What is new, what is not?

This is an interesting question right now... I'm thinking about all the new music I have heard - live, recorded and in some cases both - in 2009. That has also made me think more about the music, regardless of release date, that I have listened to most frequently in the last two months.

Much of it falls into both categories and a yet a considerable proportion does not. More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that even when it does I have never explicitly mentioned it. 'The Local', at EOTR 2009, might not be the most prepossessing tented venue in festival land but, for everything it lacks in that regard is more than made up in other ways. It is not particularly well appointed...

...and, if you are playing, you need to fix it for yourselves. It was also home to many artists that you simply don't yet know, but needed to see and hear, and this is is one of them.

Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo, live at EOTR 2009 and...

...this is the set-list for it.

These tracks come from two albums: Photos, Fires, Fables (2007) and Despite The Snow (2009), both of which I bought after seeing this live performance, and have played countless times since. An act that employs piano accordion always stands a good chance of getting my attention and, as my luck would have it, this was just one of several that I have seen this year. Yesterday someone ended up here searching for "unusual musical instruments", a category that is in some ways in the ear of the beholder. I have seen a few played live this year, including bassoon, auto-harp, stylophone, several xylophones and also a few toy instuments too...

Related links:

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2010/01/this-is-how-its-meant-to-be-lyrics.html

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/12/nostalgia-emily-barker.html

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2010/05/theres-blackbird-singing-it-is-coming.html