New Music 2017 - Part 18 - Turn Your Face To The Sun - I Draw Slow

This is just so welcome news.
From Dublin, but also Americana and roots inspired, please embrace the return of 'I Draw Slow'. Centered around siblings Dave and Louise Holden the band is so much more than that.

I Draw Slow, Turn Your Face To The Sun (Compass Records, 21 April 2017).

I Draw Slow - Turn Your Face To The Sun:

• Maria
• My Portion
• Same Old Dress Will Do
• Garage Flowers
• Apocalypso
• Don't Wake The Children
• Alveregna
• Tell The Girls
• Carolina
• Twin Sisters
• Crooked Life

This is Don't Wake The Children, taken from the new album...

You might find that a little searching of the bands's earlier recordings is rewarding too. Just one example, and another video, is this.

  'Goldmine', taken from the 2011 LP Redhills .

New Music 2017 - Part 4 - Emily Mae Winters - Siren Serenade

Looking back on my recent post concerning 'EPs and mini albums of 2016' it has struck me that there are several rather surprising omissions. One of them is the 'Foreign Waters EP' by Emily Mae Winters.

I'm going to get out of this particular problem by subsuming it into the announcement of her début LP 'Siren Serenade'. Produced by Ben Walker, as was the aforementioned EP, but this time also in collaboration with Lauren Deakin-Davis, it will be released in April 2017.

The first track from it, it least as I can find is 'The Star' and a song inspired by John Keats' poem 'Bright Star':

'The Star' (official video)

This is the artwork for the album cover.

New Music 2015 - Part 66 - The Rosellys - The Granary Sessions

I mentioned the then forthcoming release of 'The Granary Sessions' a couple of months back, when I saw The Rosellys live at Truck Festival 2015. Time flies - it was released a week ago now, at least in the UK, by Clubhouse Records.

I knew already that I really liked their previous records, 'One Way St.' (2008) and 'Two Much Like Trouble' (2011) and the new material that they show-cased was every bit as strong and varied.
It was the first time I had heard them live. They performed live with a full band; this new LP differs from the aforementioned records in that it is the first recorded with a full band. Simon and Rebecca are joined by Allan Kelly (pedal steel/resonator), Drew Bridges (percussion) and Matt Kirby (bass). It was recorded in Gloucestershire, England and produced by Alex Elton-Wall, a leading light of UK alt-country act Redlands Palomino Company.

This is the track listing:
1. A Thousand Miles
2. Not That Old (But I'm Not Eighteen)
3. Maryland
4. Asheville 1784
5. Made A Choice
6. Red, White And Blue
7. James' Song
8. It's Not Me It's You
9. Number One
10. Rose Tinted Glasses
11. Memories Of Me And You

One comment that I might make is that almost all reviews and comments on the album are from America, rather than the UK, and also that almost all of them are distinctly positive.

Here is Maryland from the album, live at The Golden Lion, Gloucester Road, Bristol, UK.

They are coming for you too - the US tour is still adding dates - so watch out for them in October.

The Rosellys, Saloon Bar Stage, Truck Festival 2015.

New Music 2015 - Part 24 - Pip Mountjoy - Call To Arms

Another singer and another song...
For those of you that remember Pip Mountjoy at Marnhull Acoustic Sessions in February 2014 or maybe before then as I did, at Deer Shed Festival 2012, here is a new song  played live and with a video. It is one of four that I believe are to appear during the coming Spring...

The first, filmed in a Yorkshire Dales cottage in need of some restoration, is 'Call To Arms'. It is a rallying cry to a number of her friends that in recent times have given up on their dreams of making a career of music.

The next video, which will accompany the song 'Hunter Moon' will be made available tomorrow (4 April) so watch this space. More news from this week is that Pip Mountjoy has been confirmed for North Dorset Folk Festival 2015 at Marnhull Village Hall on Saturday 24 October.
Here is 'Hunter Moon' and the video to accompany a couple of hours early...

New Music 2015 - Part 21 - Hattie Briggs - Red & Gold

UK music is combustible. In fact it has been a raging fire for several years now. The sparks have even taken root far beyond these shores and the incoming influences vice versa.
As long as it remains as such I don't think I will ever tire of it and, in particular, the tidal wave of acoustic.
It has become very obvious to me these last few years that the artists playing this music were becoming ever younger than their audiences. I have the inkling, particularly recently, that this is finally starting to change too - in the sense only that that they are also attracting younger audiences. Where once Celtic or Celtic-influenced music was the mainstay of UK and Irish folk output, whether traditional or contemporary, the balance has become more even in recent years too. To put it another way, English folk, similarly categorised, has found its sense of purpose and it has become to be realised that it is not, however it may have been perceived to be, simply the accompaniment to Morris Dancing.  Whether these thoughts and observations are relevant only time will tell. It is however a preamble to this - an interesting story of an astonishing change of career direction.

Hattie Briggs is from the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire. This is her soon-to-be released, as on April 6, début LP and there is an involved story behind it.

This is the official video to 'A Beautiful Mind', taken from it.

She is now confirmed for Cambridge Folk Festival 2015 - Den Stage, Friday so I believe.

New Music 2014 - Part 24 - Bella Gaffney

I am not at Priddy Folk Festival, and Bella Gaffney is not in so far as I am aware one of the artists advertised to play there either. That said I have somehow become aware of her music and, I have to say, I like it. She is from Bradford and to be quite honest the North Midlands of England have been giving UK folk a rare treat over the last decade and more.
If I could find a Bella Gaffney LP or EP to tell you detail about then I would do so; at the moment I can't but that is just how it is and simply count this as another 'artist to watch', if you will.

I don't think, for one moment, that this is the last that we shall hear from Bella and probably sooner rather than later. It is not a summery song in the slightest. The really frustrating thing is that I know that there is an album 'The Clock That Didn't Stop' and I currently can't find it to buy for love nor money in any format. I can find some of the songs from it but that is not quite what I was looking for. If you know more then please write a comment. [Please note that any comment might not appear at once - all comments are moderated by me, but at least that way you know that I have read them.]

So what is next?

Here is a song-and-a-half and now a suitably great video to go with it... Ooh. This attempt to embed Vevo video might not work out as intended first time! Let's just see what happens... I like meddling, but the real point is that this video is simply too good not to share.  It worked for six months and then it didn't.  Fair is fair. Here is a direct replacement.

Well it could have been worse; at least something happened now I have meddled with it some more and that's OK, at least for now. If you think that Alynda Lee Segarra is a tough cookie then you are right. That, however, is certainly far from the whole story.

She is also one of the most self-effacing artists that I have ever met.

End Of The Road Festival 2012.