New Music 2017 - Part 15 - The Secret Sisters - You Don't Own Me Anymore

It was only last weekend that I was discussing the impact that new music can have on me, particularly when blind-sided by something unknown and therefore quite unexpected. It has happened quite a few times now, most often at festivals, and it is a thrill that doesn't seem to diminish with each incidence thereof.
This is about one such act that I mentioned here and one that I am happy to report has resurfaced after a very challenging time that involved being dropped by their record label and various other soul-destroying events. This is one of the very few pictures I took then and long before all that happened to them:

The Secret Sisters - Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, 5 September 2011.

I mention this because The Secret Sisters are back! Laura and Lydia Rogers had been writing songs in a desultory fashion and with no real expectations until towards the end of 2015 when Brandi Carlile coaxed them to play support for her in her native Pacific Northwest.
Then she told them that she was producing their third LP (that wasn't even written) in collaboration with her own co-producers the Hanseroth Twins.

This re-focussed the songwriting; the experiences of the previous few years becoming material for whole new set of songs and this is the result.

The Secret Sisters - You Don't Own Me Anymore (New West Records, 16 June 2017).

The Secret Sisters - You Don't Own Me Anymore

• Tennessee River Runs Low
• Mississippi
• Carry Me
• King Cotton
• Kathy's Song
• To All the Girls Who Cry
• Little Again
• You Don't Own Me Anymore
• The Damage
• Til It's Over
• Flee as a Bird

That is the playlist and this is the opening song. I can't wait to see them live once again.

New Music 2015 - Part 48 - The Deslondes

Writing a blog is something like handling a heavy train; it is an unending battle between inertia and momentum. I seem to be in the hard-to-stop situation at the moment.

This album was released today by New West Records.

The Deslondes is a New Orleans acoustic five-piece and this is their first LP released as such. It starts with the piano led 'Fought The Blues and Won', which is some claim. On first listen I was much affeared that this was a case of best-foot-first. That was not to prove so.
It has a sense of the timeless about it. That is oft-times a phrase used with a forked-tongue but in this instance even Pitchfork seem to be very much on the positive side.
As for me, well I'm sold on this. This is for summer - if we have one - and despite the fact that East Somerset is notably short of bayous and their accompanying catfish and crawfish I'm always good for any excuse for a BBQ.

This is track #6 'The Real Deal':

It is not in my opinion one of the deal-makers but it shows well both the intent and the acoustic milieu live. The record ends with another slow number led by piano and that is 'Out On The Rise'. It is demurely astonishing.
This is the track list:

• Fought the Blues and Won
• Those Were (Could've Been) the Days
• Heavenly Home
• Less Honkin' More Tonkin'
• Low Down Soul
• The Real Deal
• Still Someone
• Time to Believe In
• Louise
• Simple and True
• Same Blood As Mine
• Out On the Rise

What you may not expect, even after listening to it from start to finish, is that all twelve songs are originals and the band members share writing and singing duties in many and various ways.

New Music - 2015 - Part 7 - Ruby the RabbitFoot - New As Dew

I'll come clean here - this is actually a 2014 release - but I doubt that many in the UK are aware of the artist who calls herself Ruby The RabbitFoot. She hails from Athens, Georgia.

To some extent one of its greatest virtues is that it isn't challenging, but that can be a good thing in multiple ways. It is acoustic pop, more or less, and there is little country influence either. It certainly isn't all cheerful. This I expect was quite deliberate and, while that was a dangerous hand to play in 2014, I think it worked out for the best here.
It is the music equivalent of comfort food of the best kind (macaroni cheese and fish fingers with ketchup, possibly) and spending the evening wrapped up in a duvet in front of the fire. I'm planning to test this theory, believe me; especially if this coming weekend turns cold, as it is predicted it might.
New As Dew hints at the forthcoming spring and I can't wait for that. It is released by Normaltown Records and the LP is available on vinyl. I'm now curious to listen to the other artists on the label. If you don't actively go looking for new music then you don't find much at all.
It is not the kind of album from which I'm likely to choose stand-out tracks, even when I have listened to it more often, but that is no bad thing either.