New music for autumn? Just go find...

It's not difficult, nor is it illegal, to find new music...
Here, therefore, is my choice for today and it has nothing whatsoever to do with End Of The Road Festival this weekend just gone.

It is the second album by Seattle-based trio Seapony.

At least for the moment you can legally stream it here and I just thought that I'd give it a shout-out. It is most remarkable for what it is not.

Now explain this...

It is what live music is really about: 02:40 BST on September 3, 2012.
They are as thick as thieves.

London Calling - if only for London 2012

If only...

Were he still with us Joe Strummer, born John Graham Mellor, would have been sixty today. He was, as the result of a congenital and undiagnosed heart defect, taken away in December 2002.
Were that not so I can hardly imagine that he would not have been on the stage at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympiad. 'The Clash' was not the first punk band, by any means, but they gave the whole genre wings...
They focussed their anger on sensible issues. In fact the members were from really quite comfortable backgrounds; and while they were genuinely angry they were also rather annoyingly but curiously, simultaneously, disarmingly literate.
This 1979 album was, I think, not just the defining moment of British Punk...

Had it not been for this album, and the inspiration it provided, the whole punk movement might have faded into obscurity - a bright spark, lit for the most part by angry young men in a fit of pique, that lasted for so little time.
There would thus have been no Green Day, just to make a single example.
The bad behaviour in this image is all down to Paul Simonon, who lives on, and so does the bass guitar in question (in bits as destroyed in this rampage, something that he later much regretted doing), in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, OH.
The inspiration for the album cover is down to that of Elvis Presley's first.

What the Hell. It's what we were born to do.

I hope I don't need to tell you about the three women who were today sentenced to two years in prison for singing a song.  It is true that it was controversial in its lyric and that they chose a rather dangerously high profile location to do it, but even so.

What they did may well have been wrong, illegal indeed under the law that prevails there, and so some punishment due. On the other hand, ask yourself this. Is the outrage, let alone the sentence of two years in prison, a reflection of a system that is not really at peace with its own identity; uncomfortable politically, religiously and culturally?
Maybe it is not for me to comment but here, because you had the nerve to do it, is my slightly irreverent (because that was the whole problem here) take on it:
  
Poor choice of venue maybe, Pussy Riot.  Had you chosen Frome's Cheese & Grain instead we would have bought you drinks and looked after you rather than arranging for your arrest.
Look at it this way:  Did we arrest and then imprison 'The Sex Pistols', back in 1977, for their seditious version of 'God Save The Queen', our National Anthem, because it was arguably in rather poor taste? No.
They had their day as anti-heroes and punk remains a vital part of the curious thing that is British culture. Her Majesty The Queen, very respectfully, waited a further thirty-five years before taking her revenge by appearing with James Bond.

Lyrics once again - Can't Make It So

It's a long time since I've turned my attention to song lyrics but since someone asked about those of Ellen and The Escapades today I just have to try. Yes I certainly can, but probably not until next week.
  
Oh well, I relented after a fashion but this might have to suffice just for now.  This is the song 'Can't Make It So', from that album - All The Crooked Scenes:
 
It's a no go
Telling you to come home
Saying that you can't go
I'm sorry but I can't make it so.
  
Could I have been there?
My words can make a change
Can my actions now compare?
They know they did you wrong.
  
Its up to me 
Just wait and see
  
You were so close
Now to even let go
Why'd you wanna take me?
I'm sorry but I can't make it so

It's a no go
Telling you to come home
Saying that you can't go
I'm sorry but I can't make it so.

Could I have been there?
My words can make a change
Can my actions now compare?
They from thy did you wrong
  
It's up to me 
Just wait and see
  
Just let me make you happy.
  
Actually, I have now just remembered why I started the whole lyric thing in the first place and it is rather simple - I enjoy doing it.

Live & Local - some dates for the diary

It seems that I haven't written so much about musical things taking place in Frome lately, so it is time for an update on some future events. For another view of the town I recommend this blog highly - Frome With A View.
Here, however, are some musical happenings that I am really looking forward to:

• Acoustic+ returns after its customary summer recess on 28 September and this is with its 10th Anniversary edition that features all four of the acts that performed at the first! For more on that aspect see here. It is at the Cheese & Grain, as usual, but the ticket price is the £1 of the original (donations are much encouraged).
• Sunday 21 October - The first Frome Blues Festival, organised by Seahorse Productions that is behind the Frome Folk Festival (of which see below). This is also at the Cheese & Grain.
• Saturday 24 November - Sean Lakeman and Kathyrn Roberts. They were just amazing at Frome Folk Festival 2012 but this time are appearing at Rook Lane Chapel.
• Saturday/Sunday 17/18 February - Frome Folk Festival 2013, the second edition of this event. An announcement of the firsts acts and artists who will be appearing is coming very soon and tickets are already on sale both locally, from the Cheese and Grain Box Office, and also through well known on-line sellers; these latter tend, however, to add a booking fee. If you want, and of course only if you can sensibly do so, the cheapest way is almost always to pay in cash at the Cheese & Grain box office. It offers real-time on-line ticketing, so there is no waiting and wondering if and when they will turn up in the mail. There is no booking fee either, for cash purchases. On the other hand it is up to you not to misplace them!

Deer Shed Festival 3 - New Music 2012 - Part 23

You might have suspected that this was coming. Festivals for me are, as much as anything else, a chance to go and catch up with some new artists that either I have never heard live or sometimes that I have never even heard about. This first trio of acts all fall into the former category and they all featured on the Saturday. I present them simply in the order in which I saw them play:
First off, and indeed the first music artist to perform at Deer Shed 3 on the Saturday, was North Yorkshire's own Pip Mountjoy on the (Far from the) Lake Stage. The stage was thus re-named as it had finally been erected far from where it was originally intended to be, owing to the very wet conditions prevailing before the festival took place.

She accompanied herself on acoustic guitar and played most of the six tracks from her début EP 'Louisiana', which I have already mentioned here and also included a couple of very recently written new songs that were extremely promising, not least the one that she introduced with some obvious reluctance and embarrassment, yet to considerable acclaim thereafter. I had already bought the EP digitally but as it is now available hand-made, including the sewn CD sleeve and CD-R, I bought a real one for £4 and here it is. 

These are now also available on-line, also for £4 (p & p extra) from her website.

She is off travelling, something that features in many of her songs and may impact on the availability of the CD, but returns to the UK for a tour in October/November 2012. 

  

This next, who played on the main stage at 3.40pm, is a trio of sisters from Hertfordshire who perform under the title of 'The Staves'.

This, their three-track 'Mexico EP' from 2011 has already appeared in the side-bar of this blog but here they are live and acapella.

And in standard mode - this is Mexico from the aforementioned EP.

The Staves release their début album in autumn 2012, hence the new music category. 

The final act of today's trio is in fact the only one to have released an album so far. That is Leeds' five-piece Ellen and The Escapades and I have mentioned their 2012 début album 'All The Crooked Scenes'. In fact it is a great example of what I like to do...

I was idly listening to Amazing Radio a couple of months ago and, having no previous knowledge of the band at all, a track from it came on. I didn't even attempt to listen to any other tracks on it: I just ordered the album from the band's website, all the more so because I found that for little extra cost I could have it on gate-fold vinyl. It arrived very swiftly and it certainly didn't disappoint.

My next mission was to see this band live and Deer Shed Festival soon came to the rescue as Ellen & The Escapades headlined the Lake Stage on Saturday evening and here is something from that set.

Ellen Smith has a way with song-writing and a voice that matches it perfectly.

  

You could just possibly compare her to Amy Macdonald at her very best but, more than anything else, it makes me think that backed up by such an amazing band she both writes and sings songs that are the modern equivalent of Lowry paintings but never quite so modern as to alienate those who know the originals.

That is an astonishing achievement.

Deer Shed Festival 3 - one week on

This is incredibly hard to write and not for the reasons that over the last five years and some I have become used to. I've even gotten somewhat inured to the fact that I write as a Briton (if never a great one) to a potential audience of millions. All that was put in to perspective yesterday - with the opening of the 30th Modern Olympiad in London. We, as host Nation, were never planning to upstage the sheer scale of the equivalent event at Beijing 2008, nor did we ever think that we might try to do so in budget, scale or pale imitation.
Britain just had to do it the only way it knows, which is what defines us - a wonderful mix of contradictory things that everyone but almost nobody - myself included - really properly understands and a certain penchant for comedy and self-deprecation.
It involved a lot of music, both old and new, but none of that from Deer Shed Festival 3 that I'm planning to mention now. It does however prompt me to mention that for every well known artist featured yesterday there are plenty more who aspire to gain our attention and are worthy of doing so. Aspiring athletes do not start at the Olympic Games, just as aspiring musicians do not headline Glastonbury, but they are there at the smaller festivals and local venues every week of every year. One thing that has made changes for them, and it was featured by the appearance of Sir Tim Berners-Lee at yesterday's event, is the internet. Without it I might not yet have even heard about these artists that I saw performing live at Deer Shed Festival 3: Think about what that really means.

As it always was, it only needs a little sunshine to get us in a party mood but a bar also helps too. Without the internet I would not be writing this and you, wherever you might be, would not be reading it. Yet, for all that, the reason that almost six-thousand of us were gathered there at all was for the entertainment - modern music,  live and strictly non-digital primarily, but also that most human of desires that is like-minded comradeship.

The sun first made an appearance on Friday evening when Belfast five-piece Cashier No. 9 were playing on the main stage.

I have seen this band live before, at Truck Festival 2011, and I was impressed then. I still am and they appear again at EOTR 2012, as part of the 15th anniversary of Bella Union Records on the Friday.

The very first act to play at Deer Shed Festival 3 was Leeds' Moody Gowns on the tented 'In The Dock Stage'. Not exactly the least abrasive of welcomes, perhaps...

...on the other hand a worthy welcome to the orthogonal world that is a good festival.

End of the Road Festival 2012

Before I comment further on my trip to North Yorkshire for Deer Shed Festival 3 last weekend here is a little shout-out for the next festival that I shall be attending (unless that is I add another in the intervening five weeks). I mention it because tickets are fast running out, indeed those in some categories already have done so.

I'll comment on my desires, and the possible conflicts between them, soon.

  

This does not even mention the unmentionable - the secret performances for which EOTR is rightly famous and those of you who were at NDH 2012 might also have discovered.

Deer Shed Festival 3 - The future is the young.

If the title of the post is true, and I believe it to be so, then for all the changes in the music industry things don't look too bad for the future of live, acoustic music. Gary Stewart and his supremely adaptable band on the (Far from the) Lake Stage, Saturday lunchtime.

  

The adults, in all probability, were enjoying it even more.

New Music 2012 - Part 22 - The Haunted Man

Before starting on the music that I saw and heard live at Deer Shed Festival 3 this past weekend it is time to mention this; the third album from the artist whose first, Fur and Gold, was the inadvertent genesis of this particular blog!

Tracks:

1. Lilies
2. All Your Gold
3. Horses of the Sun
4. Oh Yeah
5. Laura
6. Winter Fields
7. The Haunted Man
8. Marilyn
9. A Wall
10. Rest Your Head
11. Deep Sea Diver

The Haunted Man is released early-autumn (October 15 in the UK) and it will be available on vinyl. After Two Suns, which she shared with her alter ego Pearl, I wonder what it will reveal. Natasha Khan has been an influence on more new artists since her 2006 début album than she may care to admit. That is one thing that I learned this weekend.
I'm just wondering when someone will first ask me to comment on the 'best albums of 2012'. It hasn't happened yet...
I have, for my part, a few in mind already.

To see her upcoming live set at Bestival 2012, Isle of Wight, UK see here:
http://www.youtube.com/bestivaltv

17:25 BST (UST +1)

New Music 2012 - Part 21 - Record Store Day 2012

One blog that I always follow is Too Much Music (is a good thing). 
Here's an item, a Record Store Day 2012 limited edition 7", that we came to discuss only very recently: It is, basically, Alex Turner's lyrical sensibilities filtered through Caitlin Rose's astonishing avidity for making cover versions her own.

Round 2: over to you Alex.

New Music 2012 - Part 20 - Difficult to resist?

Amazing live in the UK last summer.  She Keeps Bees.  Released July 17, 2012 in the US.

'Blue Moon' is a cover version to be filed alongside such veteran songs as 'Ghost Woman Blues' (1928), as re-recorded by Low Anthem on the 2011 album 'Smart Flesh'. Written a little before (1933-4?) it was first recorded in 1935 and, as it happens, is also the unofficial anthem of the supporters of both Crewe Alexandra and Manchester City Association Football clubs. The exact lyric may not be strictly followed but then even the original lyric had at least four re-writes before it first aired as a bona fide single in its own right!

It has been covered many times down the decades, including that by Elvis Presley on his eponymous début album in 1956, something that without doubt contributed to its early adoption into the canon of 'American songs' although both Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart were English. It appeared in snippets in the film 'Grease' and again in Glee (season 1) and in many other films, performed by a myriad of artists, in the meanwhile. It was originally written for the purpose of film accompaniment but went through three sets of lyrics before it was actually used in a film release. Both Eric Clapton and Rod Stewart have been known to perform live cover versions of it.

It is, therefore, a true song-survivor.

New Music 2012 - Part 19 - Across the Pond, again.

There has been plenty of coverage concerning the quantity of UK music making it into the higher reaches of the Billboard charts of late: Just don't imagine otherwise --- we are well able to do partisan self-congratulation too.
Here are two that are nothing of the kind, yet also a reflection on trans-Atlantic trends in music that I particularly like at the moment. This first is an album from 2011 which, although you will hardly find it all over radio in the UK, is well liked by those whose taste in music extends to this genre. Without any doubt they are far more numerous than they were not so very long ago and quite unashamedly I count myself amongst them. If you read my meanderings you would likely have realized this some while back.
In general subject matter, although I left specifics obscure, it was the basis of a post entitled 'If you want to torture yourself, beautifully...' that I wrote in May.  Neither am I going to recant words I have written concerning my love of vinyl even at the risk of suffering discrimination as the result of being an insufferable audiophile.
This is a combination of both 'sins'. It is serious, yet witty and varied, and so well done that it has impact for all the right reasons. In all probability you could absolutely detest every song on it; it is that consistent. The truth is, I just don't care.

  RCA 88691-96876-1 (the US 12" 'Record Store Day 2012' gate-fold vinyl LP release).
  

This next is an even more recent release; Los Angeles' trio-of-sisters Haim with their bud Dash Hutton on percussion. This has seen some play on BBC Radio 1 in the UK and it is dusty, slightly-careworn pop. In some ways, however, it also puts me in mind of me of the output by LA's Warpaint. 

Good stuff then. It's a 10" vinyl EP available directly via the band's label for its physical release. http://nationalanthem.bigcartel.com/product/haim-forever-ep-10-vinyl.
  

Updated: July 9, 2012 (22:55 BST or, if you prefer, UTC+1):

It was available until earlier this evening but all 300 vinyl copies have now been sold. The label says that 'a few more' might become available. Hold your breath.

Remember MySpace?

Well it does still exist. Don't forget, in the heat of the moment, that things on the internet do not stay the same for long. Here, derived from a slightly earlier and specific comment today, are my initial thoughts on that:

After the FB debacles concerning firstly the default e-mail address changes to @facebook.com, then the huge fuss surrounding the issue of posts by artists and 'Pay-to-Promote', I would hope that it has now learned some lessons ex vox populi.
  
You, and other artists whom I want to hear all posts from, are now added to a list that ensures that I do. I also changed my profile e-mail address back to that which I had selected.  FB solely depends on us for its success and, much more recently, its stock-market value too. Facebook could go bust tomorrow for all I care. In such a circumstance I'd be way more concerned about the plight of its employees than that of its shareholders.
We as mere users and willing, if hopefully discriminating, advertising magnets would be back on-line somewhere else within a week or so. We already have other options should we choose to exercise them.
  
I fully accept that, as a business, it must pay its way but that does not excuse it from the need to explain its policy and ethics in advance and in a way that is transparent and simply understood by its many, diverse users. This has been its Achilles' heel for some time, and the problem does not seem to be reaching any kind of swift resolution. 

This evening... vinyl only.

Once upon a time radio stations relied on pre-release vinyl. This is one such 7", from 1973, that presaged the release of the album 'Vagabond Of The Western World' (SKL 5170) that was not, as it turned out, destined to rock the world.

Given a couple more years things were to change dramatically in terms of the band; both its core dynamic and the public's appetite for such music. 
The two tracks on the other face of this are 'Gonna Creep Up On You' and 'Little Girl In Bloom'.
As things are going tonight is not going to get beyond 7" singles that I know/or had forgotten that I have. This is a song that, in all probability, you haven't heard for some time...
  

The original release of it  - VER 1 (1981) - sounds so very dated now, I think.

New Music 2012 - Part 18 - Audio Fiction - Worlds Apart

New York's Audio Fiction, which I have mentioned before in relation to their 2009 self-titled album, has just announced the completion of its successor 'Worlds Apart'. It will be released "sometime this summer".  I have no more specific date but here is the artwork for it:

This one was almost entirely funded using Kickstarter: Yet another nail in the coffin of the majors... and I don't think for a moment that the band will mind me saying that.
I'm currently listening to the album 'Audio Fiction' (2008) but I've heard some of the demos from 'Worlds Apart' and, well, I just can't wait to hear it all as it is finally intended to be.

No Direction Home 2012 - Slow Club

This post is a 'special' - it is for Addi, co-writer of the blog Listologies.
He mentioned his liking for UK-based Slow Club. Charles and Rebecca are originally from Rotherham. Here they are, just a dozen miles from there, live on the main stage at the first No Direction Home Festival a fortnight ago today.

It's not the first time I have seen them. They were awesome.
  

And the sun was shining too - they are that good!

No Direction Home 2012 - acoustic days

It is true that I have already mentioned a few of my, more or less, acoustic highlights of NDH 2012. The truth is that they were many and varied and so here a few more. Some hailed from very distant lands, others rather less so, but all of them were very good.
Now where am I to supposed start? Not least because it also includes both the stages that I have not even mentioned yet. Now where should I start with this, too?
Let's go with Urusen, who performed on the Boathouse Stage at 8:30pm on Saturday evening. We will come to the fourth stage later.
This is only two of the members of Urusen...

You know me - I complain when I'm too far away to take the picture that I want and now I'm too close! In fact I'm perched on the front corner of one of their bass speakers for a reason that just escapes me now because that is how festivals are.

This next one is two of the others but Urusen is a five-piece. There is also the drummer whom I never really saw at all...
It is a lovely stage but it has one problem. That is, and for entirely plausible reasons due to its approach access and lake-side location, it has a strictly limited capacity that has to be monitored and that was an issue at times. On the other hand it was certainly a popular stage!
  

That is not to say that the Electric Dustbowl Stage was short on acoustic action. Far from it in fact and here, on it Saturday lunch time, is 'Tiny Ruins' a two-piece from Auckland, New Zealand. She was accompanied by beautifully appropriate but very importantly never-overbearing double bass and backing vocals.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

It was magical... This is Hollie Fullbrook of 'Tiny Ruins'.

No Direction Home 2012 - electric nights

The slightly curiously named, but very likeable, Electric Dustbowl Stage was in late evening/past midnight the home to acts of an electric and/or electronic bent. Friday's two included a band very high on my 'to see-hear list' and another that was one of my highlights of EOTR 2011.
That first act is Veronica Falls and they certainly didn't disappoint:

They also played three new tracks that are not on the début album that was only released on Bella Union last year. That bodes well for their second LP I'd like to think.

The second, and the revelation to me at End of The Road last September, is Austra from Canada.

  

Electric Dustbowl head-liners on early Saturday (well actually just into Sunday morning at the start) were The Pyramids. Sharing two members with Archie Bronson Outfit you might care to label them a more raw, more rock version of the same. To be honest it is a little bit more complex than that.
It is pretty heavy and very much written and performed off the cuff, or at least that is the impression it seeks and for the great part succeeds in creating. For those, at least those with the inability of me, the lighting made photography challenging to say the least. This was the best I could manage.

It did, however, evoke the pyramid theme better than I was able to capture.

    

The following evening, although it started a little earlier it being the final evening, the music was quite possibly even more of a challenge. From California, and with a particular and uncompromising technicolor version of rock-punk, hails Mikal Cronin and his band.

And that's enough to blow any folk/country/acoustic cobwebs away.

No Direction Home 2012 - into the unknown

A festival should not be judged on headline acts. It would be a poor way to spend three days were it to involve enduring many hours of tedium in the hope and expectation of ninety minutes of heaven at the end of each. A good festival has strength in depth and, quite possibly, it is the so-called 'lower orders' that serve to define the truly good ones.
Well No Direction Home didn't fail on the former count by any means but, where it triumphed in spades is in the most important aspect of all. That it was a continuous source of angst to decide which act to see at all times everyday...
OK, so all three acts opening the Lake Stage were great.

Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog --- on the Lake Stage, in the pouring rain, Friday lunch-time.

  
I have already mentioned 'Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog', but neither Brighton-based (except when decamped to Lewes!) 'Laish' on Saturday and 'Trembling Bells' on Sunday suffered by comparison.
  
This next pair of pictures are of 'Laish', performing as opening act on the Lake Stage on Saturday. Well, given the second one, you can see exactly what time it is.

   

By Sunday you might have been coming rather concerned about the prospects for 'Trembling Bells'. Well, should that have been the case, you need not have worried one bit.

Even without Will 'Bonny Prince Billy' Oldham, Lavinia Blackwall and her cohort was more than effective in carrying off the tracks from that collaboration as well as all the other albums.

No Direction Home 2012 - introduction

This is the very first picture I took and in some ways it served well to set the scene...

Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog on the Lake Stage early on Friday afternoon.
    

You might have thought the weather awful; you might easily have underestimated 'No Direction Home'. Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog sung all but one song of their set in Welsh but to dismiss that as novelty, or worse, would have been an almost unimaginably huge mistake. No Direction Home is about surprises...

New and old songs - a mixed case of folk - Part 4

Two new releases; one by an artist already well known whom I saw live a few months ago at Frome Folk Festival and the other the début release by an artist of whom I only heard about for the first time a couple of days ago.
  
It is barely a year ago that Bella Hardy released her third album Songs Lost and Stolen and now she returns with another LP.

The Dark Peak and The White is a collection of songs, some traditional others her own original compositions. The arrangement is uniformly simple throughout, highlighting her singing and fiddle-playing on a record produced by the prolific and multi-talented Kris Drever who appeared as an artist on some of the tracks on Songs Lost and Stolen.  If you are new to Bella Hardy's music then this is no bad place to start, but be sure to also give the earlier albums a listen. In particularly the middle section, especially tracks 5 -10, on that album. No real wonder then that she won a 2011 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for 'Best Original Song' and if 'The Herring Girl' is timeless, and it is, so is 'Jenny Wren' and neither are set in the Peak District for they are both about itinerants looking for opportunities in places previously unknown to them.
  
The second involves a trip some eighty-miles north as the raven flies along the Pennines, the spine of England, for Pip Mountjoy hails from near Richmond in the Yorkshire Dales.
On this release she is to be found cutting loose from her locale; the EP is Louisiana. The songs are all her own compositions but the acoustic theme, on guitar in this case, is rather striking while the songs in several cases evince a wish to explore new places but they are tempered by her concerns about things that might accompany that endeavour.

I'm not going to say much about this other than to suggest you give it a listen, then buy it. One to watch, definitely, she has only fairly recently turned eighteen. If you are going to Deer Shed Festival 3 in July (20 - 22) then she is performing there.
  
That in fact also, if accidentally (largely because it reminded me to check the updated artist list for DSF 2012 and found it was rather desirable), solved a conundrum that has been bothering me for months: if I were to add a third (logically July) festival between No Direction Home and End of the Road, then what should it be?  I have toyed with various ideas for July 2012: Latitude, the re-born Truck Festival and Priddy Folk Festival but none have really made me want to commit so far. It is hard to say why... they just didn't quite do enough to make me do so.
In the end it is none of these that did.  I've just bought my ticket so instead I'll be heading north once again in July, to Baldersby Park near Thirsk in North Yorkshire, for Deer Shed Festival 3.  I was, I must say, very tempted last year but it was the same weekend as Truck Festival and also the one immediately after Latitude (to which I was already going), so the distances involved in such a short time put me off and I went to Truck 2012 instead. Those particular considerations just don't apply this year and, to be honest, I can't wait. I like small festivals with awesome acts.

If you want to torture yourself, beautifully...

It's not that hard actually. Nor, I think, is it an especially dangerous ambition even if it is also a slightly wicked one. There is simply so much new music to be found and so much of it is legal, free and might possibly benefit the artists if some attention were paid to it. Buying it would of course be far better and, in many cases, it is very reasonable.
On the other hand you can never do it all yourself - there is quite simply far too much to listen to, let alone think and then write about. So we can all forget that right now. On the other hand writing something, about any of it, is all for the good. That is at least possibly achievable and if anyone is reading and likely some are, or better still commenting, then the oxygen of publicity will do no harm. I could believe that almost nobody does that but, on the other hand, I have many reasons to believe that this is not actually true.
If you want to torture yourself horribly then that is probably best done by denying what you actually like and, equally catastrophic, pretending to like what you really don't.  I'd say that it is certainly not the way to go. Not agreeing with others about more specific things, however, is a completely different matter and the boundaries may or may not always turn out to be quite as distinct as either party might have believed. Long may it remain so.

New Music 2012 - Part 17 - Joanne Shaw Taylor - Almost Always Never

It is almost unthinkable. 

Announced only today, tickets not yet on sale, is this tour around the UK from US-based, but originally from Wednesbury in the West Midlands, electric-blues phenomenon Joanne Shaw Taylor. What is more it is also in support of her third album 'Almost Always Never' released in the UK by Ruf Records on 17, September 2012 (almost certainly). This is the track listing:
  

ALMOST ALWAYS NEVER
• Soul Station
• Beautifully Broken
• You Should Stay, I Should Go
• Piece of the Sky
• Army of One
• Jealousy
• Almost Always Never
• Tied and Bound
• A Hand In Love
• Standing To Fall
• Maybe Tomorrow
• Lose Myself To Loving You
  
Note added May 22, 2012:
Tickets for the tour go on sale Friday May 25, 2012.  For an earlier comment on this topic see here.

Note added May 23, 2012:
Now think about this; how good this could be in a venue that has a capacity of 400 standing - about 60% of the capacity of the Cheese and Grain here in Frome?
That venue is Tavistock Wharf  and pre-sale tickets are available now.

New Music 2012 - Part 16

This first is something that I mentioned as up-coming a while back. It is 'Europe', the second album by Anglo-Australians Allo Darlin'.

It is released on Slumberland Records on May 7, 2012 - LP, CD & d/l

I saw Allo Darlin' live at EOTR 2011 and it was a wonderful set; that they could hold a candle to any other act there was certainly no mean feat. This album is a demonstration of that; there is no question about it in my mind.

Here is an image from that performance in the 'Big Top' at End Of The Road Festival 2011.

The second act is one I have been meaning to seek out for some while but only a chance reminder, Amazing Radio playing one of their songs, prompted me to do so at last. That band is a five-piece from Leeds, Ellen and The Escapades, which has only recently released its début LP 'All The Crooked Scenes' on Branch Out Records.

It is an album of beautifully poised contemporary summer folk. The album is available on LP, CD and d/l and Ellen & The Escapades is high on my list of bands to see live this summer.

Karine Polwart - Live @ Rook Lane Chapel, Frome

Following on from the success of the first Frome Folk Festival came the first visit to Frome of Scottish singer-songwriter Karine Polwart. Rook Lane Chapel is a wonderful venue and absolutely ideal for concerts such as this and there was nothing to disappoint a near sell-out audience. Support was provided by an up-coming artist from Bath, Beth Porter, who was playing solo (rather than with her varied-in-composition backing group 'The Availables') but that did not did not detract from the performance one bit.  Songs such as murder ballad 'Salty Water' are good in whatever format they are played. She announced that her début album is on course for release before the end of the year; there is an EP 'Red Floor #3' already released.
  
Karine and her two accomplices, her brother Steven and multi-instrumentalist Inge Thomson (originally from Fair Isle, no less), provided a lengthy and stellar set.

As well as the expected favourites it notably included at least five tracks that will be on her forthcoming fifth studio album: 'Traces' is due for release on August 13. Judging from what we heard yesterday evening it is going to be rather special and most certainly not apolitical. That is something artists only tend to do when they feel comfortable and the audience is already on-side, which it clearly was as demonstrated by two encores - the second of which was a audience sing-along cover of Abba's 'Waterloo'.
  
There were a couple of solo numbers and this one is Inge singing a traditional Shetland song accompanying herself on piano accordion.

New Music 2012 - Part 15 - Dear Prudence

One of the best things about new music is when it just appears in my consciousness quite unexpectedly. So it is with this five piece, fronted and founded by Madi Ponica and based in Brighton, that has also taken a rather dangerous name as its own.  It could, owing a debt in kind to Siouxie and The Banshees and maybe even The Beatles via The Cure, have been a complete disaster from the outset. It isn't. The first single is 'Valentine' and this is the artwork for it.

It is early days, certainly, but I'm listening carefully and think 'Dear Prudence' has potential in 2012. They are too young to remember and also too wise and ingenious to merely parody...
Were I booking acts for summer 2012 this one would, without doubt, be high on my list. If they can pull off an album as good as these songs, that matches their obvious talent and ambition and they are wisely being secretive about their plans for realizing this, then I wouldn't bet against them for a moment. In fact it is already a much better bet than you-can-guess-who (for prudence does not become him) --- and that is why I am at home and writing this just now: His loss and their gain!
  
Link added April 24, 2012:
http://mtmbroadcasting.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/dear-prudence-gig-review-green-door.html

New Music 2012 - Part 14 - Metric 'Synthetica'

Metric will release its fifth studio album on June 11 in the UK and June 12 in North America (that is simply a chart-counting related issue).  This is the album art now that I have reduced it from 3690 x 3690 pixels to a more manageable, unless that is you want to project it on to a large flat wall, 800 x 800 pixels!

The usual problem with pre-release album art is that it is small and grainy; so even making it workable at 320 x 320 pixels for use in the side-bar of the blog can be a challenge. That is not a problem in this case but on the other hand I have never seen Metric live, which is something I might just have to put right this year and, because I can certainly do so, this is the track list:

  

SYNTHETICA
1.     Artificial Nocturne
2.     Youth Without Youth
3.     Speed The Collapse
4.     Breathing Underwater
5.     Drums So Real
6.     Lost Kitten
7.     The Void
8.     Synthetica
9.     Clone
10.   The Wanderlust
11.    Nothing But Time
  
Their second studio album 'Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?' (2005) was one of the first I ever posted a comment on and as such it pre-dates this blog. Rather more importantly I still love it to bits!