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

Acoustic+. Live with little comment.

Four acts - £5 entry - and 3 hours of live music. If this is not a bargain then I don't know what is...

Dan Days, live @ Cheese & Grain, Frome, February 18, 2011.

Lara and Harry, at the moment that a new song did not quite go according to plan.

Harry plays electric bass, except when she doesn't and Lara just sings instead of playing acoustic as well.  Harry then does acoustic guitar instead. Any which way it - the acoustic guitar - is truly thus as it has no internal pick-up and so a condensing microphone is used instead.

  

Ben Waller and The Tell Tale Signs

  

This band was, quite effortlessly, my stand-out of those at Acoustic+ in December (see here) and I'm delighted that it appeared again for a much more extensive set last week.  This did nothing other than to cement my conviction that I was right.

   

Thoughts on Music - albums for interesting times...

I've been taking a break from writing posts and one that has, unusually, lasted almost a fortnight. Suffice it to say that I have still been listening to and thinking about a great deal of music in the meantime. In part I have been seeking out new music, while also thinking about bands that I would like to see at this summer's festivals...
  
I intend to try and pick up the dropped stitches with a selection of music that I have had on-rotation during this time.  It comes with a warning: this is not uplifting music except that, just possibly it is comforting for its sense of hopelessness at the state of things albeit often in an abstract sense.  That things have changed has been deftly short-circuited by the recent Grammy and Brit Awards - both in the nominations and indeed the winners.
The relationship between Music and Politics took a turn for the better and it started to change in the Bush/Blair era but, I wish to contest, now the major labels are on the defensive the tide is going to be hard to change in the Cameron/Obama one.
The rise of music, largely without the political shackles that the major labels imposed, is likely to actually be one aspect of 'The Big Society' that Cameron can rely on getting in the real world. Punk was a total break.  It laid the foundation for an intelligent blue-print on which to call and promote; as happened, and with great success: that is grunge!
Tony Blair was "friends" with Oasis, in the so-called 'Cool Britannia' phase, and he also played guitar. It happened but was actually a poor publicity stunt. 
It is hard to imagine the possible invitees (except for TV talent show cast-offs) to such a soirée at 10 Downing Street, were one to happen in this new age of austerity; less likely still those, except the desperate, that might accept the invitation.
  
That is not to say that Britain does not have a wealth of talented musical artists, and ones increasingly good at taking their talent to export markets, for it does. Just now, however, is a time when they simply don't need that particular patronage.
  
This artist should be top of the list of "the uninvited". It is the eighth studio album from one who is never shy to pull punches when it comes to politics, subject or timing and therefore was only released on the Monday just gone.
  

Can one album cause a Government to fall? Well - and at least this is true - it has not happened yet.

A Rock Legend Is Gone - Gary Moore

  
This came without warning.  There was nothing to suggest that Moore, one of the most prolific and versatile guitarists of his generation, was about to call it a day, let alone in this way, at the age of 58.  He was not famed for the excesses of his lifestyle, more his prodigious output on a wide range of musical fronts, including broadcasting. It included,  inter alia, three separate spells with Thin Lizzy, the last of which saw him record their ninth studio album, and their most successful in the UK chart, 'Black Rose - A Rock Legend'.  In addition, and aside from many other collaborations, he has released the better part of twenty solo albums and had a busy 2011 already planned...

Some Things Change - Old Is The New 'New'

Some things annoy me and it has been a week of many of them.  I'll spare you all those that are not in the least music related (the much larger part of the total) and stick to the subject, more or less, of this blog.

I'm not the revolutionary type, nor do I condone cruelty to animals, but Paul Gambaccini has recently got me to the point where, were he to appear as a rabbit in the headlights, the choice between 'swerve and avoid' or 'quick, kind, road kill' might be a snap decision.
I know the statistic that he used; that only three of the top 100 selling UK singles/songs (interchangeable in these days of downloading) in 2010 were 'rock' and I'm not going to dispute it for were it one or five it would make little difference.  What is indefensible, based on this statistic, is that 'rock music' as a genre is dead. Forever.
It is a patently idiotic statement and if anyone should know that these things go in cycles he - the so-called 'Professor of Pop' - is one of those who does.  If you want an illustration of  how time changes things in music then here it is:

Imagine you are in February 2001 but [thanks to time travel] you have a copy of 'Sigh No More' and play it to a group of friends: once they stop falling about laughing and regain some self-composure you place the killer punch: Mumford & Sons are Grammy nominated for it.  You wouldn't have even got your credibility back by now were that not true.
Rock similarly, particularly the heavier end thereof, was never at the mass end of the singles chart. There were exceptions of course, some quite remarkable ones indeed, but rock is more a market for folks who buy albums - and that can be independent of format.
Sometimes it is hard to 'Hold The Line' - and yes I do reference the song by Toto, their début single (1978) - but sometimes that is important too.  I'm not stuck in the days of 70s-90s rock, that is hopefully obvious from this blog, but neither am I going to subscribe to the opinion that rock is dead, or even moribund, any time soon.

There are plenty of fine new guitar bands out there, more than I even suspect, and no shortage of new rock music - in whatever sub-genre you like - all you need to do is find it. It is easier than ever - legally so with care - and that is what the internet is for.  Find it before it is on the radio, or at least those parts of it that most folks listen to.
This, in that it is all dejá vu, prompts me to post an article from 'The Fly' for the first time since my second blog post!

For that original air of 2006 blog authenticity I made sure that it is too small to read comfortably.  You can of course click to enlarge!

Then again, with the benefit of experience and hindsight, I posted it at a sensible  size. Now what vinyl shall I listen to next and from which century?

Argyria

Argyria is the condition that results from chronic exposure to, and thus poisoning by, silver or its salts; the obvious symptom is a strange but characteristic bluish-grey pallor of the skin and in its severest form, while rarely fatal, it can lead to more disturbing psychological manifestations. It may merely reveal underlying ones, one of which is synæsthesia (synesthesia).
All-in-all that is hardly a likely topic for a song.  Except, that is, when Esben & The Witch are involved...

Argyria
These strange metallic voices
Gleaming white and breeding light
Delve under your brow
Delve under my brow
Folding, unfolding
They whisper colours
Watch the rainbows flood
Dancing, we're dancing
Pebbles flirting with our toes
Listen to our heartbeats grow
Marble rivers whirl
Minerals swim like fishes
A glorious school of glittering
Innocent eyes, these innocent eyes
These strange metallic voices.

I'm On My Own Side Now

The title is taken from one of the best songs on one of my favourite albums of last year by one of the most impressive new live artists I saw.  This version of the lyric is a close as I can get to that which she performed at EOTR 2010 (twice, on different days and on different stages). It is almost identical to the version on the album 'Own Side Now' though the live instrumentation was somewhat different.


Own Side
I'm goin' out on the town
Said I'm tired of chasin' you down
And it's not my right
To always push you around
I'm on my own side now


Who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been
Who's gonna want me now?
And who's gonna take me home?


I'm gonna find me true love
Said I'm through asking you if you knew, love
How much it meant to me?
How it was meant to be?
And how it all feels empty?


Who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been?
Who's gonna want me now?
And who's gonna take me home?


Who? [repeat x4]
And who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been?
Who's gonna want me now?


Who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been?
Who's gonna want me now?
And who's gonna take me home?


I'm goin' out on the  town
Said I'm tired of chasin' you down
And it's not my right
To always push you around
I'm on my own side now.


Own side now.


What I particularly like about it, and many of her other songs too, is its ambidextrous balance of emotion - it is outwardly-assertive indignation and gnawing self-doubt rolled together.  It is far from the only example in her song-writing canon - Learning To Ride, the first song on this, her début album proper, is another.  But then, listening back to the 10" vinyl mini album 'Dead Flowers' that is similar, for all its cover versions also themed likewise, and includes the splendid self-penned - and her live audience-sing-a-long anthem of the summer gone - Answer In One Of These Bottles.  I'll add the lyric for both as soon as I can.
This latter song also has an interesting parallel in a track by another of my favourite artists out of Nashville - Amy LaVere.  I believe that she has been busy writing and recording new material with her band for a forthcoming third LP...  The song to which I am referring, however, is from her 2007 (2008 in the UK in effect) album 'Anchors and Anvils' and is the track Pointless Drinking, credited to Paul Taylor.  That is verging in to New Music 2011 territory, but why not?


As a sting in the tail, I'm now well and truly cross with myself to have not managed to see 'She Keeps Bees' at EOTR 2009. I have read so many good things about the Brooklyn duo lately...  and they are readying their new album too.
  

Note added March 8, 2011:

Caitlin Rose is now confirmed to appear at EOTR 2011.

Note added February 3, 2011:
[If you are currently at The Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, London, where 'She Keeps Bees' is supporting Smoke Fairies this evening then you can buy it pre-release.


More Caitlin Rose posts:
Docket - Caitlin Rose - lyric
Live at End of The Road 2010
Answer In One Of These Bottles - Caitlin Rose - lyric
Shotgun Wedding - Caitlin Rose - lyric


  
Pointless Drinking - Amy LaVere - lyric

Withering Bones - and other lyric considerations

I have promised far more lyrics than I have delivered, particularly recently, and I am well aware of this shortcoming. This is my best attempt at one, the detail of which still defeats me, that has been asked after more than a few times...  In this case I really, really would like some help here.  It is a song from the self-titled début LP from a band that I sincerely hope we will hear more of in 2011. I know that they have been working (at least in part in LA) on their second during 2010 and that band is 'Phantom Limb'.

Withering Bones
  
I don't want to fade into withering bones
No, I don't want to die alone
But I won't be pulled asunder by a mean old lover
So I guess I'll be waiting on the stone.
  
I don't want the thorns without the rose
No, I don't want to die in vain
I'm gonna buy my family a house in the country
So I guess I'll be waiting for that day.


What comes after this I am quite unsure about, even though I have heard it performed live on at least three occasions...  I'm not convinced that it is not, at least to some extent, variable ad-lib when performed live and that is perfectly reasonable.  The real problem is that I can't figure the album version with any degree of confidence either.  I can persuade myself of the veracity of various versions but in no sense am I confident in any of them; let alone in choosing a particular one from amongst them.
It is a great song - one of the highlights on a vastly under-rated album - but I have to admit defeat by Yolanda Quarty's song writing and vocals on this one, at least for now.

A few bits and pieces...

This is really a small collection of things that I have heard about recently, been "told" or have previously forgotten to mention.

Several people have asked me/arrived at this blog seeking an answer to this question:

• Is 'I Speak Because I Can' - Laura Marling available on 12" vinyl LP?  Well I could not find it either but, let me tell you this, it will be available within the next month or two.  The exact release date has, to the best of my knowledge, not yet been announced.
• On the same theme; the third Laura Marling album, originally and rather optimistically pencilled in for 2010, is still in the works. My hunch is that an early summer 2011 release is a good bet.

The end of 'blue January' is when new releases really start to pick up and in some ways define the direction of 2011. I have mentioned some of these already and Adele's '21' is certainly shifting units in the UK this week: it had sold more than 100,000 copies in its first two days of release and by the midweek  Top 10 album chart-preview it was comfortably out-selling #2 - #10 even if their individual sales were totalled!

My first 2011 12" vinyl acquisition is 'Violet Cries', the début album from Esben and The Witch (UK: 31/01/2011).  If you can make it then they are marking the event in their home city of Brighton the following evening.

It is an album that, in an interesting twist, eschews the inclusion of the singles 'Skeleton Swoon' and 'Lucia At The Precipice', but if you have seen E&TW live then you will know just what to expect.

If you wondered why I didn't make a specific post about where I think (live) music is heading in 2011, in contrast to previous years, then this is what I have to say.
I think 2011 might just possibly be a turning point. If it were to be so then I think that the result will not be the dominance of any particular genre but rather the acceptance of many that co-exist and can intermingle influences.  I believe that, as a result of many circumstances, the seeds of this change were first sown a few years ago.

New Music 2011 - Part 10 - more things I am looking forward to.

I mentioned in my last post that it was my intention to, metaphorically at least, cross the Atlantic for my next post in this sequence.  I'm sorry that it took a few extra days to appear but, rest assured, I value the transatlantic trade in new music, evident in the last few years, more than almost anything else.
I prefigured this album in September and here is the track listing for it.

Tell Me  ---  Jessica Lea Mayfield

1. I'll Be The One You Want Someday

2. Our Hearts Are Wrong

3. Blue Skies Again

4. Somewhere In Your Heart

5. Grown Man

6. Trouble

7. Nervous Lonely Night

8. Sometimes At Night

9. Tell Me

10. Run Myself Into The Ground

11. Sleepless

It is released by Nonesuch Records and, like 'With Blasphemy So Heartfelt', is produced by Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys).

I'll follow this with an album that, although I included it in my 'best of 2010' lists, and also saw the artist responsible live in 2010 (at Latitude in this case), I don't think I have ever featured specifically:

That is Lauren Pritchard and inter alia the album 'Wasted In Jackson'.  The album is amazing in my opinion, hence its inclusion in the above mentioned list.
I saw her perform live before I bought the album and that, as often seems to be the case, was revelatory. Much has since been made of her (regular) live cover of  TLC's 'Waterfalls' (1995) - it does not appear on the album. To witness it performed live from the front of the stage was quite something and that it precipitated one of the few torrential showers of the weekend, as if summoned from above by Lisa Lopes, was rather other-worldly.  If that were not enough for just one set, that only lasted forty minutes, the July sun then appeared shining straight into the eyes of Lauren and her band. Her response was simply to rap an Eminem response ad lib and to say that the assembled audience was *stunned* truly deserves the term litotes.  She has since said that this [Latitude 2010] live performance is her most memorable to date and, take it from me as one of the audience, I'm quite happy to believe that.

Better late than never, I suppose. I have already posted some pictures of Jessica Lea Mayfield performing live that I took at EOTR 2010 but I intend to have posted at least one of Lauren Pritchard live at Latitude 2010 by this time tomorrow.

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 11  ---  New Heads On Old Shoulders?

Part 12  ---  Snowglobe - Jesca Hoop

Part 13  ---  Queen of the Minor Key

New Music 2011 - Part 9 - some things I am looking forward to.

My recent posts in this general category have tended to focus on either a single act or artist or sometimes two.  This is somewhat more general.  Both of the records are released (in the UK) tomorrow and I'll start with one that is by an artist already well known - Adele.

Her début album '19' (2008) was generally well received on both sides of the Atlantic and a vindication of XL Records' decision to sign her. When X-Factor included her song 'Make Me Feel Your Love' in late 2010 it sent the song (her original) to #2 in the UK singles chart and the album followed in the ascendency.
The second album is released in the UK tomorrow.  It is very likely that the first single from it, Rolling In The Deep, will top the UK singles chart later this afternoon.

The next act, whose second release also takes place tomorrow, is one that I first encountered at Latitude 2009 and is Mummers. They had just released their début album 'Tale To Tell'. I saw them live in the 'Uncut Arena' on Friday and they were excellent. I posted about it.

At this point everything in their world must have seemed wonderful.  I remember talking with others about the set that we had just seen and saying how much I was looking forward to seeing them again just two months later, as they were to perform at EOTR 2009.  It never happened...  When I arrived at EOTR 2009 there was a notice, handwritten, that simply read:

"Mummers have been forced to cancel. Sorry."

Of course I did not know the true reason why, nor did I suspect that it might be so tragic.  I very soon did, and it struck a chord with me, but I simply couldn't put it better than in this piece: Paul Lester in The Guardian, 20 January 2011.

The most welcome follow up is this EP released tomorrow and on Big Bass Drum Records once again.

Mink Hollow Road is billed as an 'EP' but, with six tracks and running for around twenty-five minutes, it should surely be regarded as a mini-album?  I would so much like to see Mummers live again at a festival in 2011. Please.
   
In the end I still focussed on just two (old habits die hard) but ones with a quite different recording history. I might well do another post today, perhaps focussing on things taking place across the Atlantic.

Note added January 26. 2011:

My own Mink Hollow Road, on CD, awaits me collecting it from the Royal Mail Delivery office tomorrow morning. I'll try to do the lyric, starting with 'Fade Away' if I can and because you asked about it. I can't imagine why I did not post the track list in my earlier post but here it is:

1. Call Me A Rainbow
2. Fade Away
3. Driving Home
4. Cherry Heart
5. Your Voice
6. Stuck In The Middle

I hope to do more tomorrow and, furthermore, would appreciate it if Google could overcome the current issues associated with uploading pictures [specifically to my blog] but a more general problem that happens at certain times that are not entirely unpredictable.

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 10  ---  More things I am looking forward to.
Part 11  ---  New Heads On Old Shoulders?
Part 12  ---  Snowglobe - Jesca Hoop
Part 13  ---  Queen of the Minor Key

Cover versions 2010/2011 - old music revisited

I'm sorry if this post is a bit on-the-fly. I was just about to turn in for the night when I noticed that someone (and thank-you) had ended up here while searching a Famous Web Search Engine for 'recent cover versions'.  I have mentioned a few recently - the latest only a couple of hours ago- so I decided to mention [in the side bar only], Smoke Fairies cover version of the Neil Young song 'Alabama'  and it available to stream for free here.  There is something doing - cover versions are all the rage - and I intend to come back to a selection of them soon. My ambition would be to collate a list of a few choice ones, some less likely than others, from the last few years.  Be that as it may Neil Young has cropped up at least twice very recently: Laura Marling covered 'The Needle and The Damage Done', also from the 1972 album 'Harvest', as the b-side to 7" 'Blues Run The Game', which is also a cover but an older one.

On the other hand it is not as venerable as 'Ghost Woman Blues' that has been revived, and righteously so, by The Low Anthem.

Here, as I was curious as to whether I had heard them correctly, are what I think is the lyric to 'Alabama'.

Alabama

Oh, Alabama
The devil fools with the best laid plan
Swing low Alabama

You got the spare change
You got to feel strange
And now the moment is all that it meant

Alabama, you got the weight on your shoulders
That's breaking your back
Your Cadillac has got a wheel in the ditch
And a wheel on the track

Oh, Alabama
Banjos playing through the broken glass
Windows down in Alabama

See the old folks tied in white ropes
Hear the banjo
Don't it take you down home?

Alabama, you got the weight on your shoulders
That's breaking your back
Your Cadillac has got a wheel in the ditch
And a wheel on the track

Oh Alabama
Can I see you and shake your hand?
Make friends down in Alabama

I'm from a new land
I come to you and see all this ruin
What are you doing Alabama?
You got the rest of the union to help you along
What's going wrong?

2011 - The return of the guitar band?

The fabled return of the guitar band...  it is something that has been trailed by many in the last year or so, and the lack of which was oft-bemoaned before that. Is 2011 the year in which it will happen?
Maybe is not an answer to a polar question, so I'm not going to use it. Some languages, English is not usually one of them (but Welsh usually is), have other ways of answering such questions...

Well there are plenty of guitar bands/artists vying for our ear-space in 2011 but wasn't that the case in 2010? Some of them have history, even true pedigree...
Beady Eye, Elbow, Miles Kane, The Strokes to name but a few... (and The View will try again too). Some of them will succeed, some will not, but that is nothing to mark 2011 as remarkable.  Some of the most notable guitar-led bands will be those that are either currently almost unknown or, at best in the wider scene, little known. That is more important.
I think it unlikely that there will be a sudden revolution in 2011. It will, however be an exciting year, again focussing on live music, and in that quiet but subversive way the revolution will continue. I admit it unlikely that 2012 will feature such scintillating tour dates as Coldplay in Havana or Cheryl Cole live in Pyongyang.
On the other hand, had you asked me in 1983 if I believed that my parents would ever go to Romania then my response would have been "only as the result of some catastrophic invasion".

There are signs that lead me to believe that, however good guitar bands may be, they are going to face a struggle in a world now complicated by cross-genre considerations.  Many of the best acts/artists of 2010 played/featured guitars but were not 'guitar bands' in the typical - I hate to say it - male-orientated tradition.
Warpaint, to mention just one such act, play guitars - a lot - but apparently that's different.

It isn't.

New Music 2011 - Part 8 - Daydreams and Nightmares - Those Dancing Days

I mentioned yesterday that Swedish five-piece Those Dancing Days are back with their sophomore album and that it is in a different style to 2008 début 'In Our Space Hero Suits'.  Here it is:

Daydreams and Nightmares
UK release: 28 February 2011 [Wichita Recordings]

1. Reaching Forward
2. I'll Be Yours
3. Dream About Me
4. Help Me Close My Eyes
5. Can't Find Entrance
6. Fuckarias
7. Forest Of Love
8. When We Fade Away
9. Keep Me In Your Pocket
10. I Know Where You Live
11. One Day Forever

It has rather less of the pop-and-northern-soul 'girl group' inflection, if not exactly influence, of the first album and correspondingly, but again not heavy-handedly so, more of a sinister riot-grrrl electric synth-sound.  The contrast is more than interesting; a case of exploring rather than abandonment.
  
Those Dancing Days are far from over but the rhythm has changed.  You can also legally stream another track from this album - 'I'll Be Yours'.

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 9  ---  Some things I am looking forward to.
Part 10  ---  More things I am looking forward to.
Part 11  ---  New Heads On Old Shoulders?
Part 12  ---  Snowglobe - Jesca Hoop
Part 13  ---  Queen of the Minor Key

Awards Lists - the season of....

You might imagine that I'm going to tell you about the headline ones, but I'm not.  It is easy to forget just what an important part in popular music Scandinavian artists have played.  If you are thinking simply of Abba and A-Ha you are in a 1970s - 1990s buy-in that however remains perennially popular and that is fine - and without doubt Scandinavia has produced some of the most successful and, importantly widely accessible, pop for about forty years now.  That does not even include the influence of the Scandinavian writers who, without fail, wrote hit after hit for the likes of Britney Spears and many, many others...


Scandinavia should not, and has chosen not to, rest on its laurels: on the other hand do you remember either of these albums?

 The former was released in 2008, the latter in 2007  and both are well worth a listen.

If the answer is no then you could simply argue that my point is irrelevant. On the other hand could you name a Scandinavian artist, or better still three, that made an impact on UK, European or - to make it harder still - US music in 2010?


Neither of the above albums are eligible, as it is for 2010 releases, so they do not prejudice my opinion.

That is why the 2011 sees the first ever Nordic Music Prize and here is the list of nominations:
• Dungen - Skit i allt
• Paleface Helsinki - Shangri-La
• Frisk Frugt - Dansktoppen møder Burkina Faso i det himmelblå rum hvor solen bor, suite
• Susanne Sundfør - The Brothel
• Robyn - Bodytalk
• Jónsi - Go Do
• Efterklang - Magic Chairs
• Serena Maneesh - S-M 2: Abyss in B Minor
• The Radio Dept. -  Clinging to a Scheme
• Ólöf Arnalds - Innundir Skinni
• Kvelertak - Kvelertak
• First Aid Kit - The Big Black and The Blue
  
I'll tell you something straight away - I haven't heard half of these, even in part. I like that; and I like the fact that between those that I have heard I would be hard pressed to decide.
    
Equally invalid in the above reckoning, as it has yet to be released, is the second album from Swedish female five-piece 'Those Dancing Days'. They have thoroughly deconstructed the, somewhat Pipettes-reminiscent but arguably rather more endearingly retro, sound of their 2008 début offering. Their second album  promises something rather different and the track on offer (see link below) features vocalist Linnea Jönsson apparently now in the mindset of a polar bear on a fast-melting floe. No longer is logic or reasoning a realistic option.
http://www.thosedancingdays.com