New Music 2014 - Part 4 - Smoke Fairies

I'm not sure that I have ever tried to write two posts on-line simultaneously but I see no reason why not to try it.
The Smoke Fairies self-titled forthcoming third album, released on 14 April by Full Time Hobby Records on DL (various file formats) to vinyl (but perhaps not cassette) just as you might wish.

Beyond that I can't tell you much other than to say that I have almost all of their previous LPs, EPs and none of them have disappointed.
I can't remember how I first came to know of them but the first time I saw them live was at Latitude Festival 2009 on the Thursday evening and a performance (in a marquee, fortunately) that was interrupted by a truly epic thunderstorm.  I shall look at the ghosts of festivals long gone and try and find some pictures.

This is the only remotely usable one from Latitude 2009 - Katherine Blamire on guitar.

On the Garden Stage at End of The Road Festival 2010 the sun was shining and all this explains, at least in part, why I wish to see them play live once again.

Jessica Davies playing slide guitar.

New Music 2012 - Part 13 - whispers on the wind

This is less focussed than most such posts: just things that I've seen, heard or otherwise divined in the last couple of weeks.
Back in 2009 and 2010 I mentioned Smoke Fairies on several occasions...
Their second LP and the follow-up to 'Through Low Light and Trees' is to be released in May; it is called 'Blood Speaks' and is, in as far as I can do so, pre-ordered already. The timing would be good for a festival or two this summer...
  
One thing that we do know is, while if you are hoping to see Joanne Shaw Taylor live in the UK this spring you might be disappointed, she is however busy recording her third LP. I have no idea of any release date, or title, but the mere fact can hardly be a bad thing. If waiting for that is too much, and really it should be...

Living With Ghosts

This is for whoever asked, including the lyrics as published thereon.

Now The Green Blade Rises.

You hadn't forgotten about The Smoke Fairies and the amazing 2008 single 'Living With Ghosts' had you? Well, even if you had you are forgiven as the Frozen Heart EP is out on June 29.

In the meantime they are back with the track 'Now The Green Blade Rises' which, if you are quick, you can have legally and free on <.mp3> and it is a perfect slice of made-for-summer languorous folk.

It is traditional, up to a point. The melody is French - it dates from the 15th century - and still one that accompanies the carol Noël Nou­ve­let although this arrangement of it owes much to that of Martin Fallas Shaw (1875 - 1958). The English lyric was written by John Macleod Campbell Crum (1872 - 1958) who started his career as as­sist­ant cur­ate at St. John the Evan­gel­ist, Dar­ling­ton (1897 - 1901) and ended it as Ca­non of Can­ter­bu­ry (1928 - 43).

Not quite the everyday history of a 2009 cover version!

For the traditional, and largely unchanged, lyric see http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/06/lyrics-again-now-green-blade-rises.html

Living With Ghosts

I mentioned this single, the first released by Smoke Fairies, not long ago and today my copy arrived in the post. I have listened to it several times this evening and, while I had rather high hopes for it, I am quite disappointed...

Disappointed with myself that is; Living With Ghosts is far better than I even dared hope that it could be and the b-side Troubles is equally good. I can't wait for the release of their début album and, although this is a very limited 7" vinyl release, I can hardly imagine that both these tracks will not make the cut but one can never tell.
This single may prove hard to get unless you act very quickly but something I can add, and this pleases me greatly, is the lyrics for both tracks on it. They are included in "hand-writing" on the cover accompanying it and while the occasional phrase is hard to read I hope that, with the single to listen to, I've mostly got them correct!

Living With Ghosts:
You to me are only a memory, got a flame still burning where I know it shouldn't be, but it gets hold when the one you're thinking of is no longer. I am haunted, you'll hound me for all my days and I know that somewhere things still go on the same, but it gets hard when the time you are thinking of is now passed. In my mind we still live there. All this time feels like I've gone nowhere. It can get lonely living with ghosts.
You're in my head until I die. So I ran to the mountains. Ran as far as I could. Got to find a new life. Wouldn't do me any good. 'Cause it gets hard when the one you're thinking of is no longer. You're in my mind like an old ugly scar. I'll spend my life trying to hide. Days will go by and I'll still think of you as if you were here by my side.

Troubles:
Out of the northern sky, over the land where the ice fields lie, came a winter it came so cold. I drew my demons out to the snow. Into the night we flew, scoring the sky with the paths we drew. Drawn together like moths to night never believing we'd burn so bright. When troubles keep expanding tie me a long rope 'cause its you that keeps me standing, it's you that I need more.
Over and over we leave, scarring our minds with the things that we've seen never sure what we're looking for, always returning with something more.

To listen to in 2008 - Part 4

This is quite difficult to write. I've seen so much live music recently, which is very good but tends to colour ones perceptions in a perhaps disproportionate way, and I've discovered so many new artists across a wide range of genres. I'm glad of that too but it makes deciding what to wish for next very difficult indeed.

If there is any connection then it is the ascendancy of - and probably the connection between - new-folk in the UK and Americana. What they do not share in tradition is more than made up in their connection via live-musicianship and what, just a year ago, seemed exciting in the UK is now happening on both sides of the Atlantic. That is not to say it wasn't happening in the US last year, because it was, but the joining of dots is what matters. Openly referencing trans-Atlantic influences is now not only acceptable but also distinctly fashionable, on both sides, for the first time in well over a decade. Not everyone on either side will embrace the new party but in the year that Sub-Pop turns twenty, and the world is changing faster than at any time since, it somehow seems very fitting that there is something of a return to traditional music; in values if not always in execution for nothing remains the same.

Two albums/artists I want to hear are these:

I saw Noah and The Whale live at Latitude 2008 and this is their début album.
This band also has close links with Laura Marling, who appears on some tracks of this recording.

Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down - Noah & The Whale (2008).

To mention another, here is a duo that at least on first listen is quintessentially English.

Smoke Fairies met at school in Brighton and later, when it did not seem to be the Deep South that they imagined, decamped to New Orleans for a year and, as that wasn't quite it either, this was followed by some time in... Vancouver!
They are now in London and concentrating on finishing their first album, which should appear soon, and as likely as not it will be another release in a genre that has risen from nowhere in a matter of a few years. In the meantime Smoke Fairies, like many others, are making headlines with their awesome live performances. Whatever else might be wrong in the UK right now live music isn't it!

Smoke Fairies are Jessica Davies and Katherine Blamire.
It seems unlikely the album will be without influences resulting from their time in New Orleans and who could wish otherwise?

Smoke Fairies release their first single Living With Ghosts on 11 August. It is available for download and there is also a physical version too - 500 copies, all hand numbered, on 7" vinyl.