New Music 2018 - Part 6 - Orphan Colours - All On Red

I can't quite believe that this is my sixth post of 2018 but while I am in the mood for posting I guess I should just go with it. More forthcoming new music but this time from an all male band based in England. It has to be said that this is still mining the rich seam that is UK Americana.
As a phrase it might appear an oxymoron but those inclined to solipsism please take note; it is flourishing in a time when the UK might have been perceived to be turning in on itself and back to its perceived core values.  If this is the kind of work that is the result then it is just another case of clouds and silver linings.

All On Red - Orphan Colours (At The Helm Records, 26 January 2018).

The genesis of Orphan Colours came out of the accidental wreckage of two bands, ahab and Noah and The Whale, that were forsaken by their respective labels as commercial priorities changed. That is where the independent side of UK Americana plays a vital part. It is a community in the true sense of the word and that shaped this, the band's first LP, as I'm thinking as I listen to it again. All eleven songs on it.

Orphan Colours - All On Red:

• Start of Something
• High Hopes
• Goodnight California
• Loving Kind
• Waiting
• Lonely Lately
• Sun Is Rising
• Renegade
• Sarah
• Inside Out
• Rambling Rose

The first thing that strikes me is this isn't a UK band aping Americana (from America, obvs.) and that is why the whole thing works quite as it does. It is the concept of Americana filtered through the unique perspective of the UK in recent years.
It comes as no surprise to me at all that At The Helm is releasing this record. I'm pondering a post about how labels that can be trusted to release interesting and often challenging new music have slowly risen again.

Here's a little live goodness:

The title of the record 'All On Red' is apparently a reference to table gambling and the putting of all available resources on a single outcome. It is apropos the situation in which the founders of Orphan Colours found themselves after their previous bands folded.

To listen to in 2008 - Part 4

This is quite difficult to write. I've seen so much live music recently, which is very good but tends to colour ones perceptions in a perhaps disproportionate way, and I've discovered so many new artists across a wide range of genres. I'm glad of that too but it makes deciding what to wish for next very difficult indeed.

If there is any connection then it is the ascendancy of - and probably the connection between - new-folk in the UK and Americana. What they do not share in tradition is more than made up in their connection via live-musicianship and what, just a year ago, seemed exciting in the UK is now happening on both sides of the Atlantic. That is not to say it wasn't happening in the US last year, because it was, but the joining of dots is what matters. Openly referencing trans-Atlantic influences is now not only acceptable but also distinctly fashionable, on both sides, for the first time in well over a decade. Not everyone on either side will embrace the new party but in the year that Sub-Pop turns twenty, and the world is changing faster than at any time since, it somehow seems very fitting that there is something of a return to traditional music; in values if not always in execution for nothing remains the same.

Two albums/artists I want to hear are these:

I saw Noah and The Whale live at Latitude 2008 and this is their début album.
This band also has close links with Laura Marling, who appears on some tracks of this recording.

Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down - Noah & The Whale (2008).

To mention another, here is a duo that at least on first listen is quintessentially English.

Smoke Fairies met at school in Brighton and later, when it did not seem to be the Deep South that they imagined, decamped to New Orleans for a year and, as that wasn't quite it either, this was followed by some time in... Vancouver!
They are now in London and concentrating on finishing their first album, which should appear soon, and as likely as not it will be another release in a genre that has risen from nowhere in a matter of a few years. In the meantime Smoke Fairies, like many others, are making headlines with their awesome live performances. Whatever else might be wrong in the UK right now live music isn't it!

Smoke Fairies are Jessica Davies and Katherine Blamire.
It seems unlikely the album will be without influences resulting from their time in New Orleans and who could wish otherwise?

Smoke Fairies release their first single Living With Ghosts on 11 August. It is available for download and there is also a physical version too - 500 copies, all hand numbered, on 7" vinyl.

2008 Mercury Music Prize nominations

The twelve albums that are short-listed for the 2008 Mercury Music Prize were made public today and, as it happens, the list dovetails with both my thoughts on Latitude 2008 and several other matters on which I have commented in the last year.

To serve as a point of reference here are the 2008 Mercury nominations (in alphabetical order):

• Adele - 19
• British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
• Burial - Untrue
• Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
• Estelle - Shine
• The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement
• Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
• Neon Neon - Stainless Style
• Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep In The North Sea
• Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
• Radiohead - In Rainbows
• Rachel Unthank And The Winterset - The Bairns

The selection is, as perhaps we would like, eclectic and that makes my life easier. Two acts here - Elbow and British Sea Power - were amongst those that I saw live at Latitude 2008 and in a pantheon that was not without competition, even if some of it was not eligible for a Mercury nomination, was far from lightweight.
[As usual click the images for a rather larger version.]

I've been told many times that British Sea Power are stunning live and, if I ever doubted you, all I can say is that I now plead guilty as charged; you were right and I was wrong!

Naval pennants, foliage and Hungarian backing vocals - British Sea Power live at Latitude 2008!

On a different tack I'm delighted to see that modern folk gets two nominations and that Northumbrian band Rachel Unthank And The Winterset are amongst them is yet another massive boost for the impact that folk-inspired music now has and, as you might well know by now, Laura Marling has been on my play list for over a year and it is about time that she got some recognition.

This leads me on to another band in that genre and, as there is a collective tendency here, one with whom Laura Marling has also often played live. That is Noah and The Whale. They were at Latitude 2007 on the Lake Stage but I didn't get to see them. They were back this year, on the much larger Uncut Arena, and although there was a big turnout this time I did see them and it was another highlight of the weekend.

Noah and The Whale - live on the Uncut Arena - at Latitude 2008 on Sunday 20th July 2008.