2011 in Music - Albums - Part 1

No real change in presentation here from last year; two lists of albums strictly in order alphabetical by artist. The difference is that this year I'm going to publish the lists first and, only when you have had a week to consider (and comment - see below), shall I add the links and my thoughts on why they are included and, perhaps, others are not.
In no way is this intended to be a balanced list, far from it in fact: It is quite utterly biased to what has caught my attention in a lasting way in 2011.

• Adele - 21
• Amy LaVere - Stranger Me
• Austra - Feel It Break
• Bella Hardy - Songs Lost and Stolen
• Emily Barker - Almanac
• Esben and The Witch - Violet Cries
• Jessica Lea Mayfield - Tell Me
• Lanterns On The Lake - Gracious Tide, Take Me Home
• Seapony - Go With Me
• Thea Gilmore - John Wesley Harding
• Widowspeak - Widowspeak
• Yuck - Yuck

Please feel free to add comments, queries, suggestions or questions. It is what this is all about, whether negative, positive or simply mystified!  All comments are moderated (by me alone, so you know that I read them) and while I prefer it that you can put your real identity to your piece, because you should believe in what you are saying and be prepared to stand up and be counted, I will sometimes sanction the publishing of "anonymous" comments. Comments that are defamatory, offensive or simply irrelevant in content or context will not be published regardless of source.
I'll attempt to answer valid questions and comments either in comments of my own in reply or in a more general 'round-up' post.

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 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

Best 'textbite' of 2009?

You are doubtless well aware of all those award ceremonies and the gushing, often excruciatingly long, acceptance speeches that they entail so here is a refreshing antidote.
Ellie Goulding has been named the chosen one, following Adele (Adkins) in 2008 and Florence and The Machine in 2009, as the recipient of the Critics' Choice Brit Award 2010 .

Her initial response, posted on Twitter, was this:
"Er, I won a bloody Brit Award."

After some reflection she was more expansive:
"When I found out, I had a little squeal, I had a little cry and I had a little fall down."

Understatement becomes her, something that is not entirely true of the acts that came second and third in this list: second was Manchester electro-indie band Delphic and third was an act that, since seeing it play live in July, I have tipped for great things - Marina and The Diamonds.

The choice is an interesting threesome in any case: Marina Diamandis does not do shy-wallflower singer-songwriter or anything even remotely approaching it. She does however do both singing, songwriting and also sensational live performance with her band (she also plays keys on some tracks), and the effect is quite remarkable.

Hyped, unheard or hated music - I just can't wait!

The music press, even at the most lowly level, is guilty as charged and I'm totally guilty for writing this but you are implicated for reading it!
The whole thing is just a circus and almost always has been; now we can all add to the oxygen of publicity even if our individual contributions are small. On the other hand certain sections of the established music press can come over strange when they perceive an artist is "hyped" and thus no longer a (probably badly kept) secret. This annoys me slightly.
I'm more than willing to seek, buy and then mention music by lesser known artists if their music seems interesting to me (and sometimes only because I think it might) but I'm certainly not going to feel guilty about mentioning any artist in any category.

This artist has been hyped good-and-proper (in the UK at least) but nevertheless I like the album a great deal. If I can I'll still try to avoid borrowing photographs of the artwork by taking my own and happily this time I could.

This is my 12" vinyl version, guaranteed totally free of DRM!

Adele Adkins live in late 2007.

Whither vinyl in 2008?

That is hard to say for certain but it's looking OK so far as Adele's album '19', released on 28th January is confirmed as being available on vinyl (same release date). The current single, Chasing Pavements and released today, is also available on 7".

All credit to her label XL for that but, perhaps understandably, you'll have to part with rather more cash for them than you will for the CD or download versions but then you get so much more.

More new artists for 2008...

Real talent will out and with talent like this who needs reality TV music contests?

The first is, after perhaps Adele, the singer-songwriter that has recently occupied more column inches in the newspapers as the release of her début album Rockferry moves closer.

If the single 'Rockferry', released in December 2007 and of which this is the artwork of the 7" version, is anything to go by the hype is justified. Duffy comes from NW Wales but Rockferry is a mythical location in it - well not that mythical, this is actually Porthmadog Harbour station in disguise! The deliberately retro-look of the black and white picture is quite understandable and so, I believe, is much of the hype surrounding this release. Last week she played her first live gig in London, at a small venue, and the reactions that have filtered out from those who were there is one of bewilderment: they expected it to be good but not even half as good as it was.

This should be the album artwork and it is due for release on 3rd March . It is currently #12 in amazon.co.uk music pre-orders fully five weeks before release, which suggests a very high entry on the week of release.

Cob Records is indeed a proper old-fashioned music store and it is also to be found in Porthmadog High Street, virtually opposite the aforementioned station.

Now some bands:
Foals are widely tipped to explode across the face of the UK in 2008, in perhaps the kind of way that The Klaxons achieved last year. Again they have worked up a huge live following before the release of their first album Antidotes, due 24th March. Expect them to be at many of this summer's festivals.

Ubiquitous at last summer's festivals were the outrageously entertaining Brazilians CSS who will return with their second album in the early summer of 2008. This summer they might even have some southern hemisphere competition and if they do I suspect it will come from a five-piece whose combined age is only about 20% more than Mick Jagger's!

They hail from Queensland, Australia and they are Operator Please! Their first album has not yet had a full UK release but it is neither too hard or too costly to find an Australian import copy.

Yes Yes Vindictive - Operator Please!