Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing...

'The more you have the more you look' is not quite the oxymoron that it might appear to be. Inquisition and acquisition, or at least the desire to do so, are little more than two sides of the same coin.
I mentioned Snowbird, Sleepless Night and Stephanie Dosen yesterday evening and I have just listened to Marissa Nadler - Little Hells (an album that only gets better on repeated listening) so, just now, this is another addition to my 'wants list' even though I was totally unaware of the artist or album this time yesterday evening...

..and not one particularly well known in the UK just now, I contend.

Will I like it?
I don't know, so I can't tell you as I've heard none of this album, or the artist for that matter, but I think so. That has to be the way of things, at least much of the time, because otherwise one would never buy, perhaps even hear and pay attention to, much that is new beyond the usual boundaries of radio or mainstream reviews.
I'll know whether my confidence is well placed, or indeed was not, in a fortnight or so when it arrives from the US. I could have had it slightly quicker and more cheaply had I gone for the CD option but since it was marginal and she is a UK artist why not, if for no reason other than to be contrary and because I like the format, have the original US vinyl release?

Unholy Majesty

Continuing with the subject of Bristol-based acts another, and again one given to collaborations (notably including Jeremy Smoking Jacket, with SJ Esau), Rose Kemp follows up her 2007 album A Hand Full of Hurricanes with Unholy Majesty that is released, again by One Little Indian Records, on September 1, 2008.

Never one to stick with convention and - for older readers she is the daughter of Rick Kemp and Maddie Prior of Steeleye Span - this is unlikely to be an album that will find universal favour but could well be all the better for it. After her 2003 début Glance she laid her acoustic guitar aside in favour of one electric and, on this album, takes the progression well beyond that already evident on A Hand Full Of Hurricanes. There are folk influences on it, occasionally, but there are certainly plenty of others too; if you can handle hints of folk combined with hard and heavy riffs and experimental rock themes this is probably for you and me. She is touring the UK, mostly with the band, in September.
It is wise to remember that this label, while it is not perhaps a household name, is certainly no stranger to someone who is. If there is a unconventional chanteuse, vicariously known to millions not only for her musical boundary-pushing, that is surely 'One Little Indian' recording artist Björk!

You have been warned.

A Hand Full of Hurricanes...

Plangent is a word I didn't expect to use in a review, or indeed elsewhere, any time soon but this album delivers as good a working definition of it as any dictionary could provide.

• Loud and resounding.
• Expressing, or suggesting, sadness; plaintive.

The two meanings may seem contradictory but, at least on this recording, they are not; the ambiguity of the lyric does however often make up for this.

"Terror is a great way to enforce your rules and we've lost control"

This is possibly as directly threatening as the lyrics get but the inspirations and implications clearly run far deeper and darker than that. It is also remarkable for the cunning use of her own vocals and instruments, used on a loop pedal (on Tiny Flower for example), combined with real, but almost always electric, guitar and vocals.

• 'A Hand Full of Hurricanes', the full début album by Rose Kemp, is released by One Little Indian on 5th February 2007.

In late 2006 it was preceded by a single, Violence, taken from the album and c/w non-album track Fire In The Garden, which was only available on 7" format (500 copies, all pressed on red vinyl).

While the music is quite different, when it comes to performance it may come as no particular surprise to learn that Rose Kemp is the daughter of Maddy Prior and Rik Kemp both of whom were members of the legendary Steeleye Span.