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 21 - Paradisia - Sound of Freedom

I often go on about how important I believe it is to see support bands at gigs, and at festivals as many as possible of the bands on small stages and in opening slots on larger ones. As the festival season is now tangibly close and the list of new releases grows ever longer, here as an excellent example of how this pans out.

Last August I was at Green Man festival in mid-Wales. The smallest of the dedicated music stages is the 'Rising stage' and it hosts new acts. These are for the most part chosen from the entries in a competition over the previous months, the winner of which gets to open the 'Mountain stage', the main one, on Saturday. Several acts there caught my attention and London-based three-piece Paradisia was one of them. Its core is the trio of Kristy Buglass (vocals, keyboard), Sophie-Rose Harper (vocals) and Anna Pesquidous (harp).

Paradisia, Rising stage, Green Man Festival. 21 August 2016.

This was the very first time that I was even aware that the band existed. First impressions matter and what I remember thinking was just how good their own songs were, even against the fact that they also covered Springsteen's 'Dancing in the Dark', unlikely although that might seem given their palette of instruments, impressively. That inevitably brings us to this; my next thought at the time.
"What would this sound like on record?" Yesterday I got to find out.

Paradisia - Sound of Freedom (self-released, 26 May 2017 LP, CD, digital)

It was clear from listening to the short live set that they had listened to a great deal of 1970's music and been honing the influences appropriate to what they wished to achieve. This album is just wonderful.  If I had to shorten it by one song then the one to go would be 'Dancing In The Dark'. I have listened start-to-finish several times now and current highlights, although I am really rather reluctant to pick any, are 'Warpaint' and 'Silent Lover'. The title of the LP comes from a lyric in the latter song.
I'm as certain as it is possible to be that is an album that I shall be coming back to time and time again and experience suggests that this isn't something that happens all that often.