Happy New Year 2009

What is happy about 2009, you might ask? Well you have three options:

• I'm an optimist
• I'm resorting to escapism
• I'm doing both

Well, in my first post of last year I didn't include 'happy' and look what happened in the world in 2008. Not all of it was bad of course but I'd rather be one looking forward in anticipation than that dwelling on what happened (or didn't) and fortunately music lends itself to this approach.

This is thus my thoughts on 'New Music - Part 1' What to look forward to in 2009. I have just pre-ordered my first 2009 release and it is the curiously titled début album by a band I mentioned last summer, having seen them live at Latitude 2008, and that is The Joy Formidable.

A Balloon Called Moaning - The Joy Formidable
UK release: 9th February 2009

This is the first 2009 album that I have ordered so far and I rather hope that it will be just the first of many. That looks likely because 'Two Suns', Bat For Lashes' second album, is set for an early April 2009 release, which will then be followed by a short UK tour. Music in 2009 will provide endless surprises and even the main reviewers know that, sometimes.
Pop, and curious fantasy, will be prominent again - Victoria Hesketh who (after many band-related trials and tribulations) seems to be the main stream reviewers' favourite in her true-self incarnation 'Little Boots'; likewise I've already mentioned Florence Welch (and The Machine) and that could be pretty scary until you add the apparently cute, but often lyrically shocking, SoKo (newly a singer and songwriter but long an all-round performance-artist, Stephanie Sokolinski) to the list whereupon 2009 starts to look decidedly special and that is that is just for starters! [See here for a recent review of her performing live and here for my review of her set at Latitude 2008.]
I will mention Phantom Limb again. I want to remind you about the album and point out that they are performing live at The Griffin in Frome, where they are already something of a phenomenon, on Friday 16th January 2008. If things go the way they should then in six months time that will no longer be possible! Then again it is a little luxury to live within walking distance of a pub that brews its own beers and has its own MySpace page!

Coming Soon - new music 2008 (Part 5)

Autumn is always a time for new releases by established artists and in 2008 Safe Journey Home (released 3 November 2008 in the UK), the third album from Dido and the first since Life For Rent in 2003, is an obvious one to mention. I'll readily admit that two albums, and over twenty million sales of them, have not made me any less curious about this new one.

So it is about the second album by Jem, Down To Earth released in the US on 16 September, and which I'm told that it is jaw-droppingly good. I sincerely hope so too but I am, as yet, unfortunately unable to comment definitively.

The strangest thing is that it is not necessary to orbit the planet to find things musically wonderful - and I may well be mad but it is nothing new - because France will do nicely instead!

Yes, there are a lot of them in New Grids. Yes, 'Coming Soon' doesn't sound French, but it is certainly not British for that matter, but it is nevertheless their début album and yet the word genre is one quite lost on their music. They are all French too - just how good is that?

Sticking with things French, Soko (Stephanie Sokolinski) is currently in Seattle putting the finishing touches to her début album, which should be released in early 2009, at Bear Creek studio. I'd want to hear this album anyway but, having already seen her perform live, it is simply a must-have.

Soko live at Latitude in July 2008.

Latitude and the french connection...

I have previous convictions for blogging French music and French artists and, should I decide to do so, I could quite happily spend the rest of this weekend listening to nothing else. It is, in fact, very tempting given that I'm already listening to Gourmandises - Alizée.

The tenuous Latitude 2008 connection is Parisian singer/songwriter SoKo, aka Stephanie Sokolinski, live on Saturday afternoon attempting, but failing ever so slightly...

...to behave as if she were a normal human being!

This was another wonderful set on the Sunset Stage, nestled in the woods and lending itself to photography, which will forever in my mind be associated with acts that are strange in all the best possible ways.

If more evidence were required, to prove that normality and SoKo simply do not occur together in the same place, here it is:

The 'kittens' were borrowed ad hoc from the audience and if proof that French pop can be stunning, as well as not merely taking itself too seriously, was needed then this was certainly silliness of the highest order but it was also very funny indeed!

SoKo is just perfectly unhinged and quite brilliant!

To read a review of a more recent live performance go here:
http://www.bobbysix.com/2009/01/soko-oxford-art-factory.html