New Music 2010 - Yet another wants-list.

It is time that I retuned to this again, it is in effect 'Part 12', and is there anything
more to wish for? Let me tell you that, at least in my world, there most certainly is.
I'll start with some items from the US including this one that was released in 2009 but I only discovered recently and received in physical form today.  It is surely no secret, unless that is you have been Google-transported here on a whim in which case I can only apologise and welcome you, that I am a fan of folk, acoustica and Americana amongst other genres.

It is true that buying music essentially unheard, based on a hunch and the odd review by who-knows-who, is something of a risk but I don't regard it as gambling; for a start the odds are better and the risk is commensurate with the reward.  You might win big-time, in terms of new music, but you will never lose more than you pay for the item in question.  Based on two listenings this evening this one is a winner: quietly optimistic and plaintive by turns, but not by numbers.
Many have made the Bon Iver comparisons; Bowerbirds toured with him and aside from that I can see why they are made.  'Upper Air' also made me rediscover my CD of Laura Veirs' 2004 album 'Carbon Glacier': It is less melancholy than 'For Emma, Forever Ago' and rather less icily wrought than 'Carbon Glacier', but certainly none the worse for that.  If you like 'A Fine Frenzy', and therefore wonder about pain and piano, then you might like to try this.


You might by now have realized that my definition of new is not something concocted by a major label, or for that matter any other but it seems less likely, nor will it be predictable.  Formed in 2004, and on their fifth drummer before the release of their first album later this summer but until now little known in the UK.
Los Angeles present:

Today there was also an historic victory for new music of all kinds...  the BBC trustees ruled against the proposed shut down of Digital Radio BBC6 Music.  This is no time for complacency however; we need to build on that victory for the benefit of public service broadcasting worldwide.

To Listen to in 2008 - Part 4

While you might think it perhaps just more of the usual fare I have to admit that I've had very considerable help here.
Thanks to Beki, who happens to have provided most of the trans-Atlantic input including several artists of which, if I had ever even heard of them before, I have no recollection of whatsoever. [I'm getting old you see...]
This first I was aware of; A Fine Frenzy is the alter ego of Los Angeleno singer-songwriter Alison Sudhol but it is not my place to attempt to even paraphrase the comment so I haven't:

"The singer has a great voice but I think I would end up seriously depressed if I listened to a whole album in one go."

Three more were mentioned and the artist that, as of now, I haven't investigated further is Tyler Hilton. The other two were these, again in her own words:

• Kate Voegele's album 'Don't look away' is actually rather good, she reminds me a bit of Michelle Branch.
• Colbie Caillat's album 'Coco' has also found it's way onto my laptop and I wasn't too sure at first but she's really growing on me... it's coffee shop music :)

Now these are two that had completely passed me by although, by virtue of being older I suppose, the name Caillat rang distant bells and, after some on-line investigations, this is why. Her father, Kenneth Caillat, was co-producer of one of the biggest selling pop albums of all time, Fleetwood Mac Rumors (1977) and also the, often maligned, Lindsey Buckingham-inspired follow-up double album Tusk (1979).

This was regarded as a failure, at least commercially, but it has now sold rather more than four million copies and for most that would be an heroic achievement - that it is not is comparative and simply because Rumors is now past the thirty million mark! The fact remains that almost everyone knows of Rumors, at least in passing, while Tusk is also a very good album but largely forgotten. I don't know where all the other copies are languishing but here is one that remains both loved and listened-to:

Warner Brothers K66088 in all its original vinyl glory.

This has proven very interesting and not just because I've discovered perhaps rather obviously that I'm not the only one willing to experiment by listening to things that can, in so far as they are discernible as a category, at best be lumped together as being 'beneath UK radar defences'. Some may in time become household names while others will doubtless disappear without trace, but equally that can happen to home-grown acts too and there is certainly no shortage of those either, in any flavour you might desire.

OK. I admit that I've gone a bit off-message here and so the ramblings will have to be continued in another post soon. This is why it is fun, not merely just another job.