The Procession - New Music 2012 - Part 24

Much of the new music that I have mentioned, and indeed purchased, of late has been driven by artists that I have seen over this summer's festivals. These two solo albums, both by artists whom you may know from their 'band' guise, were released in August. I saw neither live this summer.
Tamara Schlesinger, also of '6 Day Riot', released her second solo album and the follow-up to 2004's rather wonderful (but currently hard to source) From Home To Home. Her new LP is The Procession, released on Tantrum Records as TANTRUMCD008.

It is made up of many layers of her vocals recorded acapella with the subsequent addition of strings and some judicious electric guitar and percussion. The playlist is as follows:

The Procession - Tamara Schlesinger

1. Yai Yai
2. I Go
3. Can You See Me?
4. So Long
5. My Future
6. Get Down
7. Find a Way
8. My Home
9. Again
11. Who's Won?

The next is this is from over in Canada and the début solo album from 'Po' Girl' member Awna Teixeira.

It may well come as no surprise, if you know my likes in music, that both LPs cover a fair range of subject matter and far from all of it is cheerful but then neither is it overly depressing; it comes with a healthy dose of optimism and redemption inbuilt. This one is released by Hazy Tales Music.

Where The Darkness Goes - Awna Teixeira

1. Stand Tall 4:53
2. Minha Querida 4:09
3. Where the Darkness Goes 4:44
4. Some Kind of Dream 3:49
5. Faden 5:17
6. Prince of the Park 4:06
7. Rest Your Mind 4:36
8. Stargazer 3:44
9. The Little Review 4:57
10. Little Piggy 4:16
11. Blooming Bounty 3:12

I recommend these particularly if you are finding the current mainstream (radio, etc.) content lacking something new. It takes a little time and ingenuity, but almost no money, to legally discover more new music than you ever knew you didn't know about. The artists will be delighted for the publicity too, should you like what you hear and see fit to tell others about your finds.

The Green Fields of Canada...

I still wonder how they do it...

The track that is the title of this post is actually a traditional song - I have two recorded versions of it and neither are by Canadians. They are from the following albums both of which I can recommend, particularly for their original content.

• Cold Blow And The Rainy Night - Planxty (1974) (12" vinyl LP - Polydor Super 2383 301)
  
• A Lily For The Spectre - Stephanie Dosen (2007) (CD - bellacd137x)

The former is now readily available on CD and mp3 but, surprisingly, also as a 1990 vinyl re-issue that is available at about £15 / € 18 / $25. The latter I saw live at Latitude 2007 and if you think she sounds good recorded let me tell you that live she really is something else.

That is something that the three new releases, which follow this reflection, also promise in abundance.

I digress however, for what I have to mention are new releases by three Canadian acts that are in a broadly similar vein. This is in part More New Music I Want but, while all three albums are by Canadian artists, I already have one of them.

Po' Girl - Deer In The Night

I have listened to a great deal of roots/modern folk in the last eighteen months and it is not the nature of the genre to be groundbreaking, in part by definition, but this blew me away the first time I listened to it and on repeated listening it has got even better. I haven't come to any conclusions about favourite tracks yet...

[well kinda - all of them really]

A trio now (R - L), Allison Russell and Awna Teixeira write most of the songs while Benny Sidelinger not only plays guitars and such (as do the aforementioned) but also builds the ones that they play!

I have mentioned this artist before and in fact none of these are début albums so there is an albeit short back catalogue to consider too! I'll continue with this as her début solo album, Honey From The Tombs, was the subject of a very early post on this site and I still play it often so it was a clearly a good choice. This is the second solo album from (Stars and Broken Social Scene regular) Amy Millan. It is due to be released by Arts & Crafts on vinyl, CD and download on September 8.

Amy Millan - Masters of the Burial

Note added 13 July 2009:
A Canadian tour to go with it was announced today. I wish that we could be so lucky.

And, when there could surely be no more from Canada, back to the artists at the top of this post...

Everyone Is Someone is the third LP from Canadian acoustic-pop duet Dala. Not the easiest item to find in the UK at the moment but amazon.ca have it in stock and will ship to the UK without any problem.