage' at Latitude. It was revitalised last year, after a poor 2009, and if Huw Stephens is again curating the future is bright.  One of the many highlights last year was Clare Maguire, whose début album 'Light After Dark' is released in the UK tomorrow.  In the wake of the recent 2011 BRIT Awards, and the success of alumna Adele Adkins who today managed the feat of having her two LPs at #1 and #2 in the UK album chart while simultaneously having the #1 and #4 single...
  

  

And, as if I needed to mention it, this is another from that stable who is about to hit the airwaves - and again is a female singer songwriter.  Known as Spark, real name Jessica Sparkle Morgan, she has a big voice - think Marina Diamandis and a lot of Americana that you should have heard but maybe haven't - combined with a strange pastoral electronic sensitivity and perhaps I'm getting close...
  
She has just been signed to 679 Recordings, also the home of Marina and The Diamonds and Little Boots, and the connection there is perhaps not too obscure. The pastoral bit is perhaps a little more so until, and the title of the post hints at this, most of  her early work that is available on-line is produced by Peter-John Vettese. Whilst he is an electronic keyboard maestro and talented producer it is notable here that thirty years ago he joined Jethro Tull and bought his distinctive keyboard influence to the 1982 album 'Broadsword and The Beast'.  It was a collaboration that would last almost a decade and, in the here and now, one that is echoing strongly.
The most obvious adjective for this phenomenon, if one rarely used and thus I shall do so with abandon, is Euterpean.
  
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 7  ---  Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo

Part 8  ---  Those Dancing Days

Part 9  ---  Some things I am looking forward to.

Part 10  ---  More things I am looking forward to.

Part 12  ---  Snowglobe - Jesca Hoop

Part 13  ---  Queen of the Minor Key