New Music 2016 - Part 31 - On Dead Waves

This release has somehow blind-sided me but I'm very excited about it. On Dead Waves is a new act but it combines artists I am much in awe of. It consists of two artists with previous recording histories: James Chapman (as Maps) and Polly Scattergood (as herself).
This is what has happened since they met musically, by dint of performing each the songs of the other, at a showcase at The Roundhouse, Camden, London back in 2011.

On Dead Waves - On Dead Waves (Mute Records, 20 May 2016).

This is the track list:

• Blackbird 
• Never Over
• California
• Hollow
• Alice
• Dead Balloons
• Blue Inside
• Autumn Leaves
• Jupiter
• Winter's Child

The big question, and I'm not minded to make you wait until Friday to find out, is what does this synthesis sound like? I would have been terribly disappointed had the work been unremittingly cheerful.

On Dead Waves.

New Music 2013 - A malleable wishlist

The post title says it all really. I have just got to a point that, although rather enviable, I can't keep up. Here is a partial list of the albums that I really want to hear - The order in which they are listed is merely alphabetical by artist. Not all have been released yet, but some may be available in part to stream legally and I shall likely add some links to that, as well as some more thoughts that I see as key, in the coming days:

• Dear Reader - Rivonia
• Emily Baker - All at Sea
• Gabrielle Aplin - English Rain
• Little Boots - Nocturnes
• Pascal Pinon - Twosomeness
• Polly Scattergood - Arrows
• Widowspeak - Almanac
• Wild Belle - Isles

Of the eight I have already seen five of them live: the exceptions are Pascal Pinon (Iceland), Widowspeak and Wild Belle (both US acts). Widowspeak is already confirmed for End of The Road 2013.

Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose

The début album, which also has one of the most astonishingly curious titles of recent times, is finally released on Mute Records on January 24, 2012. If you were not lucky enough to be at EOTR watching this set then let me say something: I had long ago worked out that she was good at what she does but then this was quite something.

Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny....

  

Live on the Garden Stage at End Of The Road Festival 2011, Saturday 3 September.  This is the third time I have seen the whole band live and it just gets better and better. For 2009/2010 coverage of Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny see 'I Will Return, I Promise'.
It is strange, in a very good kind of way, and I trust Mute Records with that.

If you wonder why that is, go listen to Polly Scattergood's 2009 self-titled début album that was also released by Mute. And, by the way, she's busy with the next one and I can't wait for that either.

Nitrogen Pink

Another artist I saw live at Latitude 2008 was Polly Scattergood, who performed on the Sunset Stage early on Sunday afternoon. While the picture below looks rather of the kind that one gets from booths that take passport photos, it is actually the cover of 10" vinyl single Nitrogen Pink (Mute, 2007, and since released by Mute US in 2008).

No album yet but several singles - all available on vinyl - and already a very fine live act indeed.

Hard to categorise I know and, while some would say pop-punk in an instant, that's not the half of it. She is indeed both these things at times but at many others she has too much of that wilful, yet vague, dislocation of the care-worn singer-songwriter for that aspect not to come out in the wash. Her music is all the better for it.

[Click images to enlarge the images below and ask me if you want other versions.]

Polly Scattergood on the Sunset Stage @ Latitude 2008.
Adjusting the microphone... this was taken just before the soundcheck.

That is not to say that this means gloomy, depressing music or performance. This is music aimed not at those angry at a particular moment in time, as punk quite deliberately was, but at a whole new generation of uncertainty.

Just fifteen minutes later and very much live!