New Music 2018 - Part 14 - Darrin Bradbury - Elmwood Park: A Slightly Melodic Songbook

I didn't find this. Someone, that I have never met and quite possibly never will, just saw fit to recommended it to me. That this is how it works is amazing in itself.  I struggle to find many male artists that I really like listening to when compared to female ones. That is just the way it works for me. This is one of those exceptions.
The music here is awesome. I'm quite wary of musical monikers such as 'outlaw country' but be-that-as-it-may this is pretty close to what I imagine it might involve should it indeed exist. It is cynical to a fault, but given a perspective that suggests both a longing-for and respect-of the faults that it reveals. That includes a dose of self-deprecation.
In that sense it makes me think of when I discovered the 2016 album 'Rockingham' by BJ Barham.

Elmwood Park: A Slightly Melodic Audiobook - Darrin Bradbury (Café Rooster Records, 2016).

If I could find it on vinyl at a half-sensible price then I would have already ordered it. I can't. At least (here in the UK) you can enjoy it on Spotify here.

Elmwood Park: A Slightly Melodic Audiobook - Darrin Bradbury:

• True Love
• Life Is Hard
• Joey
• The Almost Great Lakes
• The Roadkill Song
• Junkie Love
• Swordfish
• Elmwood Park
• I Knew Him as Sam
• The Blue Highway

I have listened to it three times right through this evening and that was certainly not part of my game plan three hours ago. On the other hand nothing even half as interesting as this actually was.  It is actually a 2016 release but I had never heard about the artist, let alone the record. Its time is now.

This is 'True Love'.

New Music 2018 - Part 13 - Ryley Walker - Deafman Glance

Once upon a time almost all artists that I saw at festivals were totally new to me live, if not entirely new to me. Eleven years later and, while I'm still first in line to see new acts live, the situation has changed somewhat. I tend to have a much better knowledge and perspective on what I wish to see, be that new to me or not.
I also have the great pleasure of having seen artists live over multiple years and often at several different festivals. That has turned out to be a pleasure that I had never really anticipated. This post is about one such.

Ryley Walker, Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, 1 September 2017.

I first saw him play live when he was touring the album 'Primrose Green' in 2015; before that I had not really come across his music and if I had certainly not paid much attention to it. Seeing him live made me take notice.
I saw him play live again this last summer and then he introduced some new songs that have gone on to become part of his forthcoming release 'Deafman Glance', the track-listing of which is as follows:

Ryley Walker - Deafman Glance:

• In Castle Dome
• 22 Days
• Accommodations
• Can't Ask Why
• Opposite Mind
• Telluride Speed
• Expired
• Rocks on Rainbow
• Spoil with the Rest

Ryley Walker - Deafman Glance (Dead Oceans, 18 May 2018).

The lead release take from it is the track 'Telluride Speed' and this is the official audio of it.

It is also available to stream on Spotify here.

It is also a good example of a phenomenon that I have mentioned previously; that of labels that I am confident will release material that in all probability I'm going to like. In this case that label is Dead Oceans, which is based in Bloomington, IN.
I have just been looking at its current roster of artists and, as well as quite a few that I have already seen live, there are many more whose music, recorded or live, I now feel that I should listen to as a matter of some urgency.

New Music 2018 - Part 12 - The Orielles - Silver Dollar Moment

As I have started listening to bands on the increasing wave of acts that I do not know much about and announced for festivals that I am attending in 2018, of which more later, it has caused me to reflect on some that I became acquainted with last summer. One thing that comes to mind here is that, despite all claims to the contrary, indie guitar rock is not dead and neither does it consist only of bands that made their reputations "back in the day", whenever that was.
There seem to be plenty of young bands willing and able to seek out nooks and crannies of the genre that they feel deserving of some attention.  This is the début LP from one of them that I saw at Green Man Festival 2017.

The Orielles - Silver Dollar Moment (Heavenly Recordings, 16 February 2018).

A three-piece from Halifax, Yorkshire the band consists of sisters Esmé D Hand-Halford (lead vocals, bass), Sidonie B Hand-Halford (percussion) and Henry Carlyle Wade (guitar, vocals) and on one level the songs are mirrored by the album artwork: fascinating but difficult to define exactly what it is or what it means. The band cites cinema, and Tarantino in particular, as an influence and that might have a bearing on all this.
What I will say is that although I am no aficionado of cinema I find this album fascinating. Not only do I like it but it works for me either as something to concentrate on to the exclusion of almost everything else but it also works as background music too. Indeed I have been doing both while thinking about, composing and then writing this post. I wonder if the band had and eye on and ear to the possibility that their music might attract cinematic attention. It would certainly be a good commercial move if it were to come off.

Their set at Green Man Festival 2017 was unenviable in one way - the band opened the lovely Walled Garden stage at mid-day Saturday. Opening a stage is never easy after the night before, even if that only applies to the audience, and inevitable nerves. The band showed no sign of the latter and the audience was significant and appreciative; however I found the atmosphere harder to catch on camera!

The Orielles - Walled Garden stage, Green Man Festival, 19 August 2017.

I won't single-out any tracks from the LP but I will mention their first single, which is not on the album, because the eight-minutes-plus of 'Sugar Tastes Like Salt' had already done more than enough to pique my interest and ensure that I was going to be there to discover more. The fact that it was released on Heavenly Recordings helped too; I have rediscovered the concept of "trusted" labels and this is one of them.

Here it is:

The Orielles are confirmed to play End Of The Road Festival 2018.

Seafaring tales... and two contrasting albums.

Wildwood Jack - Liberty Ship (self-released, 1 March 2018)

The first, and the most recently released, deserves my attention. It is a work of entirely original songwriting and the theme is nautical to a fault. It is in great part the work of a duo based in Kent, UK; Jayne Freeman (vocals, ukulele) and Adam Piggott (acoustic guitar) but of course there is judicious use of additional artists when greater depth or diversity is required. Liam Genocky plays percussion throughout.
The songs on it are as follows:

Widwood Jack - Liberty Ship:

• An Ordinary Day
• The Captain and Me
• The Lost Gypsy
• Morning Star
• Just a Dreamer
• Man Overboard
• By the Light of This Lantern
• Unsinkable Sam
• Liberty Ship
• Bluegrass Boy
• Montgomery Canal

It is nevertheless a fairly stripped back affair and that works very well here in my opinion. It is solid throughout but one of the highlights is the story of a ship's cat 'Unsinkable Sam'; in fact one cat, capital ships sunk by both sides, in a war and the survivor of three sinkings.
The last track is a trip far from the storm-tossed briny waters. It has reminded me that, now that I think about it, I can't recall many songs about canals and other inland waterways. This is one that comes to mind because I mentioned it last year.

The second LP in this post is quite a different affair. For a start all the songs are traditional or, if not exactly however that may be defined, are certainly not original to the band. Many of them may be familiar to you from bands such as The Dubliners as well as many more.  Some of it is bawdy. A particular mention here must go to the song 'Blow The Man Down' which is explicitly about the dangers to a feckless man of attempting to take advantage of a Plymouth girl!

Admirals Hard - Upon A Painted Ocean (Genepool Records/Believers Roast BR018, 22 July 2016).

Admirals Hard - Upon A Painted Ocean

• Boney Was a Warrior
• Spanish Ladies
• Hullabaloo Belay
• South Australia
• Blow the Man Down
• The Broadside Man
• The Eddystone Light
• The Random Jig / I'll Get Wedded in My Auld Claes
• Whip Jamboree / Let the Bulgine Run
• Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her
• Rounding the Horn
• All for Me Grog
• Martin Said to His Man

This is an almost acoustic seven-piece band but is actually a side project of musicians,  from Devon and Cornwall, that mostly ply their daily trade in the left-field electronic music scene of London. It is what happened when they decided to get together and do something completely different with their many and varied talents. There are certainly some progressive flourishes herein but then folk music was never intended to be set in stone.
I wouldn't wish to venture my favourites here, because they keep changing, except to say that Whip Jamboree/Let the Bulgine Run will always be on it. This may be because, unlike most of the other songs and tunes here, they were totally new to me when I first heard them on this recording. I must seek other versions of them but I have not got around to so doing yet.