New Music 2017 - Part 31 - Half Deaf Clatch - CrowSoul

As well as starting my consideration of all the new music that I have had the pleasure of finding or otherwise being introduced to in 2017 there is absolutely no shortage of brand new releases that are coming my way.  This is one of them.

A solo acoustic blues artist from the UK that I have seen live a couple of times --- Half Deaf Clatch is the project of Kingston-upon-Hull based Andrew McClatchie. This is stomp-box and (often slide) guitar accompanied music from the Humber "delta" of  East Yorkshire.  This is his latest release and whilst running for over forty minutes it comprises just two tracks. He is possibly a 'Marmite' thing – love or hate but nothing between.

CrowSoul - Half Deaf Clatch (Speak Up Recordings, 12 October 2017).

He is a determinedly independent artist (Speak Up Recordings is his self-run label) and also an extremely prolific one so if you like this style of music you are in luck. CrowSoul is his second full-length release of 2017. The other, which is of songs inspired by consideration of The Great War, is 'Forever Forward' that came hot on the heels of  'Simple Songs for These Complicated Times' (2016) and 'The Life and Death of A.J Rail (2015).

If you are having a Hallowe'en themed occasion in the coming weeks you could use this as part of the soundtrack.

New Music 2016 - Part 16 - Half Deaf Clatch - The Life and Death of A.J Rail

I was sure that I had mentioned this before but it seems not. If I have then I'm simply going to do it again.
Sometimes it takes a really shit and needlessly frustrating day to make one realise just how important music is. And how healing it might prove to be. I had some ideas earlier this week about writing another "virtual trip in music" as the first amused me in the making and I now have several itineraries in mind.

Tonight however is the time for this, and simply this...

Half Deaf Clatch - The Life and Death of A.J Rail (2015, self-released).

I saw Half Deaf Clatch play live in Frome at an intimate gig last year and it rates amongst the best performances I saw all year. Great clawhammer banjo blues and slide guitar, without any ornamentation, combined with his gritty vocals and earthy songs.

I'm too frazzled to write a detailed review just now. On the other hand I'm delighted to see that I wasn't the only one to be so impressed. This (in English) is one such from across the water courtesy of Blues Magazine in the Netherlands.

Here, with archive video from the US Signal Corps that will be familiar in essence to some in the UK during the winter now ending, is the song '1927 Flood' taken from the above-mentioned album.

Half Deaf Clatch is very much on my list of artists to see live again and his other recordings are well worth searching out too. It just so happens that the artist comes from Hull, UK.

Note added 11 May 2016:
The Life and Death of A.J Rail is now one of the British Blues Awards 2016 finalists in the category 'Blues Album'.