2013 In Music - Albums - Part 3

In early December I said that I would do this. I always forget some albums that should be included and this year is no exception to the rule. There are in addition, several that I simply hadn't heard, or otherwise understood insufficiently, in time for them to be included in the first two lists. I have been busy with that and, while it might not be finalised for a week or so, this list might possibly run to another half-dozen. I will add them piecemeal as and I get the opportunity to do so.
They are in no particular order but this list will have images. It is again very much tied in with music I have seen live in 2013.
The first is Jo Harman and Company and the début album 'Dirt On My Tongue'. 

Albeit impressive at the first Frome Blues Festival in 2012; the return in 2013 was some triumph. She had it pretty much sewn up.
  

Only The Nimmo Brothers kept it from being the highlight of the day and, as they acknowledged, they have a fair few more years at the grindstone and under the belt. If you find the album is good then you need to see Jo Harman live. That actually applies to The Nimmo Brothers and also King King too - and I had the extreme good fortune to see all three acts in the space of six weeks.
   
The next is the début album by another band that I saw live for the first time at Truck Festival 2013, and another from the small Saloon stage that was curated by Clubhouse Records. This is one reason that I am very much minded to go to Truck Festival 2014 (19/20 July). That band is The Cedars and the album Little Copper Still.

Fermented in America, distilled in Britain.

This leads me to another festival that is tempting, and I thought about it last year. Maverick Festival 2014 (4 - 6 July 2014, nr. Woodbridge, Suffolk). There are no published artists for this yet but I have the feeling that it is unlikely to disappoint and I really like the idea of going to at least one weekend festival that I have never attended before.
   
I made and stated some rules concerning 'best of lists'. If this happens to breach them then, as they are my rules they are also mine to break. Fear not - I have no ambition in politics.
I didn't have this album in time to comment in the two previous lists but the EP 'The Weight Of The Globe' featured here and rightly so. This is about as good as it gets. EOTR 2014, are you listening?

It is also just one of a trio of releases that feature similar superimposed images as artwork... Warpaint - Warpaint is one of the other two that I have in mind. That is however a 2014 release.

    

[To be continued soon.]

Frome Blues Festival 2013

Well that's North Dorset Folk Festival 2013 reviewed but I'm quite sure that you haven't heard the last of it. 

There is no rest for the wicked and so the following day it was all change. I was closer to home, less then a fifteen minute walk, at Frome Blues Festival 2013. I have to say I wondered how it, and the change of genre, would fare with me in comparison to the previous day. My stamina was one thing I was pretty confident about - this was no test like End of The Road Festival in that respect!
The good news is, that at least from my point of view, it was all good and I have now had ten days to think about it. What I haven't done much of is working through the pictures that I took that day...
It was opened byAlbany Down that I first experienced live saw live at Rook Lane Arts in Frome earlier in the year as support for Chantel McGregor; a few months after she had played Frome Blues Festival 2012 as first support.

Here is my first take on Albany Down at Frome Blues Festival 2013 and, no doubt about it, they were very impressive.

That isn't the quite the term that I would have chosen six months ago.

  

I couldn't have taken this then either but it was, in all probability, not there to be taken.
  

To be quite honest Ron Sayer Jr. had no intent to be taken lightly, and with some reason, if not always exactly perhaps the one that he had in mind. 

He was good but his band kept him on tip-toes all the time and that is well worth seeing.

Innes Sibun was new to me but blues-rock of some impact. Indeed I thought in the moment that it might even become the highlight of the day but, while that ultimately was not to be so, it says a great deal about Frome Blues Festival. 

Innes Sibun on lead guitar.

With album 'Lost In The Wilderness' to trial. It is released 18 November 2013 in the UK.

  

Jo Harman and Company became the first and only act to play both editions of Frome Blues Festival. Last year I noted that I was impressed and this year was a step change.

Here, during an instrumental interlude, is the eponymous vocalist with a quite different take on blues-rock. Jo Harman is one-to-watch in 2014, there is no doubt about that.
First support was Nimmo Brothers and kicked some ass... as well as it falling to them by fâte to announce the sad demise of of Lou Reed. Their response was anything but a sombre set but then again I don't think that is what he would have wanted. As live performances go this could truly be described as visceral.
  

This was at the start of the set and shows all of the band. While clearly committed it gave little hint of the intensity that was to follow. Not least the brothers' dual lead guitar work and certainly not that it would become quite as complicated as this. I took this next picture on a hope and a prayer, whilst simultaneously trying to believe in that which I was watching.

It would be a good trick if...    and they certainly could.

In some ways this repeated last year's festival when the first support act, Chantel McGregor, pitched the headline act into what proved to be an impossible situation. The Climax Blues band headlined this year, and it was excellent too. It was made quite clear however that it was fully aware of what it had to follow. On any other occasion either could have been the highlight of a marvellous day for the pleasingly large audience. It just so happened that Frome Blues Festival came with more than one highlight... and I for one can't help but look forward to the next edition.
Here are a few pictures of Climax Blues Band and, I have to say, I must start with their astonishing saxophonist.

Some slide guitar to die for...

...and a lead singer for whom the epithet 'craggy' is something of an understatement.  

What a wonderful day that was. See you next year!