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.

New Music 2015 - Part 70 - Francis Pugh and The Whisky Singers - A Place Back West EP

The Oxford music scene is vibrant and nowhere more so than in the inter-related genres of folk, roots, bluegrass, and thus also the behemoth that is Americana. It is not so long since I mentioned Great Western Tears in that regard. This is another and the two are commonly found as part of the pop-up live performances known as Oxford Roots Rambles.
Francis Pugh and The Whiskey Singers is a six-piece and the latest Roots Ramblin' event that took place yesterday evening also served to launch their EP 'A Place Back West'.

In the original tradition of EPs it has just three tracks - two originals and a cover in this case. These are they:

• A Place Back West
• I Saw The Light (Hank Williams)
• You Can't Fix A Heart That's Been Broken

For all the downbeat lyricism of the first and last tracks the theme and the joyous music, including the combination of banjo and brass playing together, results in an effect that is entirely one of positivity in quest for the fabled 'sunlit uplands'. The other vital component is not only do these songs and the stories fully hold their places they are actually enhanced by the choice of the song that separates them.
The inclusion of Hank Williams 1947-composed 'I Saw The Light' is interesting not only for its range of interpretation and the virtuosity of the playing displayed within it by the band, but also for its history.

It became, mostly through covers rather than Williams' own performance, a gospel-country standard and probably his best-recognised creation. In actual fact it was written about a comment that his mother made while driving the band back from a gig. 'The Light' in question was that emanating from Dannelly Field airport and it signalled that they were approaching their home town of Montgomery, AL.

God moves in mysterious ways.

New Music 2014 - Part 15 - Candy Says - Not Kings

Candy Says is the band that opened proceedings at Truck Festival 2013. Regular readers will already know the importance that I attach to seeing support acts and, in particular, festival openers. Here is Candy Says at Truck Festival last July:

Ten months down the line the début album 'Not Kings' is ready for release and, for lovers of pop-chic, here is a selection from it:

'Not Kings' is released on 28 May 2014 and is available in almost any format you could desire, including both vinyl and limited edition cassette tape. 

More from Truck Festival 2013 - Part 1

After a week of cogitation my thoughts about Truck Festival 2013 have started to gel somewhat. Finding myself in The Wheatsheaf, Oxford on Friday evening and listening to one of the acts that I saw at Truck, Swindlestock, helped to further refine that thought process.
Whilst I always try and ensure that I see the support act(s) at a concert I hold even more store in the idea that some of the best discoveries are to be made by catching the opening acts on festival stages. It doesn't matter, in fact it is more revealing, if one has not even heard of the act or artist, let alone in what style they perform!

The band to open Truck Festival 2013, on the Market Stage at noon on Friday, was Candy Says. They describce their music as lo-fi chic pop and I wouldn't argue with that. It reminded me at first of a slightly less numerous ¿Los Campesinos?, which having seen the latter at Deer Shed Festival last summer is certainly no bad thing. The lo-fi ethic extends to their liking for Farfisa electronic organs, releasing their music, physically at least, only on cassette tape and making videos on a Spectrum 64 . Here they are, live at Truck 2013.

Now, as a lover of vinyl, I can't complain of their choice of cassette except to say that, unlike the former, I currently have no reliable means of playing such things! They can be found and streamed/purchased on-line: Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Amazing Tunes and elsewhere.



For my money the song 'Kiss Kill' sums up what they do very well indeed. It certainly served to get the festival off to a fine start as far as I was concerned. First impressions matter; I think part of my enduring love for End of The Road Festival was that the first band I ever saw there, back in 2009, was Canada's Ohbijou, of which I was completely unaware until the moment they appeared on stage.
  
Opening the main stage on Saturday at 12:30 pm was another artist about whom I have to admit I knew very little - Candice Gordon. Here she is performing 'Before The Sunset Ends' last weekend.

This is the title track from her début EP, which was recorded with Pogues front-man Shane MacGowan.
It is of course impossible for one person to see the opening act on every stage at a festival with multiple stages but here is another one that opened the Market Stage at midday on Saturday. Oxford-based six-piece Marvellous Medicine.

Two of the tented stages at Truck were interestingly coloured. This is the Market Stage, the larger of the two, and gives some impression of the ambience that the venue creates. One slightly unusual aspect of reggae and rap infused Marvellous Medicine is that its sole female member is the band's regular drummer. That is except for one song in this set when she handed the sticks to the bassist/rapper Rob Yates and Holly Manners took over lead vocals instead.

New Music 2013 - Part 9 - Rhosyn - Elbow of Capture

Rhosyn, the stage name taken by Rose Dagul, was one of several acts from around the Oxford area to which I was introduced by the organisers of Truck Festival 2011 and Oxford-based collective Blessing Force. Since then I have been keeping my ears open for more. Here, I'm delighted to say is the first Rhosyn EP 'Elbow of Capture' inspired by writing and recording sessions that took place in a remote cottage at Rhoscolyn on the coast of Anglesey last year.
In its string arrangements you can almost detect the winds and the waves in a landscape where things change only through the forces of nature. It is music for moments of reflection.  It is released on the usual formats. It is also available, to the extent of 250 numbered copies, on translucent 12" 33 rpm vinyl.

The 5-track vinyl EP also comes with a code for a free download.
  

Elbow of Capture - Rhosyn

• A1 - Glass
• A2 - Birds
• A3 - Volcano
• B1 - Euridyce
• B2 - Since The Air Became Frantic

You can listen to the track 'Glass' here:

Acoustic @ Truck 2011

Truck is certainly not a folk festival, indeed it doesn't pretend to try to be one, but given the contents of this post you could be forgiven for wondering. This is not a complete list by any means, rather just some of the acoustic artists that I saw.  It did however give rise to much discussion about the minefield that is musical sub-genre when discussing such things - be they new folk, Anglicana, or some other name you choose.  Whatever else they share (or don't) one common thread in such songs and many traditional ones is a sense of place and belonging be that from the perspective of being there or, for whatever reason, of not being (able to be) there.  Is is nicely summed up in a line from a song performed by this first artist. I think that it also sums up the spirit of a good festival too.
    

"With your sense of dislocation you make the perfect travelling companion."
  

Roddy Woomble - Main Stage - Saturday afternoon.

Most of the set naturally comprised his recent solo material but the above lyric is from the Idlewild song 'Take Me Back To The Islands'.  He and his family now live on Mull.

  

Other inveterate wanderers featured in the line up. Duo Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou are as likely to be found touring by canal boat or camper van than the more modern means of so-called luxury transport.

The Clash Stage was curated by label Heavenly Records on the Saturday (of which phenomenon more later) and they were appearing on that bill.
On Sunday the same stage was host to a selection of artists chosen by Bella Union Records, a label that I have mentioned many times in posts before, and this is one recent addition to their family of artists.
  

Alessi's Ark - Clash Stage - Sunday afternoon.
  

Please don't just take my word for it:

"(She) played with a delicacy — and a casualness — that would simply be impossible anywhere else here (at SXSW)."  

New York Times
  

This fall she is returning to the US as main support artist for Laura Marling's headline tour.  

All in all four stages were involved in this and here is an artist that has been on my want-to-see list for some time. On Saturday the Last FM Stage was dedicated to acts that, in one way or another, are part of Oxford's Blessing Force Collective.

 Rhosyn - Last FM Stage - Saturday afternoon.

  

While this next picture is far from the best the same can hardly be said of the assembled line up!

Wood Stage - Saturday evening.

Kris Drever and Heidi Talbot both performed sets that evening in this smallest of venues. This was taken during the latter but, as the assembled cast was much the same, you will have to take my word for that. I'd call this a super-group: L - R: Roddy Woomble (backing vocal), John McCusker (fiddle and, on one song, whistle), Heidi Talbot (vocals) and Kris Drever (guitar and backing vocal).

  

The tendency of folk musicians to combine in new permutations is legendary, and you could start a multi-dimensional tree starting with these alone, but Truck had some collaborative surprises beyond that to come later.

Lastly, and back to the Main Stage where this post started, this set did spawn some of the aforementioned sub-genre discussions and for very good reasons too.

Michele Stodart - Main Stage - Sunday lunchtime.

    

Eclectic and astonishing are two adjectives that I might apply to all of this and yet it was just one facet of what I saw last weekend.

Festivals are, to an extent, what you choose to make of them. I'm fairly convinced that many present paid their ticket price and spent almost the entire time drinking and chatting in the camp site.  Far be it for me to criticize, and not least because it made the stages less crowded, but it is not the route that I choose to travel.