New Music 2011 - Part 11 - New heads on old shoulders?

If the title of this post seems strange then it is defiantly so.  I have been listening to much new music recently and imagining those artists that I might wish to appear at festivals this summer; particularly artists perhaps alien to those who merely concern themselves with the headline acts at Glastonbury.  
One place that has often turned up trumps is the 'Lake Stage' at Latitude. It was revitalised last year, after a poor 2009, and if Huw Stephens is again curating the future is bright.  One of the many highlights last year was Clare Maguire, whose début album 'Light After Dark' is released in the UK tomorrow.  In the wake of the recent 2011 BRIT Awards, and the success of alumna Adele Adkins who today managed the feat of having her two LPs at #1 and #2 in the UK album chart while simultaneously having the #1 and #4 single...
  

  

And, as if I needed to mention it, this is another from that stable who is about to hit the airwaves - and again is a female singer songwriter.  Known as Spark, real name Jessica Sparkle Morgan, she has a big voice - think Marina Diamandis and a lot of Americana that you should have heard but maybe haven't - combined with a strange pastoral electronic sensitivity and perhaps I'm getting close...
  
She has just been signed to 679 Recordings, also the home of Marina and The Diamonds and Little Boots, and the connection there is perhaps not too obscure. The pastoral bit is perhaps a little more so until, and the title of the post hints at this, most of  her early work that is available on-line is produced by Peter-John Vettese. Whilst he is an electronic keyboard maestro and talented producer it is notable here that thirty years ago he joined Jethro Tull and bought his distinctive keyboard influence to the 1982 album 'Broadsword and The Beast'.  It was a collaboration that would last almost a decade and, in the here and now, one that is echoing strongly.
The most obvious adjective for this phenomenon, if one rarely used and thus I shall do so with abandon, is Euterpean.
  
Further posts on New Music 2011:
Part 1  ---  Esben and The Witch
Part 2  ---  Yuck

Part 3  ---  Duke Spirit

Part 4  ---  Low Anthem
Part 5  ---  Go!Team

Part 6  ---  Rhosyn

Part 7  ---  Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo

Part 8  ---  Those Dancing Days

Part 9  ---  Some things I am looking forward to.

Part 10  ---  More things I am looking forward to.

Part 12  ---  Snowglobe - Jesca Hoop

Part 13  ---  Queen of the Minor Key

2009 Festivals - revisited - Part 2

By request here is a larger version of the side-bar image that I posted a week or so ago. It was, perhaps quite obviously, an incomplete post. That was not the original plan but, as it happened, it is now going to be an incremental one...

Well, finally, I have got round to adding another artist but this is one less well known.

Jess Elva and band live at EOTR 2009, in the Tipi Tent, early Saturday afternoon.
Watch out for more from the Swiss/Australian, and her band, very soon.

And you never did learn to let the little things go.

And you never did learn to let me be.

And you never did learn to let little people grow.

And you never did learn to see.

And I am lower now and lower still

And you did always say that one day I would suffer.

You did say that people get their pay.

You did always say that I was going places

And that you wouldn't have it any other way.

But I couldn't turn my back

On a world for what I lack wouldn't let me

But I couldn't turn my back

On a world for what I like I need it.

Lyrics from 'Blackberry Stone' by Laura Marling, an artist now confirmed for Latitude 2010.

Latitude Festival 2009

It is easy to say that it was amazing, because it served up what I wanted in terms of the less well known, but to deny that I was in thrall of some more main-stream acts would equally be a travesty.

Little Boots live on the 'Sunset Stage', Friday 17th July 2009.

Kerosophiles be aware...

Much anticipated, at least in the UK, is the album 'Hands' by Little Boots and the UK release date is 8th June. It will of course be available to download and on CD from any number of places.

If however, wax-lovers, you want one on vinyl then you had better look sharp and check out the nice folks at Pure Groove.

New music I want in 2009 - Part 4

Every twenty years or so it happens; somewhere that has neither an obvious right nor reason to threaten the very core of music suddenly rises from its place, as generally regarded in musical terms at least, as the epitome of nowhere remarkable to the very top of the pile. No city has bettered Seattle in that respect - and happily it doesn't change everything. They were still playing The Eagles and Dire Straits incessantly on local radio in Seattle when I was there in 1999 - fully a decade after it became the fuzzy-felt board of 'grunge'; a creation that borrowed from aspects of heavy rock, metal and glam-rock all used in varying proportions. At times, although this might seem a curious observation now, it also featured whimsy and (sometimes cunningly satirical) humour in the lyrics.
The zenith of grunge lasted less than five years; some of the pieces stuck and others just fell off but its legacy, and it is almost worldwide, remains very apparent two decades later. Sub Pop, lest it be forgotten or should the young at heart now feel less so, is still going strong and celebrated its twentieth birthday in 2008 with a party headlined by Pearl Jam.
Little wonder therefore that it is hard to predict what might happen next. I wonder if the average American music consumer has even the faintest idea that Blackpool is on the NW coast of England? I don't know if they have pub quizzes in the US but, if they do, it might be useful to know and, like the famous Blackpool trams, you can wait for ages and then two strange things will arrive almost at once! Blackpool already has, in the artist 'Little Boots', one of the most hyped new UK acts of 2009 but it also has another very likely to become well known. The interesting thing is that they sound nothing like each other or for that matter bear any resemblance to the Seattle revolution of twenty years ago. At least that is not apparently so!
'Little Boots' is all electronic, italo-disco and that sort of thing, and is looking like one of the 'flavours of 2009'. She is finishing her début album in Los Angeles but the trans-Atlantic love doesn't end there - as you will probably already know if you've tried to find a copy of her US-only 12" Arecibo EP. I have no problem with that at all but, although also from Blackpool, Karima Francis isn't part of that scene: she's a singer-songwriter who mainly composes songs on acoustic guitar. There are many who say that there are more than enough of those already. They may yet be wrong.

The Author - Karima Francis

Blackpool aside the one thing that they have in common, and before either has released a studio album, is that both can reliably reduce a live audience - including press reviewers - to putty whilst leaving them feeling awestruck rather than manipulated. In 2009, as never before, that is a pretty trick.

Another artist making waves, and from just across the sea in Dublin, is Laura Izibor... Irish soul would be an alternative listening choice on 17 March!

Method of Modern Love

Six weeks in and 2009 in music is getting into its stride. It is sounding good and certain trends are clear:
Firstly, that festivals are not necessarily going to suffer as a result of the recession. Glastonbury sold out over a week ago and the only tickets that will be available in early April will be returns. After last year's wobble, that this happened before any acts have been officially confirmed surprised me at first. On reflection I have decided that perhaps this result is in part because of the recession. Perhaps folks who enjoy music and can tolerate camping have, while making cut backs to expensive holiday plans, realised just what good value in terms of both time and money a long weekend at a festival can be.

The second thing, and it will doubtless be apparent at this summer's festivals, is the subtle shift towards more music that is pop and fantasy-inspired and often electronically based. This is no sudden change, and it certainly won't stop the likes of White Lies conquering all the territory they lay claim to, but it should make 2009 very interesting indeed. It took a while but electro-pop finally returned to the mainstream in 2008 and I wouldn't be surprised if its disco-cousins don't do the same in 2009 and that is where some of these new electronic toys will see use live.
They've been a source of much controversy and creativity since the analogue Moog synthesizer appeared in the late 1950s, with the more compact, robust and practical transistorized version following in 1961. They are still used and have many devotees, not least for the warm sound they produce. The Dubrecq stylophone followed in 1967, a hand-held keyboard played with a stylus, and it was really mainly intended as a 'toy instrument' for children. It too gained a large following and was therefore successfully relaunched in 2007.

This is an example of the 21st century stylophone.

You will almost certainly see one being played sometime this year - it is well suited to the style of music favoured by Little Boots and others. Another much more recent and complex electronic instrument also used by Victoria Hesketh first appeared in 2007.

Yamaha Tenori on.

It is not obvious exactly what it does or how you play it but, put very simply, it is a computer specifically designed to be used to play music. As you probably know I'm a big fan of acoustic music and traditional instruments but I can't wait to see someone in the flesh actually playing one of these.

On that general subject one of the giants of 1990s electro/dance pop is back. The single below is a new one released to promote the forthcoming 2-CD compilation - London Conversations - The Best Of Saint Etienne - but I wonder if there is actually rather more to it than that particularly given the success of Sarah Cracknell's collaboration with Mark Brown in 2008 - The Journey Continues.

This is the first Saint Etienne single in many years: 'Method Of Modern Love', was released on 9 February 2009. It is available to download but why would I want to? This is the real vinyl deal. This is 0116 of 1500, some of which were also signed.

Across the Atlantic they are at it too and they have also developed a liking for vinyl! More soon...

Chrome's On It - Telepathe (12" vinyl single)