Green Man :: 2016 :: Dyn Gwrydd - Part 2 - acts seen live before

Time to get on with the music that I went to see and hear. Where better to start than a band whose career playing festivals almost exactly matches in time that of going to them myself? The correlation goes further - from Latitude 2007 to Green Man 2016, via No Direction Home 2012 and others, it always rains when I see Sheffield's Slow Club play. They have come a long way since first I saw Charles and Rebecca on the 'BBC Introducing stage' at Latitude Festival back in 2008. It involved wooden chairs and empty bottles as percussion. I will have to go back in time and find some pictures of that...

"You look so colourful in your cagoules". Rebecca's comment was true Yorkshire wit.

This post, I've just decided, is going to cover artists and acts that I have seen live at a festival at least once before. This is, I think, the fifth time that I have seen Slow Club play a full set at a festival. That's not a record, in fact it is not even close.

This next band is something of a nightmare to categorise: alt/indie country-rock but (with the exception of a judicious cover in their set this time) all sung in Welsh. This was the only picture that I managed to take that included all six members of the band!

Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog, Walled Garden stage, late Sunday afternoon.

Rhos Botwnnog is a village in the Llŷn peninsular, North Wales from which the band hails. I guess you can translate cowbois yourself. This is only the second time I have seen the band live; the first was also at the ill-fated No Direction Home Festival in 2012.

Thursday aside when it was almost the only place anything was happening, my forays into the vast tented gloom of the Far Out stage were then limited to Sunday. Of all those only one falls into the category of artists that I have seen live before. That is this one and it was a tremendous set. I first saw him play the Tipi stage on the Thursday evening at End Of The Road Festival 2014 and I wrote about that here.

Ezra Furman, Far Out stage, Sunday evening.

All these artists have new releases in tow, which they wish to promote and of course that is just how it should be. That is also true of this next, a four-piece from California that I saw live at End Of The Road Festival 2013.  Rather than focus on the front line this time I took this for it is the rhythm section that keeps the whole show on the rails.  Warpaint was first support on the Mountain stage on Sunday evening, which Belle and Sebastian headlined.

Stella Mozgawa, Warpaint, Mountain stage, 21 August 2016.

New Music 2016 - some things forthcoming...

It is true that I have not written here for a fortnight. What is not true is that things have stagnated hereabouts. Far from it indeed - I have been listening both recorded, and sometimes live, to all kinds of things. That includes artists playing at festivals that I am attending this summer as well as many others that I hope I might see live too.

This is the very latest that I have seen live, as in yesterday evening, and I'll be mentioning this tiny venue again very soon indeed!

Megson, Marnhull Acoustic Sessions, 20 March 2016.

Megson have a new LP 'The Good Times Will Come Again' that is released on 27 May 2016 and they played a few tracks from it in their extended set yesterday evening. It will not disappoint methinks.

That isn't however the forthcoming album to which I am listening as I write. I'm listening to one that I have already mentioned here. It is released 25 March 2016 and I'll say nothing more about it...  at least for now.

That is not even to mention all the artists added to festival lists in the last few weeks. Some I have seen before, some I never have, some I just can't wait to see once again. Then there is everything else.

New Music 2016 - Part 13 - Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog IV

It's been a while since I mentioned any new music from Wales. It has been far longer since I mentioned seeing Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog play live at the only edition of No Direction Home Festival back in June 2012. That was around the time of the release of their album 'Draw Dros Y Mynydd', which I've just been listening to once again. Here is the briefest of summaries - country-inflected rock sung entirely in Welsh.

It's been a while in the making but the new LP - Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog IV - is due 25 March.

Beyond that I know almost nothing at all. I'd love to see the band live at a festival again. Maybe Green Man (away across the mountains but still in their native Wales) or End Of The Road?

Note added June 2016:
Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog is now confirmed to appear at Green Man 2016.

New Music - Part 29 - Plu

Only yesterday I wrote that my next my next post on forthcoming albums would be from acts and artists at the rockier, more electric end of the spectrum. That will happen very soon but, in part due to very much consideration of the acoustic aspects of EOTR and particularly sibling acts, that plan got wrecked by discovering this.
My excuse is that on a technicality this album does not contravene the forgoing as it is already released.

Plu is a sibling three-piece comprising Elan, Gwilym and Marged Rhys who hail from Bethel in Gwynedd, North Wales. The best short description of their music I can provide would be of imagining that Sweden's First Aid Kit suddenly discovered they had a brother and then all three decided to write and record in Welsh, rather than English. I know that might be a little tricky even if you are well acquainted with the music of First Aid Kit, so here is a sampling of the music of Plu.


The album Plu has thirteen tracks and the listing is below:

1. sgwennaf lythyr
2. gyfaill
3. cwm pennant
4. tyrd yn ol
5. garth celyn
6. hiraeth
7. geiriau allweddol
8. fyddai'm yn ddiarth
9. glaw du
10. blodau oll
11. fel llwynog
12. yr ysfa
13. tra bo dau

It is released on CD by label Sbrigyn Ymborth (SY016) and the best place to source it is Sadwrn where you can also find a fascinating range of other music from Wales.  If you are aware of of the work of Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog, that includes brothers, another Sbrigyn Ymborth act, and Siddi (again siblings) then you will have a better idea of where I am coming from.

'Plu' is the welsh word for 'feathers'. If you search Google or similar for plu you will also discover that it is an acronym for many and varied things.

2012 In Music - Albums - Part 1

No real change in presentation here from the last two years; two lists of a dozen albums each and both strictly in order alphabetical by artist. 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 2012.  It is vastly influenced by artists that I have seen live, either this year or somewhat previously, and I make no bones about that fact. Here it is:

• Alabama Shakes - Boys and Girls
• Awna Teixeira - Where The Darkness Goes
• Bex Marshall - The House of Mercy
• Boy - Mutual Friends
• Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog - Draw Dros Y Mynydd
• Ellen and The Escapades - All The Crooked Things
• First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar
• Hurray For The Riff Raff - Watch Out Mama
• Joanne Shaw Taylor - Almost Always Never
• Karine Polwart - Traces
• Phantom Limb - The Pines
• The Tatsmiths - Curiosity Shop
• Trailer Trash Tracys - Ester

Please feel quite 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 sanction the publishing of "anonymous" comments. Comments that are defamatory, offensive or totally irrelevant will not be published.

I don't bite either. I'll attempt to answer questions and comments either in comments of my own in reply or in a more general 'round-up' post.

I intend to post the second of these lists later this coming weekend. I am intending to add links to related content in both the above mentioned posts as soon as I can.  It is my intention to deal with the ever more interesting category of "EPs and mini-albums" in the meanwhile and I'd like to do that as a post complete with such links from the get-go.

No Direction Home 2012 - into the unknown

A festival should not be judged on headline acts. It would be a poor way to spend three days were it to involve enduring many hours of tedium in the hope and expectation of ninety minutes of heaven at the end of each. A good festival has strength in depth and, quite possibly, it is the so-called 'lower orders' that serve to define the truly good ones.
Well No Direction Home didn't fail on the former count by any means but, where it triumphed in spades is in the most important aspect of all. That it was a continuous source of angst to decide which act to see at all times everyday...
OK, so all three acts opening the Lake Stage were great.

Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog --- on the Lake Stage, in the pouring rain, Friday lunch-time.

  
I have already mentioned 'Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog', but neither Brighton-based (except when decamped to Lewes!) 'Laish' on Saturday and 'Trembling Bells' on Sunday suffered by comparison.
  
This next pair of pictures are of 'Laish', performing as opening act on the Lake Stage on Saturday. Well, given the second one, you can see exactly what time it is.

   

By Sunday you might have been coming rather concerned about the prospects for 'Trembling Bells'. Well, should that have been the case, you need not have worried one bit.

Even without Will 'Bonny Prince Billy' Oldham, Lavinia Blackwall and her cohort was more than effective in carrying off the tracks from that collaboration as well as all the other albums.