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.

Summer Festivals 2012 - Deer Shed 3

I recently became aware of the fact there is that a whole lot about my experiences at festivals during the summer of 2012 that I have never mentioned. I think that I shall commence the remedy starting with Deer Shed Festival 3, Baldersby Park, North Yorkshire in mid-July. Before I start on the music the food stalls were amazing. When I find the card, I know it is somewhere just around where I am now, I shall name and fame the stall that sells the best pork pies in the world, ever: Sorry, Melton Mowbray.
I was listening to Simon Raymonde's show on amazingradio.co.uk this evening and it included a live session with, originally Southampton-based, four-piece Pale Seas and they are good even though they have yet to release their first album.

Pale Seas on the '(Far from the) Lake Stage' at Deer Shed Festival 2012.

Things beckon for them in 2013 much as happened a couple of years ago to this band that met at Cardiff University and then discovered that their planned career paths might need a slight rethink.

 Los Campesinos! on the 'Main Stage' at Deer Shed Festival 2012.

This was a band that I had long wanted to see live and one that certainly didn't disappoint. In fact nothing about this festival was a disappointment. It was also phenomenally family friendly so here is a picture or two of that aspect to finish this post.

This was free for kids to decorate before, once complete, it was floated in a pond.

In the main arena, Saturday afternoon.