New Music 2016 - Part 28 - I Am Snow Angel - Fever

I haven't written much about electronic music for a while. This is in part because warm weather seems to prompt me to listen to it and at the moment winter is digging-in its heels for a final show of strength. Spring, and all thoughts of Summer, are therefore on hold. This kind of situation might change dramatically in a matter of days however - I believe in this - and that brings me to this artist whose moniker might ordinarily suggest a winter-time appeal.

I Am Snow Angel is a New York-based electronic pop performer, producer and visual artist and this is the latest release.

Fever - I Am Snow Angel (self-released, 2016).

There is plenty more by I Am Snow Angel out there to find, including the 2014 digital LP 'Crocodile', and there is more to come quite soon. I think that the thing that really caught my ear is that this is not strident electronica; it is pastoral rather than urban, wistful but still restive, and I'm keen to find more that is somewhat like it.
If I want or need to find urban or revolutionary music then I know that there is plenty of that available too.

New Music 2015 - Part 55 - The Lone Bellow - Then Came The Morning

After almost a week of not writing I thought that I would add this. I have discovered that the longer I spend away from writing, even when that is necessary for whatever reason, the trickier it is to get started again. The root of that problem is often simply where to pick up the thread. As it happens yesterday was pretty damp and gloomy hereabouts and so I spent much of the time indoors and listening to music, if only incidentally. At some point I dug out Fleet Foxes eponymous album from 2008 on vinyl. That reminded me of how much I enjoyed seeing the band live at EOTR,  how much I'm looking forward to seeing Father John Misty at Green Man 2015, and reawakened my interest in this particular thread of acoustic Americana. The writer's block was solved when I happened across The Lone Bellow and, specifically, their second LP 'Then Came The Morning'. I spent much of the evening listening to it.

The acoustic three-piece - Zac Williams, Kanene Pipkin and Brian Elmquist - now call Brooklyn's Lower East Side home but all originally have roots in the south. The LP is released by Descendant Records, a small independent label, and it also put me in mind of the late. lamented Civil Wars. It turns out that the former supported the latter so perhaps I was on the right lines there - and then I had to listed to 'Barton Hollow' again just to check if I was correct, by which time it was past Sunday bedtime!

New Music 2014 - Part 28 - Deena - Rock River

For the most part I find new music for myself, one way or another, but this is one of the rare exceptions.
In keeping with my policy of not reviewing that which I don't care for, you never hear about many of them. I imagine that, had she not sent me a message, I might never have got to hear of Deena and her latest album 'Rock River', or not for some time at the very least. That would have been a shame, and for several different reasons.

The first reason is that I really like it. The second is, to me at least, more interesting. That is to do with what I would have thought, had I heard it for the very first time without any background or context whatsoever.
The answer to that is very simple: New York.

I can't pinpoint exactly what the combination of circumstances is but the album has this written through it in the manner of a stick of rock (a seaside candy, probably peculiar to Britain). Although  usually sold in length, typically 6 - 8 inches it can easily be made into slices...

Blackpool, a seaside resort in Lancashire became famous as an affordable vacation destination for the previously home-bound factory workers in the north west of England from the arrival of the railway in the mid-nineteenth century until cheap flights to Spain became available in the 1970s and then Florida some years later, is perhaps its true home. 

I used to listen to more music like this, or perhaps now I simply listen to more other music too, and it reminded me that I like it. I suspect however that this, to invoke another British food analogy, is something of a Marmite thing - that is to say adore or despise. I like Marmite too.
It is perhaps a consequence of a combination of the way it has with words, literate and self-referencing or reflective. The first feelings I had while listening were of Latitude Festival circa 2007 - 9. Then I tried to work out why. This, although done fitfully I have to admit, has taken a couple of weeks. Here are two LP points of reference that I have come up with and I did see both these artists live at Latitude in that period.

• Jaymay  ---  Autumn Fallin' (2008)
• Chairlift  ---   Does You Inspire You (2008)

It would be wrong of me not to mention Regina Spektor here and I her saw her live in this period too. You will suspect that I regard Deena Shoshkes as being in good company and if that means a few people buy some music that they might not otherwise have considered than that is all I can wish for.

I want to listen to her earlier albums now, particularly this one, and so can you:

New Music 2012 - Part 18 - Audio Fiction - Worlds Apart

New York's Audio Fiction, which I have mentioned before in relation to their 2009 self-titled album, has just announced the completion of its successor 'Worlds Apart'. It will be released "sometime this summer".  I have no more specific date but here is the artwork for it:

This one was almost entirely funded using Kickstarter: Yet another nail in the coffin of the majors... and I don't think for a moment that the band will mind me saying that.
I'm currently listening to the album 'Audio Fiction' (2008) but I've heard some of the demos from 'Worlds Apart' and, well, I just can't wait to hear it all as it is finally intended to be.

'Between Day and Dream' or 'The Drifter and the Gypsy'

To whosoever asked if I think that two of the problems in the music industry are the lack of new artists and the hegemony of the four major labels. I am delighted to say no; rather the opposite in fact and this is why.
I was then challenged to name five acts or artists that fall in to this category and in the specified musical theme, which was female vocals and a principally acoustic milieu.  I decided to narrow it down to just five nascent New York based female artists or female-fronted acts - vaguely following the theme of yesterday's post and that actually turned out to be much more difficult than I thought it might be but not for the reason that I had anticipated.
Lack of choice was not the problem; to do so from a short list of (just) twenty was a challenge and isn't the real issue rather the opposite of the question that was asked? Plenty of talented artists who are either not signed at all or, if they are, to progressive independent labels. In my opinion independent labels are the future so that aspect is not a problem at all.

These are the five that I chose in no particular order. It was a tough call, often hearing only a song or at most two from each contender, and I intend to pursue this theme in more detail soon. I'm not aware that any of them are currently particularly well known in the UK.

Rachel Platten
www.myspace.com/rachelplattenband/

Sarah Solovay
www.myspace.com/sarahsolovay/

Rachel A. Brown
www.myspace.com/rachelbrownmusic/

Rosi Golan "The Drifter and The Gypsy"
www.myspace.com/rosigolan/

Chloé Temtchine "Between Day and Dream"
http://www.myspace.com/chloetemtchine/


Now imagine had I tried to do the same for the of the other thirty-something regional categories, in just this one exposition, what other treasures might I have found?  That is my inspiration.

So much to listen to...

After the customary slow start to the year new music suddenly seems to be bursting out from all sorts of expected and unexpected places! It may still be winter on all counts but the joys of spring seem to have appeared like the first brave snowdrops.

I'll try and add more in the next few days but for now here is another band from the US:

Audio Fiction come from New York and, having only found out about the band on Sunday, I listened to the two free mp3s, 'Way Out' and 'Suffocate', available on download from the website. I like what I heard and the self-titled CD is on order from cdbaby.com.

Have you have ever wondered what late 80s and early 90s New York indie pop-rock might sound like, if it were tinged with a no-shit punk attitude and reinvented in 2010? Well now you have an answer:

Wonderful.

Too Late To Change Me? - New Music I Want (Part 6)

I'm not sure quite why my taste in music has developed over the years, and in particular why it has become so much more diverse. There is not much that I liked twenty years ago that I dislike now but had you asked me then, about much that of the genres I now devour, I very much suspect that you would have got a pretty withering answer.
I don't think that I'm becoming less discriminating and isn't age said generally to lead to increasing conservatism? Then again would I (if it were possible then) have written what I think in a blog at all let alone in the "this is what I like now, how I feel about it, and if you disagree that's fine and you can just tell me" way I am doing at this moment? Absolutely not!
Neither would I have believed that in 2008-9 I would get to see an average of one live band a week or that I could find out about so much new music and in large part this is a result of the digital revolution of the last decade or so - MySpace and blogs included. On the other hand, and this is a matter of active choice rather than conservatism, I can now find may of those artists and their new music on vinyl...

Perhaps not the album 'Too Late To Change Me' on vinyl, (yet...), but a good example of the way things have changed and the tide of music from, or influenced by, New York.
This particular ripple hasn't really reached these shores yet, more than a year after its US release, but that's no reason not to give it a mention. If you like the style of piano-led songwriting exemplified by, to give just two examples, Regina Spektor and Sara Bareilles then you might consider this.

The next problem is to get my paws on a copy of the six-track CD, as my local independent record store certainly doesn't have one. This is where the cyber-local independent store cdbaby comes to the rescue. This album has already gotten very positive reviews there and I strongly suspect, that once mine arrives on this side of the pond, there will be another and it will appear here first!
Another album that I found out about by the same route last year, and find myself listening to with increasing frequency, is Kira Fontana - The Inner Revolution, which is slightly more alt-rock/pop and was mixed by Howard Bilerman, who has worked with Arcade Fire and Godspeed You Black Emperor, so you can probably now see how this tallies with my Canadian-indie addiction and yes, before you ask, I am going to see Metric live in Bristol next Saturday.
Many thanks are due to Ariel Publicity, NYC for giving me the chance to find out about and mention artists that would have otherwise almost certainly escaped my notice.

The item I was going to include next no longer falls in the 'new music I want' category and it is about as local as it gets. I bought it last week and it deserves a review of its own.

New and recycled. New Music 2009 - Part 2

I'm not quite sure now why, when writing my post on that music I am looking forward in 2009, I decided to stop when I did. I intended to add some more soon but didn't intend to do it this promptly as I couldn't decide what direction to take first. This morning I woke up with a migraine - hence the title of the post - but as things go the odd such episode is hardy something to complain about and, like dreams, if it serves a purpose then it is one hard to define in importance. I mention that because I suspect that, being both brain-based phenomena, they may not be entirely unrelated and a sort of living version of a soft-reboot followed by a hard-disc defragmentation. One thing I have noticed is that if I have a few vivid dreams (that I can remember) in a couple of days then a migraine might well follow. I woke up on Saturday morning and was mystified to discover that I was not in a tent but at home instead! My dream of being at a festival, though no particular one, was reality at the moment I woke up... Having slept the worst of it off I started to spend the rest of the time this afternoon, that I would normally have spent at work, drinking weak tea with sugar (the best palliative that I have yet found) and thinking about the problem. I don't know if others find this but, in the immediate aftermath, I discover that I have a new perspective on the scheme of things and even a renewed optimism.
In 2008 I listened to a great deal of music from the US and it was more in quantity and far more varied that I could have anticipated.
New York is always a good bet and, while some are particularly championing Chairlift and the 2008 début album 'Does You Inspire You' and it is yet another album left hanging around in my wish list of 2008, I'm going with this one for now and it is the début full-length album from Telepathé who are now, mostly, a three-piece but with collaborators a-plenty.

'Dance Mother' has been long in the making but also preceded by several vinyl and/or CD EPs, commencing with 'Farewell Forest' in 2006. It is released in the UK on January 26, 2009.

This is just a temporary image of the album cover but, judging from the EPs, the whispers and the fact that production duties on the album were in the hands of Dave Sitek, this shouldn't disappoint in terms of off-kilter cheer.
From this side of the pond here is another band that, although also not new, for most of us might as well be so. In 2007 a band called 6 Day Riot released an album 'Folie à Deux' and it didn't click with me then either.

They are back in 2009 with a new album that may or may not be called 'Have a Plan', which is due out by the summer. You know, the long, hot one that we are going to have, and to think that the 'festival season' is only six months away. You see, I've cheered up already!

An obvious revelation - Rocket Science For Dummies...

I've known this before but never allowed myself to believe that it is true. It follows on from the fact that, some years ago, I decided to buy music I was interested in, whether it is "popular" or otherwise. For a long time I have had no problem with current pop and this year I have finally given in and acknowledged that, however many albums I buy and however much I like them (or don't), I will only ever be able to scratch the surface of what I might like whether it is totally commercial or rather obscure and from wherever it comes. This new reality has certainly influenced my purchases and listening this year and, quite probably, kept me relatively sane.

This is the cheapest CD I have ever bought, and it arrived today. It cost US$ 0.01 (plus $5.48 international airmail from the US) and it is not something you are likely to find in HMV, Zavvi or even on amazon.co.uk.
It is weird, it is wonderful in a pop-fusion way, and there's a new album - Rocket Science For Dummies - coming very soon:

It's a beautiful fate, take yourself on a blind date
Substitute your self-hate, everything else can wait
It's a beautiful fate, requiem for all that's fake
Let yourself celebrate, everything else can wait

From "Beautiful Fate" on the forthcoming album 'Rocket Science for Dummies' by Astronauts of Antiquity. The thing is that you need their first album, on which India and B Rhyan combine a host of curious influences, and it is still available for $0.01 + p&p.

Let's Fall Back In Love

It is that time of year, unless of course you are south of the equator, when the days get shorter and the nights longer. If you have had a rubbish week at work so far, or are suffering any other similar situation, then I hope that it is some consolation that I share your lack of enthusiasm.

Two cheering thoughts: a good autumn (still a possibility) could well be better than a crappy summer (already confirmed) and more time to find and listen to music, new or old; more releases too and more time to read and write about them. The strange thing is, and this is nothing new, the more gloomy I feel in general the more eclectic and wide-ranging my taste in music becomes but seemingly not to the detriment of what I might regard as my 'core themes'.

Infinite Night
Drug lords, crooked cops, and thieves
Preying on the poor and on the weak
Boys with rifles in their hands
Far too young to understand.

[Chorus]
When it's more than you can bear
Let the silence fill the air.
You get a glimpse of the holy light
Well the sun is just a star
It reminds us of where we are
Just a little part of the infinite night.

Rich hold on to what they've got
Keep them far away from those who have not
Oceans rise and the fires rage on
Too much lost and nothing won.

[Chorus]

Oh looking down from up above
How we live and how we love
And how many days are yet to come... oh...

That track ain't even the half of it and this only confirms my view that, come the end of 2008, my selection of 'best albums' is likely to challenge that of last year in its variety and it would not greatly surprise me if this album [She Ain't Me - Carrie Rodriguez] features in it.

Let Me In
Make me understand
What it is to be a troubled man
And why you think that I'm the leaving kind
What else it is that ails your mind.

Oh let me in, I swear... I'll stay there.

I'm so tired of bailing out when push comes to shove.
Six long years to figure out all I need is your love.

Take me to your cave
I promise you that I won't behave
But I will give you all of my love
And a body sent from heaven above.

Oh let me in, I swear... I'll stay there.
Let me in , I swear... I'll stay there.

Back on planet GB there is no shortage of new music either and Slow Club are an act that I have seen live twice, at Latitude 2007 and Latitude 2008. They are wonderful and this (five-track CD) EP was released on Monday, 1 September by Moshi Moshi (MOMO66) and is an antidote to the rubbish summer weather. You might also find half of Slow Club, Rebecca, moonlighting-live with Noah and The Whale!

1. Let's Fall Back
2 Come On Youth
3. Dance To The Morning Light
4. Summer Shakedown
5. Trick Question

Slow Club on The Lake Stage @ Latitude 2007.

They are certainly unconventional but unquestionably good and, quite frankly, what's not to love?