New Music 2014 - Part 41 - French For Rabbits - Spirits

It is one of those late autumn days where it is raining outside and the best bet, if one is able to do that, is to stay in and try to keep it all at bay. Thus I find myself in front of the fire, with a bowl of home-made leek and potato soup, listening to this LP. It is just about perfect for days such as this and I'm a sucker for this kind of dream-pop anyway. Where they come from it is, however, spring.

Spirits is the début LP by New Zealand duo French For Rabbits. I don't know enough about music from New Zealand, nevertheless that which I do find I tend to like. This next might be a myth but I don't want it spoiled now, thank-you: the band-name apparently came during a discussion as to whether lapins, presumably a possible band name, was indeed the French word for rabbits.
'French For Rabbits' was, in any case, a far better choice.
Originally from Christchurch, but relocated to Wellington, the duo of (nominatively-determined) Brooke Singer on voice and keyboards and John Fitzgerald on guitar do a fine job of evoking the subtle wisps of autumn that try to sneak in wherever there is a chink in the defences. I believe that Brooke is also the principal songwriter too.
The album is very much a thing to be listened to in toto. I purchased it as a download but it will soon be released on vinyl too. I'm now more than tempted to upgrade to real.
See what you think. Have a listen:

New Music 2014 - Part 9 - Denmark and New Zealand

This post on new music changes tack slightly. While both artists are primarily female singer-songwriters any direct connection with Americana is absent. In neither case is the album the first. I have already seen one of the two live and would much very like to see the other live too.

This is the new album (although it was actually released in 2013), Aventine, by Agnes Obel. Whilst she has been resident in Berlin for some years now she is from Denmark and her 2010 début album 'Philharmonics' is five-times 'platinum' in her home country but still, with worldwide sales approaching one million, she remains surprisingly unknown. Her début LP was a far cry from Scandinavian pop and this is even more so.

It is spacious, minimal, and sometimes very dark but not in any way depressing.

If one were to mention female artists from New Zealand, at the moment the most likely to come to mind would be Lorde (Ella Yellich O'Connor) and her album 'Pure Heroine'. That incidentally, in my opinion, is also one of the most inspired album titles and it is a fine album too, but not the one I intend to feature here. 

 'Brightly Painted One' is released (in the UK) by Bella Union on 31 March 2014.
   

This is acoustic, almost lighter-than-air, music but I know that it works because I have seen Tiny Ruins live at No Direction Home 2012, until which point I had no knowledge whatsoever. Suffice it to say that I hadn't forgotten about that.

Hollie Fullbrook, Electric Dustbowl stage, No Direction Home 2012.

Tiny Ruins is confirmed for End Of The Road 2014.

New Music 2014 - Part 3 - Tiny Ruins

Time catches up with us all - this however is one of the good times. One of the 2014 "artists to watch" is indubitably New Zealand's Ella Yellich O'Connor, better known as Lorde and not least for her 2013 album 'Pure Heroine'.
Another New Zealand artist well worth hearing is Tiny Ruins, the project of Hollie Fullbrook. I first became aware of this when I was at No Direction Home Festival in 2012.

Hollie Fullbrook (guitar and vocals), Cass Basil (bass). Electric Dustbowl stage.
  

I was reminded yesterday whilst listening to a Mixcloud compilation of singer-songwriter fare in 2013 when I suddenly thought "Oh! a Laura Marling song I don't know and a good one at that." That is never a bad thing; I was wrong about the artist, however.

It turned out to be the song 'Always You, Tiptoeing Through', which is the final track on Tiny Ruins' 2013 EP 'Haunts', which I didn't have. Well worth the cost of the download (the physical copies are long gone). Even better is that a new studio album is coming this spring. I haven't even got the last one yet - Some Were Meant For Sea (2011).

Catch up, Richard!

I now remember why this was. I had intended to buy it at the festival but they had all sold. In any case it has made a lovely start to the New Year, the only blot being that it looks like No Direction Home was a one-off festival. On the other hand I would very much hope to see Tiny Ruins, with the new album in tow, at End Of The Road Festival 2014.

Confusion is just what once you thought you knew.

You will probably know the electro-dominated single 'Somebody That I Used To Know' [but to be fair the album is not all like this, far from it indeed] currently doing the rounds with Australian-Belgian Gotye at the helm and featuring female guest vocals by New Zealand singer Kimbra (and probably better known as a guitarist). I like it but it is not the same as 'Someone You Used To Know' and I like this even more, which is why I'm mentioning it here.
The confusion mentioned in the post title will, along with my liking for acoustic music, hopefully become clearer here:

'Someone You Used To Know' is a totally different song, and an original, by singer-songwriter Zee Avi. If you think that Australia has a surprising musical influence you are right. Gotye is Australian but Zee Avi is not - she is from Sarawak, Borneo - and while 'Someone You Used To Know' is not actually on her latest album, 'Ghostbird', it is well worth a listen and so is the album.

New Music 2012 - Part 8 - Anxiety, Ladyhawke

Well I just had to mention 'Anxiety', the very welcome follow up to her self-titled début album from 2008; not simply because I heard the first stuff from it today and I think it sounds good but also because I saw her live at Latitude 2009 and that was very good indeed.

It is currently slated for release in the UK (Island/Universal) on March 19, 2012.
More to follow including, with any luck, some UK festival dates.
  

I could, and intend to, add quite a few more acts that have that same potential and given enough on one festival bill I could still be tempted to venture out to another. Anxiety is also very much a part of life for festival organizers just at the moment:

There is no shortage of worthy acts and artists seeking bookings, far from it indeed but that is a double-edged sword.  Selling festival tickets in 2012 is going to be tough, there is no doubt about that and the 2012 Olympiad is not going to help as much as it hinders. Booking the acts of the moment will be more important than ever but that will only come at a cost - one many festivals can barely afford, let alone risk and that they are extremely unlikely to be able to pass this on in ticket prices, 'up-front costs', or indeed 'on-site costs' such as catering (the latter would surely come back to haunt them in 2013).
If, and it is a big if, the general economic situation were to show real signs of even a modest revival, particularly towards the end of 2012, then 2013 (including the return of Glastonbury that is absent in 2012) might actually turn out to be tougher still.

The focus will be firmly on festivals that provide quality in all aspects;  great entertainment, good facilities, and also value for money. There may be some disappointments, some festivals that vanish, but I think that the sector will rebound from this and quite possibly in ruder health.

  

Note added March 30, 2012:

The current, revised date for the release of 'Anxiety' in the UK is May 28, 2012.

Thoughts of Festivals - Latitude 2011 again.

I decided to continue the theme. Almost as soon as I posted the previous one I was already half hoping that someone will convince me to change my mind.
Here are some more photos from Latitude 2011, starting on the main Obelisk Stage again and then working through the others.
  

Wanda Jackson covering Amy Winehouse's 'You Know I'm No Good'.

That it has a clock in it as rather strange: in her introduction to the song Jackson spoke of her concern for Ms. Winehouse's health.  Almost exactly a week later it was announced that she was dead.
  

Isobel Campbell again, on the same stage that her former band Belle and Sebastian had headlined on the Saturday in 2010.

A highlight for me this year, and not just because it is tented and out of the rain, was the Word Arena; they had done a pretty good job of picking the acts for this and they were very varied, which formed the basis of the post about Festival Variety in late July. Here are a couple more pictures from the Saturday.

I have only ever seen a few acts that come from New Zealand performing live. Ladyhawke (second album eagerly awaited) and Otago's Ruby Suns being two that come to mind. This is the lead vocalist of the third one...
  

Alisa Xayalith of The Naked and Famous during a volcanic set.

  

As the rain continued to fall some good old-fashioned party spirit was needed and what better to conjure that than Bellowhead?  Complete with a fiddle-duel.

  

That is the two larger stages done, at least for now, with the Lake Stage and Sunrise Arena to follow soon.

Spring madness - music and cats.

I seem to have had so many items on order (or on pre-order) for so long that I was beginning to become impatient and had begun to wonder if they, or at least some of them, would ever arrive at all.
The way notifications went today it looks like they will, and almost all at once - two vinyl LPs, two vinyl 12" EPs and two CDs. The strange thing is that, of the six items, three are recorded by UK artists and two of those have had to come from the US, along with the two by US artists. The remaining two, one of which is by a Canadian band, were more readily available here and that is a demonstration of the vagaries of the quasi-global market! The Canadian one, which I have not mentioned before, is the latest from Metric, a band that I would dearly love to see live. They are in the UK this spring but it now looks unlikely that I will be able to catch them on tour.

Less electro than 'Old World Underground...' and less rock than 'Live It Out'?

I can't wait to decide for myself and, while talking of electro-reinvented, here is one album that I've listened to a great deal in the last few weeks. Ask most people to name an artist from New Zealand and (Kiri Te Kanawa aside) I suspect you'll get blank looks...

Another inspired signing by (Australian label) Modular Recordings, released under license by Universal/Island Records in Europe, the music is quite remarkable - it sounds like nothing you can remember or pin a name to - and the album artwork is quite strange too, all done in watercolour and depicting the paraphernalia of electronic home-recording...

... and cats, lots of cats. Some look shocked and others are listening or merely asleep.

This is my favourite; it is truly surreal and so different from most current music artwork. It is actually the cover to the 7" single 'Paris Is Burning' as if a cat, particularly one in New Zealand, could possibly know or care.

It is an amazing single, and Pip Brown is a star, so the UK Government responded immediately.

The National Curriculum in 2011.

It has been trialled and all kittens will be taught to sing, read music and play piano from an early age.