New Music 2017 - Part 26 - Mary Epworth - Elytral

I shall soon turn my comments to that which I saw and heard at Green Man Festival last weekend. On Thursday evening I had one of those experiences where knowing next to nothing about an artist proves to be a blessing; being blind-sided like that is cathartic.
I shall reveal the artist in question in due course. About twenty minutes into the set it occurred to me that it was a similar situation to something that happened at Truck Festival 2014. In that case the artist concerned was Mary Epworth and, upon returning from that weekend one of the first things that I did was to order her début album 'Dream Life' (2012) and on vinyl for good measure. The good news, and the reason for this preamble is that her second LP is released very soon and the track list is below.

Mary Epworth - Elytral (Sunday Best Recordings, 1 September 2017).

Mary Epworth - Elytral:

• Gone Rogue
• Last Night
• Me Swimming
• Watching the Sun Go Down
• One Big Wave
• Bring Me the Fever
• Burned It Down
• Towards the Dawn
• Lost Everything
• Surprise Yourself

Summer music this is not. As autumn comes and the nights grow longer the muscular power and discordant aspects of it will seem appropriate I suggest. It would make for an interesting listen around a camp-fire should we enjoy the luxury of an Indian Summer.

The challenge for this weekend.

Is to not see any live music at all.
I can do that, probably.
Also to listen, by any legal means, to as many of the albums of 2014 that I have intended to listen to but still haven't. My focus just now is those by artists that I have seen live in 2014. I think I'm going to keep Spotify busy...

Without rhyme or reason I started with The Voyager - Jenny Lewis. Here she is.
Woods Stage, End Of The Road Festival 2014.

I'm having my Saturday lunch while listening to Fear In Bliss - Horse Thief. Lead vocalist Cameron Neal chatting to fans after the set on the Tipi Stage, End Of The Road Festival 2014.

This next is a bit worse as admissions go. I saw Samantha Crain live twice this summer and I still don't have the album 'Kid Face' to call my own. This mistake will shortly be rectified.

Again this the Tipi Stage at End Of The Road Festival 2014. I promise to choose another location soon.

'The Hum', the third LP by O'Hooley and Tidow, is yet another case in point. Booked for the subsequently cancelled Frome Folk Festival 2013, this was another act that I had never seen live before. I was rushing between stages at this point, and so I didn't take as many pictures as I might have liked, but being there just to listen was very well worth the effort.

Walled Garden Stage, Green Man Festival 2014.

They have just finished a year also involved in supporting Lucy Ward as part of her touring band and are now focussing attention on their fourth album as O'Hooley and Tidow. Lucy Ward is another whom I have never yet seem live and, as it happens, she was also booked to appear at Frome Folk Festival 2013... I do however have both albums, 'Adelphi Has To Fly' (2011) and 'Single Flame' (2013) and I recommend both very highly. Seeing Lucy Ward play live is one of my ambitions for 2015.

You might gather that my thread here is that there is just so much available means just to keep abreast of it, treading water if you will, is quite some exercise in memory if nothing else.
Then I found something new - a 2014 album by a Canadian artist that I had never ever heard of before. This needs to have a new post of its own...
'New Music 2014 - Part 40 - ...'.
The last in this post therefore will, as promised, be from a different stage and indeed a different festival.  A different artist too; one that, particularly outside the UK, is far less well known than the above.

Mary Epworth. Veterans and Virgins Stage. Truck Festival 2014.

Truck Festival 2014 - a miscellany.

I wasn't intending to blog this evening but so what. I'm still thinking about Truck and in two weeks I shall be off to the orthogonal word of festivals once again, so I had best keep up.
After two posts comprising the goings-on at one small stage, this is going to be a bit different. I did visit the main stage, quite often actually, and the Veterans and Virgins Stage too. I visited the Shed Stage, if only once and briefly.

It is a fairly modern agricultural shed, and it smells the part but has a certain charm I suppose. At times it was, I am told, more crowded than a veal crate, but with willing humans. To the point that security, which generally has very little to do at Truck, had to restrict entry on valid grounds. It would certainly be more atmospheric when it was dark outside.
On the other hand, and on the main stage, I saw two bands that I first saw at End of The Road Festival 2013 (EOTR) on the Thursday on a small stage. I was very impressed then and remain so now. Both are Truck-friendly, guitar-wielding types and they went down very well with a sizeable crowd basking in the scorching sunshine on Friday.

North Wales five-piece Catfish and The Bottlemen, Truck Stage on Friday afternoon.

They nailed this and that will give them much to savour - the début LP 'The Balcony' is released in the UK on September 15 and in North America in early 2015.
A little later, so Friday early evening, came a band well accustomed to playing in such adorable weather - Los Angeles duo Deap Vally.  I purchased the 2013 début LP Sistrionix (on vinyl) after seeing them live at EOTR. This bought back a comment from then, which is that "nobody takes pictures of drummers". This is often because they are hidden right at the back of the stage, I guess.

 Since Julie Edwards was not so hidden, and the light was terrific, here she is.
Whilst I am on the subject of Deap Vally, what the hell?  This is both of them.

A little later that evening I headed, on a strong recommendation and one that proved to be absolutely spot on, to the Veterans and Virgins stage to see an artist that I had never seen before and was only very faintly aware of and quite probably neither are you. Let's put it this way, she is from a musical family.

Mary Epworth.

Her music is percussive and heartfelt, based around anything from UK folk to south-eastern European rhythm via prog and psych rock, including Greek influences; bouzouki infiltrated UK folk from Asia Minor, via Greece, in the 20th century so why not? Her only LP to date is 'Dream Life' (2012).

If that description sounds like a recipe for a train wreck then, given the degree of control exercised here, it is most certainly not. Live however, it is quite the thrilling ride. One of the best acts at Truck Festival 2014.

To summarise the last four posts Truck is a great festival for (especially) new music, is well run, very friendly and remarkably good value for money. This last point applies not just to the tickets but on-site catering and bars. The drinks were marginally cheaper, like for like, than the equivalent in any worthwhile pub in my home town of Frome, Somerset.

And so to finish as I started with another picture of the first act that I saw - Heavy Heart.

In a curious twist of fâte my post today included the début album 'Not Kings' from the first act I saw at Truck Festival 2013, Candy Says, on 180g 12" vinyl. Some things are well worth the wait.