Lists...

I'm still here and still very much listening, watching, and reading too.  The lists seem to start earlier each year, or maybe that is just me becoming older each year. On the other hand, if I'm honest I actually start thinking about them at the time I first go to an outdoor festival, so late June!
I've looked through a few already and, with mine in more-or-less in the bag now but they will not be revealed until about the start of December, the common ground and the contrasts are interesting to me and in some cases rather surprising.
In the meantime here are two playlists, each about the length of a typical CD album, that compile some of my favourite songs of 2015:

• Tracks of 2015 #1
• Tracks of 2015 #2

These playlists represent a mixture of all those things and also other things that I have liked along the trail this last year. It is quite likely that 'Tracks of 2015 #3' will follow in the next week or so. There is no implied ranking-by-merit by list or indeed within them. 

An astonishingly good song, or even two, does not necessarily make an album; equally an album can be all the more astonishing for not having any particular stand-out track. This is why I am so much heartened by the resurgence of the EP, whether physical or digital. It allows the emphasis on quality over quantity. It is also much more affordable for new and independently minded artists. I shall be including a more in-depth list of EPs and mini-albums this year. The lists of LPs and EPs and mini-albums will be as heretofore presented in alphabetical order by artist.

I almost forgot to mention this - The UK Blog Sound of 2016. I am part of the voting for that for the fourth year and my three choices are now submitted; the resulting 'Top 15 list' will be revealed, here and on other participating blogs, on December 3. The winner (and the four runners-up) will be announced on January 5, 2016.
The considerable organisation and time that this involves is undertaken by Robin Seamer who is also responsible for new music blog Breaking More Waves, which I highly recommend that you visit.

August and onward.

A one day festival (Behind The Castle) in June. A two day festival (Truck) in July. 
That was just the warm up. In two weeks time I shall be resident in Powys, Wales at Green Man Festival and it will be my first ever visit, which is exciting. Two weeks later comes my annual pilgrimage, since 2009 at least, to End Of The Road (EOTR). There are so many more... this weekend is the 50th Cambridge Folk Festival  and 21-5th August is the 50th Towersey Folk Festival. In an ideal world I would have quite happily gone to all of these and many more too. I have to say that one that has piqued my interest for a couple of years now, although it is in distant south Suffolk, is Maverick Festival. I could list many more that have caught my eye but seven links in the first paragraph is way more than enough. It is time to focus on those that I am going to and what I might wish from them.
It might be leavened with shorter posts on new music.

I'm thinking that this post is something I shall add to over the weekend and it will be thoughts about the acts that I want to see most at Green Man or EOTR and why. Reviews such as this certainly don't hurt. Ezra Furman is playing EOTR. Never seen him live nor heard his music that I am aware of.
I'll tell you one, from EOTR, that is right at the top of my list - Richard Thompson. I don't need to justify that.

In my eight years of festival attendance the changing balance is to be struck between artists that I have heard before and those new to me. As my recent posts concerning Truck 2014 may have made clear, my liking for seeing new artists, or ones that are merely new to me live or otherwise, remains undiminished. There is now a new category too - artists in new acts/guises. Maybe that is where, probably tomorrow, I shall start this discussion. I have two in particular in mind right now and, echoing the recent comments of Robin Seamer at Breaking More Waves, I have also been thinking about those end-of -year lists too. I rather suspect that the début albums by both will feature on mine.
Here is an observation that is just mine: in 2007 I started my end of year reviews with EPs and mini albums because that was easy. The weren't many and fewer still that I felt worthy of mention and I said then that I had felt it was a dying format. I suspect that in fact I had caught it just reviving from its death throes. It is true that much of this has to due with the ascendency of digital music but that is only part of the Lazarus story. Even in 2007 EPs were starting to appear on vinyl, 7", 10" and 12", and the story continues to grow to the present. This is a more recent, but you would not guess it, example of a single:

It was released physically only on cassette tape.

I could tell you about more worthwhile EPs from the first six months of 2014 than from 2007-9 in total. I don't think, for one moment, that this is simply because I am better informed, although I am. It is much more significant than that.

What this post does lack is photographs but that is an interesting demonstration of a cascade of consequence.
When I started to blog a problem soon became apparent - I needed more original stuff to write about. The obvious answer to that was to go to festivals. Festivals are about live music, which is an intrinsically visual medium too, so I needed pictures of what I saw and heard.