My Music in 2017 - Albums - Part 2

Is it easier to continue something than to start it?
I'm not quite sure where this is heading; hopefully straight to the heart of music that was new and important to me in 2017, or at least in my mind.

• Ags Connolly - Nothin' Unexpected
• Jason Isbell - The Nashville Sound
• Margo Price - All American Made
• Paradisia - Sound Of Freedom
• Scott H Biram - The Bad Testament
• Secret Sisters - You Don't Own Me Anymore
• Slowgold - Drömmar
• Steph Cameron - Daybreak Over Jackson Street
• Vukovi - Vukovi
• Wildwood Kin - Turning Tides

This list is possibly more eclectic than the last. Of the ten four are British, four are from the US and there is one each from Canada and Sweden.

Of the acts/artists I have seen seven of the ten play live at some point in the past. I have seen one of them live five times but not once in 2017! Only one of them have I seen live in 2017 and that was a serendipitous mistake on my part.
Leaving my lair that was The Saloon Bar stage I braved the mud but paddled to the wrong stage at the right time.  I saw this band, a four-piece from Scotland...

Vukovi, The Nest stage, Truck Festival, 21 July 2017.

I'd never heard Vukovi until this happened. A good result I have to say. As for the band that I was intending to see and were playing the Market stage, well that worked out for the best later in the summer in any case. That was 'Goat Girl'.
Vukovi was however far from the only remarkable gig of Truck Festival 2017. Tired now, late on Sunday evening, who could imagine a full band set in the Nest stage with just twelve of us in the audience when it started?

This was the time to forget about Monday morning and how I was going escape from all of this and return to something approaching normality. Sometimes you need to dig deep into the moment.

I think that would be a suitable subject for another post. This idea has got a hold in my mind now.

New Music 2017 - Part 8 - Ags Connolly - Nothin' Unexpected

The second full-length from West Oxfordshire native and resident Ags Connolly has been a while in the making, quite deliberately so it would seem.
The first was 'How About Now' and  it appeared back in 2014. That was around the time that the blossoming of the indigenous UK Americana scene was starting to be noticed as the real change it was, rather than just the preoccupation of die-hard fans and would-be journalists.

Nothin' Unexpected - Ags Connolly (At The Helm Records, 3 February 2017).

The title of this latest is 'Nothin' Unexpected' and might sound almost underwhelming but that is quite deliberate too as the music is no such thing. The point here is that it is not flash or crass in any way at all. It is however very well done indeed - from the ten songs (nine originals and a cover of the Loudon Wainwright III song 'I Suppose'), to the instrumentation that accompanies them and the carefully balanced production values. It ticks boxes.

• I Hope You’re Unhappy
• Do You Realise That Now
• When The Loner Gets Lonely
• Neon Jail
• I Suppose
• Nothin’ Unexpected
• Haunts Like This
• Fifteen Years
• Slow Burner
• I Should’ve Closed The Book

It is certainly often wistful and resolutely stoical, especially about times spent alone and this applies as much to the honky-tonk influenced numbers as to the others; there's both a time and mood for that.  I happen to be listening sat in front of the fire on a dark and wet winter's evening but it would be just as good heard in the early hours around the dying embers of a summer campfire, with the last few burnt BBQ ribs and a beer to go with it.

One thing even better would be to see him play live, preferably in one of the old small-town bars that are mentioned in a couple of songs. Rather like this...

Ags Connolly, Saloon Bar stage, Truck Festival 2015.