New Music 2017 - Part 26 - Mary Epworth - Elytral

I shall soon turn my comments to that which I saw and heard at Green Man Festival last weekend. On Thursday evening I had one of those experiences where knowing next to nothing about an artist proves to be a blessing; being blind-sided like that is cathartic.
I shall reveal the artist in question in due course. About twenty minutes into the set it occurred to me that it was a similar situation to something that happened at Truck Festival 2014. In that case the artist concerned was Mary Epworth and, upon returning from that weekend one of the first things that I did was to order her début album 'Dream Life' (2012) and on vinyl for good measure. The good news, and the reason for this preamble is that her second LP is released very soon and the track list is below.

Mary Epworth - Elytral (Sunday Best Recordings, 1 September 2017).

Mary Epworth - Elytral:

• Gone Rogue
• Last Night
• Me Swimming
• Watching the Sun Go Down
• One Big Wave
• Bring Me the Fever
• Burned It Down
• Towards the Dawn
• Lost Everything
• Surprise Yourself

Summer music this is not. As autumn comes and the nights grow longer the muscular power and discordant aspects of it will seem appropriate I suggest. It would make for an interesting listen around a camp-fire should we enjoy the luxury of an Indian Summer.

Kitty, Daisy and Lewis - Smoking In Heaven

This is an outfit almost as far removed from the 'major label music industry' as it is possible to get. Three siblings, in their early twenties at most, on a mission to subvert the perceived digital obsession of their peers. Not just in a superficial way but from start to finish - one that not inappropriately has an almost religious fervour.
  
Their first true album, the eponymous 'Kitty, Daisy and Lewis', was released on the label 'Sunday Best' in 2008 and consisted mostly of covers that would have seemed quite straightforward in 1958, if not before. Therein lies the catch, and the total deceit, for not only was the music old-fashioned it was entirely performed, recorded and mastered on collected and restored valve-driven analogue equipment of that era. Lewis is the retro-electronic wizard behind most of that part of the endeavour. The result did not meet with critical approval all round; sometimes because it was mostly covers, also because the equipment produces a sound that is to most now rather unfamiliar and because not many artists sing this way any more.
I bought it (on CD, which was a misjudgement of a criminal nature) and yet it was certainly interesting and, once I got used to the sound and styling, really quite appealing. The issue came to a head at Latitude 2010, late on Thursday evening or perhaps early Friday morning, in the Music & Film Tent when, as part of a 'Blues Brothers'-themed film-dance-music performance they were doing some of the live music part. This is, unfortunately, the only half-worthwhile picture I have.  The poor photo is entirely my fault. For some reason I always get off to a bad start.

  Kitty and Daisy a capella at Latitude 2010.

While 'Smoking In Heaven' will do nothing to spoil the bliss in analogue heaven it certainly does address the other critical point; this is all their own new material, new in a relativistic sense. 

Released on May 30 by 'Sunday Best' it will be available on two vinyl formats: 2 x 12" 33 rpm LP, a collectors' edition of 6 x 10" 78 rpm and also on CD. I have no way of playing 78 rpm, and in any case it is a very costly package, but given my earlier comment I shall be certainly be taking the 12" micro-groove option on this one!

Rarely, if ever, has Kentish Town seemed this far south!