North Dorset Folk Festival 2013 - Part 3

I was sold on North Dorset Folk Festival 2012 pretty much from the get-go and was quite happy to buy a ticket for 2013 without knowing any artists - just as I do for End of The Road Festival (EOTR) - I simply trust that it will be excellent and I have never been let down yet. On the other hand, when I discovered that Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo was to headline NDFF 2013 I could hardly believe what I was reading - and I checked that it wasn't 1 April. It certainly wasn't, and I wasn't dreaming about it either. I first saw them, previously quite unknown to me at EOTR 2009 and was totally taken. Here is that occasion:

No drummer back then. The kit was there for other bands on the stage to use as required.

Other than that the line up remains the same. Here is how it turned out at Marnhull Village Hall on 26 October.

L - R (in both pictures): Anna Jenkins, Jo Silverston, Emily Barker and Gill Sandell.
  

Emily Barker and Gill Sandell in an acoustic guitar and piano accordion duel.
It is easy to forget in the seamless sound the individual contributions of each member.

Anna Jenkins on fiddle.
  

Nostalgia really doesn't get much better than this.
  

If percussionist Nat Butler thought that he was not going to be mentioned on account of his very recent inclusion in the Red Clay Halo then that is not so.

Percussion and bass underpin much of Dear River. Jo Silverston on electric bass.

That two of the artists have also recently released music as side-projects is very worthy of note. Gill Sandell's second solo album, Light The Boats, in September 2013 and the second after Tarry Awhile (2010 and which is also excellent). Emily Barker also participates in London-based collective Arctic Circle that released its first five-track EP 'Lantern Waste' today. Here, taken from it, is 'Hushabye Mountain' to stream and the EP to buy. I have to say that I have a particular fondness for track 4 ' Unreasonable Dreams'.

Just a thought... North Dorset Folk Festival

This is what you are missing as I write and, indeed, so am I.

O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire is an all-seated venue of approximately 2000 capacity.  It is now too late to go to this concert anyway. On the other hand the very same are headlining North Dorset Folk Festival on 26 October. The venue, Marnhull Village Hall, is much more intimate and as of an hour ago there were about twenty tickets still available. See you there? 

EOTR 2013 - acts to see live for the first time.

As ever EOTR for me was a mixture of acts and artists that were known to me and that I wished to see live for the first time, ones that I wanted to see again (and again in one of two cases) and the usual sprinkling of ones about which I was previously unaware. This last category is one on which I rate festivals very highly and EOTR has over the years been exemplary in this regard.

Taking the first category first as the subject of this post I shall start with London-based Daughter. On the basis of their 2013 début album 'If You Leave' and a couple of preceding EPs I had them in my sight and watching footage of their live performances at Glastonbury earlier in the summer only made the London three-piece an absolute must-see. They played the gloriously situated Garden Stage on Saturday evening and certainly didn't disappoint.

Daughter, Garden Stage, EOTR 2013, 31 August.

I was very fortunate to get as close to the front of this set to get such pictures as this. I had to hotfoot it from the main Woods Stage as soon as another of my must-see acts has finished their set. This is one of the great advantage of the compact but not cramped EOTR festival site.

This was one act where I struggled to take photos that captured the moment.

Emily Kokal of Los Angeles four-piece Warpaint on the Woods Stage.

The band performed a number of new songs strongly hinting that a follow up to 2010 LP The Fool and 2008 EP Exquisite Corpse is soon to be unleashed on a waiting world.

Surprise opener on the Big Top Stage on Friday, in place of the unavailable Four Mile House, was Widowspeak from Brooklyn. I'm really not sure how I became aware of them but I bought their 2011 début album very soon after it has appeared - in fact I think I had to import the vinyl version from the US so I had obviously convinced myself of its worth and, as it happens, I was right. Now a duo rather than a four-piece they have recently released their second album Almanac, which I do not have yet. On hearing them live that will very soon be remedied!

Robert Earl Thomas and Molly Hamilton, Big Top Stage, 30 September.

How I might choose to classify their music is open to debate, but then they don't seem to consider pigeon-holing it themselves a priority either. Indie guitar certainly but some of the flowing guitar parts and melodies are beguiling in the extreme and sound as if they come from an earlier time.

New Music 2013 - A malleable wishlist

The post title says it all really. I have just got to a point that, although rather enviable, I can't keep up. Here is a partial list of the albums that I really want to hear - The order in which they are listed is merely alphabetical by artist. Not all have been released yet, but some may be available in part to stream legally and I shall likely add some links to that, as well as some more thoughts that I see as key, in the coming days:

• Dear Reader - Rivonia
• Emily Baker - All at Sea
• Gabrielle Aplin - English Rain
• Little Boots - Nocturnes
• Pascal Pinon - Twosomeness
• Polly Scattergood - Arrows
• Widowspeak - Almanac
• Wild Belle - Isles

Of the eight I have already seen five of them live: the exceptions are Pascal Pinon (Iceland), Widowspeak and Wild Belle (both US acts). Widowspeak is already confirmed for End of The Road 2013.

New Music 2011 - Part 7 - Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo

OK, I was planning on doing more on new music this weekend.  It would certainly have been tomorrow, rather than just now, were it not for this.  In all probability you have already heard at least a snippet or two of the work of this artist even if you were quite unaware of it...

It is released (in the UK) on February 7, 2011 and Almanac is their third album.

This is the track list for Almanac:

• Billowing Sea
• Reckless
• Ropes (which was in the live set at EOTR 2009)
• Little Deaths (also in the live set at EOTR 2009)
• Dancers
• Pause
• Openings
• Calendar
• Light
• Witch of Pittenween
• Bones

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 8  ---  Those Dancing Days
Part 9  ---  Some things I am looking forward to.
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