New Music 2015 - Part 38 - Joanna Gruesome - Peanut Butter

More new music from Wales but that is just about where the comparisons with my last post end.
This music is not sung in Welsh and the nearest it gets to a harp is that the band's name is a parody of that of Californian alt-folk harpist Joanna Newsome; indeed one of the latter artist's songs could easily be as long as the whole ten-track LP 'Peanut Butter'.  Only one track on it reaches the three-minute mark.

The party-line, almost certainly an urban myth, is that the five-piece met as students in Cardiff at an anger-management meeting. Its truthfulness doesn't matter  - it something you want to believe and the music lends credence.
It also shows the remarkable diversity in music coming from Wales - and Joanna Gruesome won the 2014 Welsh Music Prize on the basis of début LP 'Twisted Sister'.
The most obvious comparison here, as it is also Cardiff based, is Los Campesinos. I would like to remind you of this, which I mentioned here way back in 2007. I believe that Laura Bryon is still active in the music of South Wales.

It also puts me much in mind of the C86 ethic adopted-and-adapted, from about 2004, by the late, lamented south-coast based Help She Can't Swim. They both share a tendency to music in short-message format - it may not be original, but hell it is fun.
This is the playlist for 'Peanut Butter':

1. Last Year 2:52
2. Jamie (Luvver) 1:41
3. Honestly Do Yr Worst 1:51
4. There Is No Function Stacy 1:58
5. Crayon 3:10
6. I Don't Wanna Relax 2:15
7. Jerome (Liar) 1:39
8. Separate Bedrooms 1:59
9. Psykick Espionage     2:08
10. Hey! I Wanna Be Yr Best Friend   2:01

It is already released on LP, CD and d/l on Fortuna POP! (UK), Slumberland (N. America).

Some bands take years agonising over a sprawling second LP. It has taken barely a year for this 22 minutes of condensed madness to arrive.
 'Last Year' is the introductory, and the second longest, track on the album.

Green Man 2014 - a preview.

Green Man 2014 is now sold out. I am in anticipation of my first ever visit and to be quite honest the line up looks as though it might present one of the most clashes between stages that I have ever tried to square.
I can even get a readable image of the list into a single screen-full that you can read but still be prepared to scroll and/or zoom.

I'll be busy.

Would I like to chose a pre-festival must see list? Quite frankly, no!

I wouldn't want to do it for just one stage let alone the combination of them. One thing that makes things easier in some ways is that there are quite a few acts that I have seen before. That of course doesn't mean I don't want to see them again, because for the most part I do, but they are something of a known quantity live. On the other hand there is almost no overlap with Truck Festival 2014, which I went to last month or End of the Road 2014 in a fortnight's time

Here as a compromise is a short list, in alphabetical order, of eight acts that I have never seen live before but are on my "list of ones to see". None are appearing at EOTR 2014 unless I'm mistaken. It covers all stages and many of them have appeared in these posts before:

• Angel Olsen
• Fat White Family
• Georgia Ruth
• Joanna Gruesome
• Laura Groves
• O'Hooley & Tidow
• Samaris
• Wildest Dreams

The links were chosen on the basis of what attracted me to seeing them live although this is likely not where I first got that information. I deliberately have not included amongst them anything that I have written. In the case of Joanna Gruesome the link was chosen on the basis of its explanation of the bands formation. It maybe quite the urban myth but who wants the truth to get in the way of a good tale?
There's some variety of music in the list, I think.

2013 In Music - Albums - Part 2

Despite what I said I might do in the last part of this review series, this is not EPs and mini- albums of 2013. It is the second tranche of 'albums of 2013'. The former category is proving far more fascinating, and therefore complex, than I imagined even a couple of weeks ago. It will have to await my attention this coming weekend. The first part afforded you one album that was largely sung in a foreign language. This will include another but the comfort is that at least both of them are sung in the same foreign language. I make no excuses about this, the links, or indeed the variety of music included. You won't catch me adding a link to NME very often but here I chose to do so:

• Danni Nicholls - A Little Redemption
• Deap Vally - Sistrionix
• Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo - Dear River
• Ethan Johns - If Not Now Then When?
• Joanna Gruesome - Weird Sister
• Joanne Shaw Taylor - Songs From The Road
• Lanterns on the Lake - Until The Colours Run
• Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin - Mynd
• Siddi - Un Tro
• Texas - The Conversation
• Troubadour Rose - Find An Arrow
• Wild Belle - Isles

I've seen seven of these acts live, four of them more than once, and the other five are well and truly on my list of 'ones to see'. Choose your own favourite, not from these, unless you really want to do that, because it is your turn. Write about it - somewhere, anywhere legal.