New Music 2017 - Part 3 - Cup O'Joe - Bluebirds

I can't tell you how many bands I have mentioned in recent years that include the participation of siblings but it is considerable. It's a theme of kinds and I see no reason to discontinue it. 
Here is another - three siblings in this case - that were you not to know otherwise might be imagined to hail from the far side of the Atlantic. That isn't the case at all and this is their first EP.

Bluebirds EP - Cup O'Joe (self-released, 2016).

Cup O'Joe is Benjamin (upright bass), Reuben (guitar, mandolin) and Tabitha (banjo, fiddle) Agnew and they actually call Armagh, Northern Ireland's smallest city, home. The EP has six tracks:

• Bluebirds
• Pretty Fair Maiden
• Blackwaterfoot
• Homesick
• Tell Me Darling
• Black Coffee

They play predominantly self-written material that crosses the range from bluegrass and gypsy to old-time, western and jazz and all three contribute vocals. Definitely another band that I want to see live in 2017.
If you have a little while to spare for listening then there is this.

Cup O'Joe, Coastline Bluegrass Festival, Llangollen, North Wales, June 2016.

New Music 2016 - Part 51 - Bel Blue - Our Places

Not very often does this happen. I'm delighted to share it when it does. This is self-released on Wild Dog Rose and all nine tracks are self-written. It is almost entirely acoustic, a smidgen of electric guitar features on two tracks, but more importantly it is astonishingly whole.
This time last week I'd never even heard about Bel Blue or, if I had, I had forgotten all about it. Hearing three songs from it on Monday evening made me think that the latter scenario is very unlikely indeed.
It was bought to me by the twin powers of local radio and the worldwide access to it via the internet. In this case the distance between Hailsham FM (in Sussex, England) and my location in Frome, Somerset, England is barely 125 miles. The result was I purchased the LP there and then - on that slightly old-fashioned format that is CD. Royal Mail delivered it to my door today.
Here it is:

Bel Blue - Our Places:

• Longing's Gone
• Our Places
• In Its Time
• Waterfall
• Wild Dog Rose
• River of Dreams
• Somewhere
• Nant Ddu
• Along the Way
• Our Places (live by the River Ely)
• In Its Time (radio edit)

Bel Blue - In Its Time (radio edit, official video).

It is a début album but I suggest that if I had told you otherwise then you might well have left the fact unquestioned. It is also independently released. I'm not, although a few may think otherwise, out to denigrate major labels. They have made a few steps to attempt to rescue their tattered corporate reputation but thus far only a fraction of what might be required, if that is indeed possible.
That is not what really excites me and makes me want to go to certain festivals. This sort of music is exactly the kind that does.

New Music 2016 - Part 40 - Brigid Mae Power

Only last week was I expressing my appreciation for the breadth and quality of new music coming out of Ireland. Well here I go again with the self-titled début from Irish (but London-born) artist Brigid Mae Power.

Brigid Mae Power (Tompkins Square, June 10 [US]/July 8 [UK] 2016).

A multi-instrumentalist, Mae Power plays piano, harmonium, accordion and baritone ukulele as well as the guitar. For me though it is her voice that is the most powerful instrument here. It is clear and confident, but not overwhelming, and the rest of the instrumentation, which incidentally doesn't always conform to the templates of traditional folk, provides a lush background to the songs.

The feeling it carries is of pastoral bliss, but the fact that nature is cruel is never very far below the surface of the eight songs. The principle collaborator on this work is Oregon-based songwriter and singer Peter Broderick and the impression of symbiosis permeates.

Brigid Mae Power:

• It's Clearing Now
• Sometimes
• Let Me Hold You Through This
• Is It My Low or Yours
• Lookin at You In a Photo
• I Left Myself for a While
• Watching the Horses
• How You Feel

It is compellingly persistent and involving yet a thread is left loose with final track, 'How You Feel'.  Neither a question nor proscribing, it is simply the state in which things are perceived.

New Music 2015 - Part 69 - Old Hannah - Iron and Wood

In the last month or so circumstances have conspired to make me realise that I have mentioned relatively little music that comes from Ireland in contrast to, for example, Wales. The main catalyst to do something about this in one sense was seeing Lisa O'Neill, of whom I was quite unaware until that point, play the Tipi Stage at End Of The Road 2015.
In the intervening few weeks I have quite consciously been paying attention and this is the first example I have chosen to mention.

It is also a fine example of the importance that I now attach to that once threatened format the EP.

Old Hannah is a four-piece from Co. Sligo in the north-west of Ireland and this EP, which involves several artists from beyond the confines of the band and also instruments such as steel guitar (pedal and lap) not usually associated with Irish music, is very much the real deal. It neither abandons the strictures of traditional Irish folk nor adheres slavishly to them. What makes it actually work in the way it does is the attention to both the basics of the genre and the detail of the execution.

It is as good as any EP that I have heard this year and that is saying something. Here is 'West' taken from it.

End Of The Road Festival is 10!

I have to say that this last weekend was only my seventh EOTR (2009 - 2015) and I met at least two with a complete record. I have my ticket for EOTR 2016, however. I think that this goes bare-bones statistics to show just how people that have experienced it once tend to become attached to it in some way. It is intense because there is so much there and so it is tiring, but in the best possible sense.

By Sunday afternoon even the resident Larmer Tree Gardens peacocks were chilled.

The limited music on offer on Thursday evening was delayed by an hour by the sudden unavailability of the band scheduled to open the proceedings. That was not to matter one little bit when, at 7:30pm, the now-festival-openers took to the Tipi stage. 

Mammút

When a band comes from Iceland and is also signed to Bella Union then all worries just melt away.

About seventy-two hours later, on the Tipi stage early on Sunday evening, the wonder that is EOTR was effectively book-ended by what was for me a total chance discovery. It is why festivals matter so very much.

Irish artist Lisa O'Neill playing, at this point, baritone ukulele.

Now I just have to get to grips with all the rest of it. 

New music, old music.

Folk music, roots music and all that is not for high days and holidays. It is for everyday and that is why I have chosen to mention this now. When the great and the good of the BBC decided that Mike Harding was "too long in the tooth" he had other ideas.
I'm currently listening to the 76th edition of the Mike Harding Folk Show and I haven't missed a single one. It is on-line so that is not a problem; you can listen to it anywhere at any time you choose. You can also listen to the shows on Mixcloud here but his own pages also provide a cornucopia of information about the artists played as well as links to forthcoming events such as folk clubs and festivals.
Another thing that I'm enjoying these days is the vital interchange of 'Americana' (home-grown or otherwise) across the Atlantic. This is apparent in the artist lists of all the festivals that I am attending.

The Mike Harding Folk Show Number 76 by Mike Harding on Mixcloud

Let The Truth Be Told...

I guess that being hailed as one of the "next big things" is a double-edged sword and there have been plenty as we go into 2009. It is a problem for artists as, although it provides the oxygen of publicity, it increases the pressure and raises expectations. Raised expectations can affect the prospective listener too. We all know the pleasure to be found in hearing a previously unheard-of artist only to discover that they are the 'best thing ever'. To be frequently told the very same thing, in advance of listening, can make that experience - when it comes - slightly underwhelming. This album was starting to run that risk, at least as far as I am concerned, and it is not released until 18 May in the UK and 16 June in the US, so that is why I mentioned some weeks ago that I had got hold of a US copy of the 12" single 'From My Heart To Yours'.

It went some way towards convincing me that I was not about to be disappointed and now that I have a promotional copy of the whole album I can say that my optimism is more than vindicated. It is common at points such as this to say that the artist evokes sounds like those of 'so-and-so' to provide a touchstone to readers. In this case I am deliberately not going to do so and for two reasons. This is not the genre of music I predominantly listen to and, perhaps more importantly, coming to it without preconceptions this just seems to be a complete album rather than a mere collection of radio and download friendly titbits for music magpies.

It starts with the UK lead single 'Shine' and that starts with the following lines...

Waking up one morning you realise
Your life is just one big compromise.

Another aspect of the whole album is that it sounds so natural and mature - in the sense that it never seems to be anything other than itself. There are no vocal histrionics, just the voice that has already earned her, in a country that rightly takes much pride in its multi-stranded musical heritage, the title 'The Soul of Ireland' and that can hardly be intended as anything but a compliment albeit a typically sly-humoured one. The restrained backing arrangements and production are spot on. They do not attempt to upstage the artist and the material, neither do they consciously seek to hark back to earlier times and styles. I haven't noticed any faux-vinyl crackle but, that said, I can only imagine how good it will sound on vinyl (hint: Atlantic) and I'll be buying that when it becomes available. At ten tracks and about thirty-eight minutes it is not long; it sensibly eschews any kind of filler that has spoiled many an otherwise fine album.

Live? Again her reputation precedes her - likely one of the most sought-after festival artists of 2009-10.

My favourite songs? Well that's a hard question but currently these three:

• Don't Stay
• The Worst is Over
• Mmm...

Ask me again next week and it will quite likely be three others and that is always a sign of a good album.
As well as big predictions 2009 has already proven to contain a treasure-trove of excellent albums and this is certainly one of them. I have a prediction: this will be in the music industry award shortlists in the coming year, very possibly on both sides of the Atlantic. My one reservation is that, as this is a début album, how is she going to better it?
It is however, as 2009 has already shown, actually quite possible!

Are You Listening?

I'm not asking you the question in the title - but of course I hope you are - rather it is the title of the début solo album by Dolores O'Riordan.

It has been a long time coming but for those of you that can't remember that far back she was the voice of Irish band 'The Cranberries'. I had largely forgotten about them too, but something or other recently reminded me that I didn't actually own any of their albums, even though I was familiar with some of their songs, and I pondered buying a compilation album that sounded quite promising but at about the same time this album became known to me.

'The Cranberries' has now sold over forty million albums, being more successful in the US than in the UK so she, as both vocalist and main songwriter, is unlikely to be under financial pressure to record an album, and furthermore she is married (since 1994 to Don Burton, the former manager of Duran Duran) with three kids, aged 9, 6 and 2, so you can imagine there might well be plenty of competing calls on her time!

To say that this is a case of "better late than never" is to do it a severe injustice - I strongly suspect that it is better because it has evolved over time. Yes it has undercurrents of 'The Cranberries', but is far more than a pale reinterpretation of that era and in particular, when songs demand it, the instruments can be quite strident - but not to the point that they ever swamp the vocals - in fact the main flashback is just how good her vocals were then, and given absolute freedom that they are now even better.
This is still an album likely to sell better in the US I suspect, but there is nothing wrong with that. If the rumours that Andrea Corr is planning a solo career are true, then this might be seen as a very clear shot across the bow; a warning that there will be competition for the market in Irish influenced pop and that elders might be betters!

On the basis of "Are You Listening?" I suspect it will be so because it has some surprises in store.
Track 6 - Stay With Me, with its plaintive verses, huge chorus and general mood is simply the best song that Evanesence didn't write for their first album, Fallen (2004).
That is probably not what almost anyone would have suspected from this release and it certainly surprised me. At other moments it also reminded me, in some ways, of the tracks Isobel and I'm No Angel both from the album "No Angel" by Dido, possibly because she was also influenced by The Cranberries?

My overall opinion:
If you like the kinds of music above then buy it. This is yet another 2007 album that I have come across rather unexpectedly and another that I have no option but to like!