New Music 2018 - Part 14 - Darrin Bradbury - Elmwood Park: A Slightly Melodic Songbook

I didn't find this. Someone, that I have never met and quite possibly never will, just saw fit to recommended it to me. That this is how it works is amazing in itself.  I struggle to find many male artists that I really like listening to when compared to female ones. That is just the way it works for me. This is one of those exceptions.
The music here is awesome. I'm quite wary of musical monikers such as 'outlaw country' but be-that-as-it-may this is pretty close to what I imagine it might involve should it indeed exist. It is cynical to a fault, but given a perspective that suggests both a longing-for and respect-of the faults that it reveals. That includes a dose of self-deprecation.
In that sense it makes me think of when I discovered the 2016 album 'Rockingham' by BJ Barham.

Elmwood Park: A Slightly Melodic Audiobook - Darrin Bradbury (Café Rooster Records, 2016).

If I could find it on vinyl at a half-sensible price then I would have already ordered it. I can't. At least (here in the UK) you can enjoy it on Spotify here.

Elmwood Park: A Slightly Melodic Audiobook - Darrin Bradbury:

• True Love
• Life Is Hard
• Joey
• The Almost Great Lakes
• The Roadkill Song
• Junkie Love
• Swordfish
• Elmwood Park
• I Knew Him as Sam
• The Blue Highway

I have listened to it three times right through this evening and that was certainly not part of my game plan three hours ago. On the other hand nothing even half as interesting as this actually was.  It is actually a 2016 release but I had never heard about the artist, let alone the record. Its time is now.

This is 'True Love'.

New Music 2018 - Part 9 - Lindi Ortega - Liberty

Another day, another post. A forthcoming new album from an artist right near the top of those I wish to see live, in this case never having done so before. If I do I'll be one of those people pretending that I don't really know the lyrics that well.
This will be her fifth full-length studio release and the first since 'Faded Gloryville' in 2015. The track-list below is that which I believe to be correct.

Liberty - Lindi Ortega (Soundly Music, 30 March 2018).

Lindi Ortega - Liberty:

• Through the Dust (Part I)
• Afraid of the Dark
• You Ain’t Foolin Me
• Til My Dyin Day
• Nothing's Impossible
• Through the Dust (Part II)
• The Comeback Kid
• Darkness Be Gone
• Forever Blue
• In the Clear
• Pablo
• Lovers In Love
• Through The Dust (Part III)
• Liberty
• Gracias a La Vida

The first release from 'Liberty' is 'The Comeback Kid' and here it is:



I do wonder if the title has something to do with an apparent change of label, at least in part.  Her very recognisable vocal style is still front and centre and on this LP her backing band is Nashville-based instrumental duo Steelism and their side-men.  The producer is Skylar Wilson.
I contend that this in no way a case of doing things by halves. Dare I mention that this is, after a fashion, a concept album?
That is why 'Through the Dust' appears in three parts.

New Music 2017 - Part 27 - Kashena Sampson - Wild Heart

I suppose that in a curious way and not least because I have never been there, East Nashville and the artists that have taken up residence there have had quite some influence on my musical existence for the last few years. Here is another whom, starting in Las Vegas, via LA and jobs that at best kept the wolves, if not necessarily the demons, from the door that was in time followed by a long stint singing to cruise ship audiences every night.
Then came the time spent bar-tending in Tennessee whilst trying to raise funds and find time to record. That is some apprenticeship. This is that LP:

Kashena Sampson - Wild Heart (New Moon Records, 18 August 2017).

It's too early yet for me to decide just how this stacks up against the competition, and there is plenty, but it is fair to stay that Kashena Sampson is very much in the running. Her vocals are strong, that's definitely one thing. This is probably an album I'm going to have to keep dipping in and out of for some weeks before I really can get the measure of it and quite how it works for me.

Kashena Sampson - Wild Heart:

• Away from Here
• It's a Long Way Back
• Greasy Spoon
• Wild Heart
• She Shines
• Never Give Up
• Motherless Child
• Hold Me Close
• That Don't Sit Too Well with Me
• Come Back to Me

New Music 2017 - Part 19 - Wrangled - Angaleena Presley

When 'The Pistol Annies' hit the world with a delightfully sardonic take on country, back in 2011, it would be fair to say that Angaleena Presley was the least well-known of the three and, perhaps actually rather importantly, the oldest. Miranda Lambert and Ashley Monroe were already better known.
She was also the last of the three to release a solo LP and that when it came was the brilliant, off-kilter 'American Middle Class' in 2014. It immediately caught my attention, in the time before Margo Price was known-about, for it's uncompromising take on the grubby underside of the American Dream.
The two have rather different takes on what at the end of the day is discrimination, inequality and sheer frustration. The thread is that they are both brilliant about putting them to words and then weaving those words into songs. Songs that people far away can still relate to. 
I'm not afraid to write this and not least because Britain has plenty of the same problems and I'm not one to try and deny that. It is a big issue and also a massively divisive one: Poverty be that of food or culture, history suggests, does not tend to bring people together.

What I will say is that, of the most recent solo albums from each of the Annies, this is (and the others both guest on it, so its very clear they are still in touch) the the point when 'Holler Annie' finally becomes Angaleena the outlaw Annie.

Angaleena Presley - Wrangled (Mining Light Music/Thirty Tigers, 21 April 2017).

Pretty much nothing that she turns her lyric to, and therefore her voice also, comes out smelling of roses. That is telling it nicely; she often doesn't.
I don't even need to include the track-list because, in true old-school fashion, it is on the cover of the record. This release has multiple issues and one of them is that it may turn out to be amongst the best albums of 2017.
Yes, of course I would like to see Angaleena play live again. Not least because I know that she is astonishing. She is far better than my photography.

Stage 1, Cambridge Folk Festival, 31 July 2015.