My Music in 2017 - Albums - Part 1

Right then, the time for year-end lists is with us once again. This led me to consider that it is my twelfth year of doing such things. The first was posted on 10 December 2006 and that was just three months after starting this blog. It was also before I started attending music festivals. It was to be the driving force for that, and attempts at music photography soon followed.
That list of ten albums from 2006 is here.

The rules have changed little since: there will be several lists of albums as well as other categories. All entries in each list are alphabetical by artist and inclusion in a first list does not imply that I regard these releases to be superior to those in a later list of the same category.
Why do I do this? The answer to this question, which I have been asked surprisingly often, is that it serves to crystallise my thoughts on all the music that I have heard in the past year. That is more important than ever. I don't have exact numbers but I am in no doubt that in 2017 I have listened to more music than in any previous year. That includes approximately 150 live acts.
Music by artists that I have seen live at some time or another continues to have a profound effect on my listening habits. To make that point this list consists only of albums released in 2017 by artists that I have also seen live in 2017.
The reverse is also holds true; I have made an effort to see a number of artists in 2017 as a result of falling for their music in recorded format. John Moreland is a very good example of that. His LP 'High On Tulsa Heat' was on this list last year. The follow-up 'Big Bad Luv' is on this one and therefore here he is...

John Moreland, Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, 2 September 2017.

• Angel Olsen - Phases
• Courtney Marie Andrews - Honest Life
• Holly Macve - Golden Eagle
• Hurray For The Riff Raff - The Navigator
• John Moreland - Big Bad Luv
• John Smith - Headlong
• Otis Gibbs - Mount Renraw
• Pumarosa - The Witch
• Rosie Hood - The Beautiful and The Actual
• Stevie Parker - Blue

Less than an hour later...

Courtney Marie Andrews, Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, 2 September 2017.

I guess it is fair to say that I have rather indie-traditional leanings in the music I favour but in fact I have listened to a surprising amount of pop and electronic music this year too. I'm neither proud nor embarrassed about that.
The highlight is possibly that the last few years of political turmoil have re-energised the whole gamut of narrative music based on protest, hardship and (voluntary or otherwise) displacement.

My first attempt at seeing Pumarosa live, at Truck Festival 2016, was entirely successful. Taking photos was not however, thanks to a tetchy memory card. With a new memory card and as it happens a different camera I fared somewhat better in 2017.

Pumarosa's Isabel Munoz-Newsome, Walled Garden stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.

John Smith, Tipi stage, End Of The Road Festival, 2 September 2017.

If there is a curve-ball it is the inclusion of 'Phases' by Angel Olsen because it is in a sense a compilation. My reason is this. I first saw her live at Green Man 2014, knowing next to nothing of her or her work, and was blown away. In great part by the music but also by her faintly diffident approach. Three years on, and after the release of 'My Woman' in 2016, she returned to Green Man in 2017. I was interested to see what might have changed. Quite a lot to tell the truth and much as I expected to be honest. Totally amazing and still playing that 1979 Gibson S-1.

Angel Olsen, Far Out stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.

Dyn Gwrydd :: 2017 :: Green Man - Part 2 - Three to see (again)

Festivals are a chance to see new music as I mention often and it is a subject that I will come back to soon. After a while they also become a way to catch up and see acts again. This post is predicated on that theme. Three acts that I have seen before at three different festivals between 2012 and 2016 revisited at Green Man 2017 each playing on a different stage and on a different day.
I shall start with the one that I first saw at live Green Man 2014 and playing the Mountain stage that year. Back then she was touring her  2014 album 'Burn Your Fire For No Witness' and was one of the most impressive artists but also one that I knew rather little about at that time. This time she is touring on the back of the 2017 LP 'My Woman'.
She is also an artist never known to make the photographer's task easy. Once you know that it counts in your favour.

Angel Olsen & her '79 Gibson S-1, Far Out stage, Green Man Festival, Friday 18 August.

This next artist is someone that first saw live at End Of The Road Festival at the end of last summer. She opened the beautiful Garden stage on Sunday and I messed up almost all of the pictures that I took then but the music was great. I had to try and do something to redeem myself this time... and as luck would have it maybe I did. What is beyond question is that the artist has grown into her rôle too. In the time between these festivals Holly Macve released her début album 'Golden Eagle' on Bella Union Records.
That is a great record but this song isn't on it because it is a brand new one. It is also the only song in the set on which she played electric guitar.

'Iris', Holly Macve, Mountain stage, Green Man Festival, Sunday 20 August 2017.

Last but not least is a band from Scotland and one that I have not seen live since the one-and-only No Direction Home Festival in 2012. Their latest release is 'Wide Majestic Aire' (2016); tongue-in-cheek the title may be but the band goes from strength to strength. A broken guitar string only added to the spectacle, but I'll come back to what happened then sometime later. All I will say is that it made me even more in awe.

Trembling Bells, Walled Garden stage, Green Man Festival, Saturday 19 August 2017.

Two of these acts also share a single person as a musical collaborator in their canon of work.

Festivals - from 2016 into 2017

It's time to start thinking about festivals again except of course for Glastonbury 2017; that sold out months ago and I had no desire to even consider it!
I have tickets for a few, no secrets there, and now that the first artist announcements are revealed it has reminded me that these things have - as well as so many options to see acts that are new, or just new to me - a rather likeable sense of continuity and even community.
This is Green Man 2017, as currently revealed.

Of course I want to see PJ Harvey and Ryan Adams headline. I must say that Future Islands is unknown by comparison in my experience, but the forthcoming album 'The Far Field' is getting great previews and I guess that, at least from their perspective, Green Man would count as exactly 'A Far Field' to them!
Of extreme interest are those a little lower down in this list.

Angel Olsen was astonishing on The Mountain stage at Green Man 2014.

I have never seen Micheal Kiwanuka live, and I very much want to. There are others that I have seen live and that I very much wish to see again. Here is one that for some reason I haven't mentioned before and I can't imagine why. She opened the Tipi stage, the smallest regular one, on the Saturday of End Of The Road 2016. It isn't that I failed to pay attention, because I did.

Julia Jacklin. Tipi stage, End Of The Road Festival, 3 September 2016.

Another fine artist hailing from Australia. In 2014 Green Man served up Courtney Barnett and in 2015 End Of The Road bought us Tame Impala.  Julia Jacklin isn't much like either of them. She is another one-off; Australia has strength in depth.

Julia Jacklin - Don't Let The Kids Win (Transgressive Records, 24 October 2016).

Her début album passed me by at the time of release. That annoys me. Clearly I had lost the plot here because it was released only a few weeks after I saw her play live. There is no excuse for that.

Note added 8 February 2017:
Julia Jacklin is now confirmed to play End Of The Road Festival 2017.

My 2014 in Music - Albums - Part 1

With December, traditionally the start of the pre-Christmas hiatus in meaningful musical releases, just hours away it is time to start mentioning those releases of 2014 that have for whatever reason been highlights for me.
One change is that while the acts are grouped in alphabetical order the number of entries has been reduced to ten in this list. This is not due to a shortage of possibilities, far from it indeed, but rather to make compiling and writing each post more manageable.

• Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire For No Witness
• Arc Iris - Arc Iris
• Clara Engel - Looking Glass Fire
• Jennifer Crook - Carnforth Station
• Joanne Shaw Taylor - The Dirty Truth
• The Moulettes - Constellations
• Ninebarrow - While The Blackthorn Burns
• The Rails - Fair Warning
• Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso
• Ward Thomas - From Where We Stand

One thing that changed not a jot is the influence that music I have seen live during 2014 has had on the outcome - eight of the ten above fall into that category and of those eight I have seen four live on at least two distinct occasions. Of the ten, five are LPs that I own on vinyl.

I just felt the need to get the ball rolling on this late autumn afternoon. It is easy to keep putting the start of such things off for another day for while it is certainly not a chore, a certain activation barrier has to be overcome nevertheless. Links - some might be my own and others to the artist or label - and probably some relevant photos will follow shortly.
I am happy if people would like to make comments and suggestions. I will be equally so if this leads anyone to find music of which they were previously either unaware of had forgotten about. If it tempts you to head out and see some live music then that is a real bonus. It is also, truth be told, quite simply the music that I really liked.

The alphabet is as it is; it starts this list with an artist that was a complete surprise, and a revelation, to me. I had heard it said that, as a performer, she is at best diffident and at worst obtuse. Be that as it may I can now go only with what I heard and observed myself. Those descriptions are quite harsh I believe; reserved and self-absorbed maybe, which means it admirably mirrors the album title 'Burn Your Fire For No Witness'. 

Angel Olsen - Green Man Festival 2014.

A bonus that accrued from starting a blog is that I really had to go out to see live music and soon armed with a camera. I often don't go far at all...

Ward Thomas, Cheese & Grain, Frome, 2 August 2014.  The opening date of their début headline tour.

The Moulettes are currently supporting Bellowhead on tour, but often playing as a four-piece and good though this is (dubbed the Moulllites by Hannah Miller) when I saw them thus live at Reading Hexagon just a couple of weeks ago you really do need to see them live as a six-piece playing a full set because that is in another league entirely. This was fresh on my mind as I had seen them thus just ten days previously at Marnhull Acoustic Sessions. You can do exactly that at Behind The Castle Festival on 13 June 2015.

One of the Reading absentees: Ruth Skipper, Marnhull Acoustic Session, 9 November 2014.

Green Man 2014 - Mountain Stage - Saturday

My approach to choosing acts to see at festivals is, as you may have gathered, somewhat esoteric. I rarely consider main stage headlines when determining ticket purchase and have a penchant for the small stages and artists at the bottom of the running order...
Well that was true of my first trip to Green Man Festival too. I did however do something I have never done before (I'm not really sure why, it was not a prefigured plan) - that was to see all nine acts on the main 'Mountain Stage' on Saturday in entirety.

The mountain in question is Pen Cerrig-calch, just in case you were wondering.

As this is Wales who better to open proceedings than Georgia Ruth, the winner of the 2013 Welsh Music Prize, complete with a very modern version of the instrument most widely associated with Wales?

The songs taken from her 2013 LP 'Week of Pines' were as good as I expected; so too were the several new ones that were interspersed between them. She introduced each song bilingually - alternating between Welsh first and English first.

I was not so familiar with the work of all the acts and the next, Zachary Cale, is a case in point but I imagine you can see why I found it arresting.

It was about this time that the idea of seeing the whole caboodle occurred to me. It wasn't just about the music it was about the stage too. Like the 'Garden Stage' at End of The Road, but for different reasons, it is something special. In between times I still managed a few forays to the smaller stages, food stalls and the bar. Next to play Mutual Benefit. It is not a band, it is a fluid collective, except when it is only Jason Lee. Last Saturday it involved a handful of collaborators. My arrival, just as they started, limited my options somewhat.

The really important thing was now I was where I wanted to be for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I already had designs on this.

I make no secret of the fact that the 2014 LP Burn Your Fire For No Witness is headed towards my end of year list. It is not uplifting in a conventional sense.  Live is no different; she has a penchant for playing, when not singing, with her back turned to the audience and that tension is no bad thing either. Taut and compelling in equal measure this is music that requires one to pay full attention.

Angel Olsen

She was followed by another US female artist that I have wanted to see live for some time now. To my eternal shame I have missed this opportunity at a festival that I have attended at least once.

That artist is Neko Case. It was a splendid juxtaposition. Gone was the tension to be replaced by free-wheeling carelessness; some of the band asides were probably as good, and as well judged, as anything to be heard in the comedy tent. It was also the last date of a fifteen-month world tour. That is stamina.

And there was banjo, and pedal steel - heaven is a sunny Saturday afternoon in south Wales.

(And an interesting contrast with 'Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio'.)

Hamilton Leithauser has worked with more well known acts than I have the time or inclination to mention. I had never really considered what he might have to offer when he was the centre of attention until it was there for me to watch. His début solo album 'Black Hours' might have changed that in time.  Seeing him perform live just expedited the process.

This is one reason, beyond the enjoyment I get from live music, that festivals serve to inform and educate me.
So here I am, as he leaves the stage, 7¼ hours after Georgia Ruth had taken to it, and it is still only early evening. 'Are We There' is the title of the 2014 album by the next artist on that stage.

Sharon Van Etten.
Towards the end of her set she was joined by Hamilton Leithauser for a duet.

And so here they are.

First support was 'The War on Drugs' and, for some reason I seem to have taken something of a time-out on photography here and I can't, for the life of me, remember why that was because I can clearly recall watching and listening. Be that as it may, I seemed to be back for headline act 'Mercury Rev'.
This is an act that I had long managed to avoid seeing live and this time I was determined not only to fail to do so again but also to do it justice. I'm not going to hide my lamp under a bushel here; this was everything I could have hoped for and more. A band that was clearly relishing the moment as much as was the audience. This next might seem a strange choice of picture but it is the one I wanted to use just now. 

Festivals are not all about crowd instinct. Think about that.

Green Man 2014 - a preview.

Green Man 2014 is now sold out. I am in anticipation of my first ever visit and to be quite honest the line up looks as though it might present one of the most clashes between stages that I have ever tried to square.
I can even get a readable image of the list into a single screen-full that you can read but still be prepared to scroll and/or zoom.

I'll be busy.

Would I like to chose a pre-festival must see list? Quite frankly, no!

I wouldn't want to do it for just one stage let alone the combination of them. One thing that makes things easier in some ways is that there are quite a few acts that I have seen before. That of course doesn't mean I don't want to see them again, because for the most part I do, but they are something of a known quantity live. On the other hand there is almost no overlap with Truck Festival 2014, which I went to last month or End of the Road 2014 in a fortnight's time

Here as a compromise is a short list, in alphabetical order, of eight acts that I have never seen live before but are on my "list of ones to see". None are appearing at EOTR 2014 unless I'm mistaken. It covers all stages and many of them have appeared in these posts before:

• Angel Olsen
• Fat White Family
• Georgia Ruth
• Joanna Gruesome
• Laura Groves
• O'Hooley & Tidow
• Samaris
• Wildest Dreams

The links were chosen on the basis of what attracted me to seeing them live although this is likely not where I first got that information. I deliberately have not included amongst them anything that I have written. In the case of Joanna Gruesome the link was chosen on the basis of its explanation of the bands formation. It maybe quite the urban myth but who wants the truth to get in the way of a good tale?
There's some variety of music in the list, I think.

New Music 2014 - Part 8

While my recent posts about live music have a very obvious UK (indeed English) folk bias, and the next live act that I'm going to see is Spiers and Boden, that is not the case with the ongoing posts on new music which, even if the artists are UK based, draws heavily on US traditions and that is certainly true of both the artists featured in this post.
Both are 2014 releases by US-based independent record labels and both are by female artists. These are not country, alt-or-otherwise, but neither are they country rock either. They are not an incomprehensible change but, ultimately, they are what they are. I like them, which matters more than anything, and that is why they are here.

Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire For No Witness - Jagjaguwar Records, 2014.

   

Slightly more challenging is this next, released by Bloodshot Records and an album perhaps inadequately described as 'country punk'. It is a demanding listen, no doubt about that, but it is well worth any effort that this involves.

Somewhere Else - Lydia Loveless - Bloodshot Records, 2014.
   

If you are left stranded, wondering what that might sound like...

  LYDIA LOVELESS - Learn to Say No from Kitchen Sessions on Vimeo.