What really matters... It was good, yeah?

Well, although I'm open to discussion, it was. The three Obelisk stage head-liners were everything I could have imagined and more.  I never really expected Florence and The Machine to disappoint, and she certainly didn't on what was her first ever festival headline slot. Vampire Weekend was not likely to let the team effort down either and on the Sunday evening it certainly didn't.  The one that evoked trepidation was the Saturday choice. I was totally wrong and now I admit it unreservedly - Belle and Sebastian was perfection for the Saturday evening slot at Latitude. I once had the impression that Stuart Murdoch was something of a curmudgeon; if that was so then no longer is it true.

When all said and done, however, it was still the new and/or relatively obscure acts that bent my ear and this is where I will resume very shortly.  What I will say is this; taking the music as a whole it was the fourth and best Latitude Festival I have attended.  To add to the Obelisk stage comments, and not wishing to leave this post unillustrated, here is another artist that appeared there, and I was lucky enough to see, over the weekend.

This is the performance of her first single 'Like A Star' and it only served to confirm that she is.  She then left to perform the whole set again at Somerset House in London that evening.

Corinne Bailey Rae, on the main stage on Saturday afternoon, was quite infallible. 

New albums I want ...

Like some fictional character - in this case Piglet - I'm minded to shout "Help, help and rescue!" My problem is however a very enviable one and it is simply too much new music (that I want to listen to) appearing too fast.
I'll do my best and continuing the female singer/songwriter theme of recent posts here is another one who, to be honest, could keep a modestly ambitious label in albums all on her own. Her last studio album was Harpo's Ghost back in 2006 - which for her, if not for Portishead, is an age between albums!

Liejacker will be released on 19th May and is her eighth studio album in ten years, which is particularly impressive for someone who is still just twenty-eight. I haven't heard the new album yet but I strongly suspect that the title gives something away; if it is not political, pugnacious and possibly rather stripped back to basics I shall be both wrong and disappointed. It does, I believe, have the occasional guest contribution and most notable amongst them is Joan Baez.

Another under-appreciated star of the UK female singer-songwriter world releases an album this Monday (12th May). She is Isobel Campbell and this is her second collaboration with Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Gutter Twins, &c.).

That's finally fixed! You can find lyrics for some of the tracks here and I've kept the linked sites transparent:
http://www.lyred.com/lyrics/Isobel+Campbell/Sunday+at+Devil+Dirt/
http://www.songs-lyrics.net/al-Isobel-Campbell-lyrics-Sunday-at-Devil-Dirt-lyrics-lmoolra.html

The 12" has all the lyrics on the back cover so, if you want them, please just ask (using comment or e-mail).

If it is anywhere near as good as Ballad Of The Broken Seas (2006) it won't be in my CD player forever --- but that is simply because 'V2 Records' have made it available on vinyl. It is true that Campbell now has a higher profile than when, in 2002, she left Belle and Sebastian but that is not to deny that this remains an album that should be better known. So should the earlier ones and this is the first...

Belle & Sebastian "Tigermilk" (1996).

Post-2002 she released two albums as 'Gentle Waves' and then, simply as Isobel, the remarkable Amorino. There are others too, not least three more B&S albums recorded before she left the band, and so here we have another creative powerhouse.

Soothing music for days that bode ill...

One morning earlier this week, and for some reason not readily apparent even to me, I felt particularly unenthusiastic about the thought of going to work. I got in the car and turned up the CD loud, somewhat forgetful of the fact that the previous morning (when I was feeling rather positive) I had changed the CDs in the auto-changer.
The CD that came on was something that I bought on a whim when it came out but had not really paid much attention to ever since. The album in question was Ballad of The Broken Seas - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - released in early 2006 and garnering a nomination later that year for The Mercury Prize, which was won by 'The Arctic Monkeys'.

It did the trick for me though - the day passed quickly as the few tracks I heard on the journey to work spent the day going rounded in my head and they reminded me of why I had taken a chance on this album in the first place; that was because I already owned a 2003 release called Amorino, also by Isobel Campbell. As soon as I got home that evening I listened to both in full and was blown away (again).
Ballad of The Broken Seas features an as seemingly unlikely pairing of vocalists as ever there were; her dreamy soprano voice is of the almost-not-there kind (Amorino showcases this beautifully), while his previous output - on solo albums, with Seattle' s 'Screaming Trees' or when collaborating with 'Queens of the Stone Age' - is a full and gritty roar and, at least on his solo albums, also depressingly down-beat.

It was to prove an inspired collaboration; as well as providing contrasting but also amazingly complementary vocals there is a real spark there. It, and the Mercury nomination, allowed Campbell to incorporate influences from Americana in her music and finally get away from the tag "twee-pop" that her detractors have tended to pin to her music thus far.

I bought Amorino before Ballad of The Broken Seas was released but if you are new to her music, whether the post 'Belle and Sebastian' work (she left that band in 2002) or B&S pre-2002, then I suggest you might do better to start with Ballad of The Broken Seas as it is probably more easily accessible. Amorino can be rather "strange" at times and no more so than the wonderfully weird track 'The Cat's Pyjamas'.

All this led me on a hunt for other items in my music collection that were both of a calming "chill-out" nature and that I hadn't listened to much for some time.