Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose

The début album, which also has one of the most astonishingly curious titles of recent times, is finally released on Mute Records on January 24, 2012. If you were not lucky enough to be at EOTR watching this set then let me say something: I had long ago worked out that she was good at what she does but then this was quite something.

Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny....

  

Live on the Garden Stage at End Of The Road Festival 2011, Saturday 3 September.  This is the third time I have seen the whole band live and it just gets better and better. For 2009/2010 coverage of Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny see 'I Will Return, I Promise'.
It is strange, in a very good kind of way, and I trust Mute Records with that.

If you wonder why that is, go listen to Polly Scattergood's 2009 self-titled début album that was also released by Mute. And, by the way, she's busy with the next one and I can't wait for that either.

Nitrogen Pink

Another artist I saw live at Latitude 2008 was Polly Scattergood, who performed on the Sunset Stage early on Sunday afternoon. While the picture below looks rather of the kind that one gets from booths that take passport photos, it is actually the cover of 10" vinyl single Nitrogen Pink (Mute, 2007, and since released by Mute US in 2008).

No album yet but several singles - all available on vinyl - and already a very fine live act indeed.

Hard to categorise I know and, while some would say pop-punk in an instant, that's not the half of it. She is indeed both these things at times but at many others she has too much of that wilful, yet vague, dislocation of the care-worn singer-songwriter for that aspect not to come out in the wash. Her music is all the better for it.

[Click images to enlarge the images below and ask me if you want other versions.]

Polly Scattergood on the Sunset Stage @ Latitude 2008.
Adjusting the microphone... this was taken just before the soundcheck.

That is not to say that this means gloomy, depressing music or performance. This is music aimed not at those angry at a particular moment in time, as punk quite deliberately was, but at a whole new generation of uncertainty.

Just fifteen minutes later and very much live!