New Music 2016 - Part 19 - Sam Green and The Midnight Heist - Factory Studio Sessions EP

One of the things that frequently appears at or near the top of the side-bar of this blog is a poster under the title "Musicians to see live in 2016...". This poster will appear there too in a few days time but in the meanwhile here is a thought.
You could see Sam Green and The Midnight Heist at The Isle Of Wight Festival in June. Failing that you can catch the same at Boomtown Festival, Hampshire in mid-August. Or you could see them, eight weeks before the former, without the need for a ferry to the Isle of Wight and with no camping involved either, at a venue that guarantees that you will be amongst a crowd that does not exceed a hundred persons!
Cast your eyes to the last date on this poster...

Marnhull Acoustic Sessions - Sunday, 17 April 2016. Tickets: £11 (inc. £1 booking fee).

Note added 11 April 2016:

The above performance has been postponed to a later date, to be announced. Tickets are valid for the rescheduled date or refunds can be obtained by contacting Marnhull Acoustic Sessions via the website.

Should you be wondering what the 'Factory Studio Sessions EP', released sometime in April, might sound like then worry not. You can wrap your ears around it right now. That will be as nothing when compared with seeing and hearing the band live.

Sam Green & The Midnight Heist - The Factory Studio Sessions EP.

Note added 11 May 2016:

Sam Green and The Midnight Heist is now confirmed to play Green Man Festival 2016, on the Chai Wallah's stage.

New Music 2016 - some things forthcoming...

It is true that I have not written here for a fortnight. What is not true is that things have stagnated hereabouts. Far from it indeed - I have been listening both recorded, and sometimes live, to all kinds of things. That includes artists playing at festivals that I am attending this summer as well as many others that I hope I might see live too.

This is the very latest that I have seen live, as in yesterday evening, and I'll be mentioning this tiny venue again very soon indeed!

Megson, Marnhull Acoustic Sessions, 20 March 2016.

Megson have a new LP 'The Good Times Will Come Again' that is released on 27 May 2016 and they played a few tracks from it in their extended set yesterday evening. It will not disappoint methinks.

That isn't however the forthcoming album to which I am listening as I write. I'm listening to one that I have already mentioned here. It is released 25 March 2016 and I'll say nothing more about it...  at least for now.

That is not even to mention all the artists added to festival lists in the last few weeks. Some I have seen before, some I never have, some I just can't wait to see once again. Then there is everything else.

New Music 2015 - Part 67 - Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin - Watershed

Nothing gives me more pleasure than writing about this. It is a couple of years since I was introduced to this duo by Ian Lyster via North Dorset Folk Festival and Marnhull Acoustic Sessions. I have seen the duo live at least five times now and it can never be once too many.

It is not really so long since Mynd was released (2013).  This is about the new studio album but in the meantime they have released the CD Live At Calstock (2014).

Watershed is released on 25 September by Dragonfly Roots.

Less concerned with historical themes than their earlier work it is indeed a watershed. To assert otherwise would be wrong I think; the track titles alone give lie to that:

• Watershed
• Stones
• Tonight
• Yarrow Mill
• Conkers
• December
• January
• Letter (Unsent)
• Foundling
• Lament
• London
• Taxis

More immediate and intimate it is certainly is, but no less stunning. This is just a sample of it and, amazingly, adding video from FB wasn't quite the total pain that I thought it would be.
Should you want it ASAP then Proper Music have it on a limited pre-order deal for £10.99 and that includes UK delivery and the CD is signed!

Marnhull Acoustic Sessions - Tom Clements and Annabelle Chvostek

Sunday just gone was the last Marnhull Acoustic Session before the summer recess for festivals and suchlike. The opening artist was Tom Clements and he could hardly be more local to the venue.  The use of live self-sampling is amazing to watch as are the sounds that he can make with that guitar. You won't need telling that one of his influences is Mark Knopfler but this is more than imitation, or indeed flattery.

His LP 'Roots, Morals and Other Life Choices' is released on 15 May.

Not so many have come to Marnhull from as far away as Annabelle Chvostek: as she put it, while the consonants in her surname give away her Slovak roots, she is in fact third-generation Canadian.  Some may know her through her stint with Canadian trio The Wailin' Jennys, which she left in 2007, but there is a whole lot more territory that she covers. At times her mandolin playing is replete with eastern European influences but, when it comes to her forthcoming LP 'Be The Media' it isn't the star of the show and neither is her acoustic guitar. In this sense it was one of the least acoustic sets I have seen at Marnhull, but no matter.

Her "new toy" is new to her but not actually new at all. To quote:

"A 1969 Fender Mustang, with a racing stripe and matching machine head."

'Be The Media' is a fine album too and is officially released in July (well, probably it is).

There is a certain, somewhat retro, groove to it as I suggest that the cover artwork implies. It is that good.

Live and local - Simon Kent, Blair Dunlop and Emma Stevens

In between hopping across the Atlantic with this blog, if only metaphorically though I would given the chance, it is more than refreshing to trundle a score of miles through the English countryside full of spring blossom to a gig in a village hall to hear such quality as was showcased last Sunday evening.
It was supposed to be a double bill. That it was a triple was the source of some pre-event strife, but did not impinge on the evening for the audience. The 'extra' was Simon Kent playing with only a drummer for company and at short notice due to unforeseen circumstances. I have to say that he was someone who I was only peripherally aware. It was a short set but it has certainly inclined me to investigate further.

The other two acts were a joint-billing - and this was the only date on that tour that was not a city. Blair Dunlop played first on this occasion, To be honest it would not have mattered one little bit had Emma Stevens played first. I don't think that they are competitive in that particular sense.

Blair Dunlop has been on my list of 'ones to see live' for some time and I can't think of a better venue than this. It is  I think not be going to be possible to do it in such a small venue without paying a high ticket price for much longer - in might, indeed, have been the very last time.
He played tracks from both his released LPs, and three brand new ones (the bedroom sessions!) and also this. It is a cover of kinds, I suppose.

It is a tune (instrumental)  'Si Bheg, Si Mhor' - written by blind Irish harpist and, rather more importantly composer, Turlough O'Carolan (1670 -  1738). How can a guitar sound like a harp? Played like this... that's how.

Emma Stevens is also two albums into her career as a solo artist, 'Waves' being the latest. Here she is captured playing an instrument that gives some people the creeps. As far as I know she doesn't play piano accordion.

She played this only on one song, and played nothing whilst singing another one, but otherwise played guitar and sang. 

A few recent (live) videos.

I never sure whether to make this sort of addendum a post on its own or to add the items to (recent) posts about the same act or artist. In this case I have avoided the issue as such and chosen a combination of the two concepts. These first two are added to recent posts (links included below):

• Sound of The Sirens - 'Faith in Fire' (live, Plymouth, 11 April 2015) here.
• Annabelle Chvostek - 'Be The Media' (live studio session) here.

I have a few more to share but they relate to earlier posts, some very much so, and I will therefore add the new content below but with links back to earlier posts or references as appropriate.
This next is in a sense a cover of a cover. The song 'Fields Of Gold' was written by Gordon Sumner, aka Sting, but the famous version is that by the late Eva Cassidy. This is a live version of that recorded by Hattie Briggs, and from her recent début album 'Red & Gold', that features violin and was also mixed by Eva Cassidy's brother Dan Cassidy. 

The rest of the album, and that comprises her self-written songs, is stunning too. It topped the iTunes folk chart yesterday. The next question is how soon we can get to see her play live in Frome - Rook Lane might be the ideal venue but The Grain Bar would be very good too.

This next is rather a different prospect and certainly a change of style and tempo. I have quite happily driven a total of four hundred miles to see Joanne Shaw Taylor live three times. Next time it is going to be a fifteen minute walk from home. 

Come and see live music.

Right then. Spring is coming, sooner or later, and it is time to stop making excuses and start making plans for the summer. If you have never really engaged with live music but thought that you might, be it indoors or outside, now is the time to make some decisions. There has arguably never been such a choice as there is just now. I'll say it now, loud and plain, even vinyl isn't a patch on live performance.
The tired old excuses - about the kids, food, camping, toilets, whatever.... well they don't really hold water any longer. You can have anything you want - from a couple of hours at an intimate indoor gig to four days camping in a field - and it is up to you. What is more is that it doesn't need to cost the earth either. The one thing that you will have to find minders for, if it is more than a short escape, is your pets. Your cat may have other ideas of a good weekend whilst you are away but that's not my problem.

Here is a selection, biased to those that are reasonably local to me but not entirely so:

Nine dates in cities across the UK and Marnhull Acoustc Sessions in a hall that seats about a hundred.
For more about the artists see here  ---  Blair Dunlop  ---  Emma Stevens. At the same venue the following Sunday Megan Henwood and on 10 May Canadian artist Annabelle Chvostek (formerly a member of The Wailin' Jennys). She has a brand new LP 'Be The Media' coming out on 1 June.

Then on 13 June comes the second edition of Behind The Castle Festival and, as it says, it is held just behind Sherborne Castle, Dorset in beautiful parkland. Bigger and better than last year, which was great this one-day family-friendly festival now has camping overnight on the Saturday (but you need to book that and soon) and will have enhanced catering and bar facilities as well as more stuff just for kids.
Here is the upper crust of the line-up. The rest won't disappoint.

In the way such things can happen, one of the artists not on the above list has been forced to cancel owing to illness. The replacement, who would otherwise have been on the list above, is to be announced tomorrow. It will be worth watching, trust me.
That is not to say that the others in the running list are any less worthy of your attention or indeed mine. I'm a firm believer in always arriving in time to see all of the support sets at any gig and, in so far as is possible, turning out to see the opening acts on festival stages even at 11am on Sunday morning.
You might just get the live music bug. If you do then the longer festivals beckon.
When summer is fading in to autumn  it will be time for North Dorset Folk Festival. That is a long time off and we must not wish all those months away.

If I were to write such a piece then it would not come out much different to this very recent preview:
http://www.rock-regeneration.co.uk/wordpress/2015/04/news-behind-the-castle-music-festival/

New Music 2015 - Part 24 - Pip Mountjoy - Call To Arms

Another singer and another song...
For those of you that remember Pip Mountjoy at Marnhull Acoustic Sessions in February 2014 or maybe before then as I did, at Deer Shed Festival 2012, here is a new song  played live and with a video. It is one of four that I believe are to appear during the coming Spring...

The first, filmed in a Yorkshire Dales cottage in need of some restoration, is 'Call To Arms'. It is a rallying cry to a number of her friends that in recent times have given up on their dreams of making a career of music.

The next video, which will accompany the song 'Hunter Moon' will be made available tomorrow (4 April) so watch this space. More news from this week is that Pip Mountjoy has been confirmed for North Dorset Folk Festival 2015 at Marnhull Village Hall on Saturday 24 October.
Here is 'Hunter Moon' and the video to accompany a couple of hours early...

Marnhull Acoustic Session - Jinder & Pete Millson

After missing Marnhull Acoustic Sessions on its 31 August return, because I was a End of The Road Festival, I reacquainted myself with it this evening. I have just returned from what proved to be a very worthwhile and enjoyable performance from two acoustic guitarists and songwriters neither of which I was very well aware of before. Both hail from Bridport, which is clearly a veritable treasure trove of musical talent.

It was interesting to contrast their respective approaches to song writing and playing. First to play was Peter Millson with a set that included a number of songs taken from his latest LP 'The Love That Meets Return' (2014).

Indeed here he is playing the title track of that very album.

Following the short break was Jinder who presented songs from his most recent album 'Crumbs of Comfort' (2012) along with some earlier material, relevant cover versions and some choice anecdotes that threw interesting light on the songs themselves and the twists and turns of fâte that connected them. He also played a couple of songs that are to appear on his forthcoming LP that will be released early in 2015. I am sure that he mentioned the title but I didn't take notes and have now forgotten.

I'm not going to write more in detail about the music of either at this juncture. It is getting late and in any case I did something that I very rarely do at such events; I bought both the aforementioned albums on CD and quite likely I will return in due course to reviewing them in more detail.
There is no Marnhull Acoustic Session in October: It is better than that for its place is taken by the 3rd North Dorset Folk Festival on 25 October and that will take place at the same intimate venue (and may possibly be the smallest festival in England). I'm going to write a preview of that very soon but suffice to say it will be a treat and it is only £25 (+booking fee). There are not many tickets to start with and very few remain.