New Music 2018 - Part 10 - Mike Ross - Jenny's Place

More new music and another release by Brighton's At The Helm Records. Let me see what I can tell you about why I like this after a few days and several listens.

Mike Ross - Jenny's Place (At The Helm Records, 2 March 2018).

Mike Ross - Jenny's Place:

• Bamboozled
• The Big Picture
• Dakota Red
• Coffeecan Telephone
• Baby I Love You
• Jenny (Sun Goes Down)
• Dark Powder
• Loveslide

If you can accept that his influences are eclectic then you are quite likely to be fine with this. If not then it might be a rather bumpy ride.

If I had to chose a favourite, and as you may have noticed I most often eschew doing this, it would go to 'Dark Powder' and it is quite something. This album, or at least some of it, goes back a bit further.

Mike Ross - Dark Powder (2016).

This harks back to his childhood spent in the north-east of England during the death throes of the coal mining industry there. It is a narrative that is familiar in many parts of the world and in many different ways. This album flits across borders, even continents, as readily as it does musical influences. 
This is the point at which this album starts to make complete sense to me. This could be Pennsylvania or West Virginia were it not for the proximity of the sea as a waste disposal unit. To make a record that can merge all these influence and still sound like a coherent whole is quite some feat.

Records such as this make interminable January more bearable and I can't wait for the opportunity to hear how this plays out live. I fully intend to do that and, what is more, I believe that Mike Ross plays Truck Festival 2018.