New Music 2015 - Part 40 - mid-west or north-west?

The first of this pair I mentioned here back in February. The strangest thing is that although released in the North American market on May 26 it is already available in the UK. WTF?

It is fair to say that this brings no Damascene conversion from her previous records. That would, I proffer, be rather like expecting Dylan to go disco. The rather more shocking thing is that I have yet to see Eilen Jewell play live. I have only listened to it a couple times so far but there's nothing not to like. I'm quite certain that, as I listen to it more often and more carefully, I'll find much more in it and not least because that has been the case with all the earlier releases. Why albums such as her solo début Boundary County (2006), which includes one of the finest modern protest songs in my opinion, remains so little known beggars belief.
OK. Perhaps I should get off my high-horse and chill out. This is pretty much how I would plan on doing that and this is another band that I have never seen live. Having relocated long ago from the mid-west to the ocean-side of Seattle Seapony releases a third LP. I guess it is as much a case of whether wide sky or wide sea does it for you.

'A Vision' is released on 31 July 2015.  Music for warm summer days and sea breezes.

Not only that: Seapony is now a four-piece and, with real percussion from Aaron Voros in place of their former vintage drum-machine, it marks a major step-change. Jen Weidl, Danny Brewer and Ian Rowland continue in their previous rôles but there is a new versatility.
Previous albums 'Go With Me' and 'Falling' were released by Hardly Art.
'A Vision' is self-released and more information. including ordering and formats are vinyl, CD and d/l, may be found here. This is the track list.

1. Saw The Light
2. Bad Dream
3. Couldn’t Be
4. Everyday All Alone
5. Hollow Moon
6. Let Go
7. A Place We Can Go
8. Go Nowhere
9. In Heaven
10. New Circle
11. A Vision

I have never seen Seapony live either. Lots more things to do!

Anyone for a little West Coast pop?

This will not be to everyone's taste. I know that but if you fancy an early summer dose of West Coast pop, and obviously I do and that is why I am mentioning it, how about this from Seattle-based Seapony?

It won't change the world - it doesn't need to.

New music for autumn? Just go find...

It's not difficult, nor is it illegal, to find new music...
Here, therefore, is my choice for today and it has nothing whatsoever to do with End Of The Road Festival this weekend just gone.

It is the second album by Seattle-based trio Seapony.

At least for the moment you can legally stream it here and I just thought that I'd give it a shout-out. It is most remarkable for what it is not.

New music I want in 2009 - Part 4

Every twenty years or so it happens; somewhere that has neither an obvious right nor reason to threaten the very core of music suddenly rises from its place, as generally regarded in musical terms at least, as the epitome of nowhere remarkable to the very top of the pile. No city has bettered Seattle in that respect - and happily it doesn't change everything. They were still playing The Eagles and Dire Straits incessantly on local radio in Seattle when I was there in 1999 - fully a decade after it became the fuzzy-felt board of 'grunge'; a creation that borrowed from aspects of heavy rock, metal and glam-rock all used in varying proportions. At times, although this might seem a curious observation now, it also featured whimsy and (sometimes cunningly satirical) humour in the lyrics.
The zenith of grunge lasted less than five years; some of the pieces stuck and others just fell off but its legacy, and it is almost worldwide, remains very apparent two decades later. Sub Pop, lest it be forgotten or should the young at heart now feel less so, is still going strong and celebrated its twentieth birthday in 2008 with a party headlined by Pearl Jam.
Little wonder therefore that it is hard to predict what might happen next. I wonder if the average American music consumer has even the faintest idea that Blackpool is on the NW coast of England? I don't know if they have pub quizzes in the US but, if they do, it might be useful to know and, like the famous Blackpool trams, you can wait for ages and then two strange things will arrive almost at once! Blackpool already has, in the artist 'Little Boots', one of the most hyped new UK acts of 2009 but it also has another very likely to become well known. The interesting thing is that they sound nothing like each other or for that matter bear any resemblance to the Seattle revolution of twenty years ago. At least that is not apparently so!
'Little Boots' is all electronic, italo-disco and that sort of thing, and is looking like one of the 'flavours of 2009'. She is finishing her début album in Los Angeles but the trans-Atlantic love doesn't end there - as you will probably already know if you've tried to find a copy of her US-only 12" Arecibo EP. I have no problem with that at all but, although also from Blackpool, Karima Francis isn't part of that scene: she's a singer-songwriter who mainly composes songs on acoustic guitar. There are many who say that there are more than enough of those already. They may yet be wrong.

The Author - Karima Francis

Blackpool aside the one thing that they have in common, and before either has released a studio album, is that both can reliably reduce a live audience - including press reviewers - to putty whilst leaving them feeling awestruck rather than manipulated. In 2009, as never before, that is a pretty trick.

Another artist making waves, and from just across the sea in Dublin, is Laura Izibor... Irish soul would be an alternative listening choice on 17 March!

EPs of 2008...

I find categories with many competing possibilities particularly difficult by dint of the selection criteria: on one hand I don't want to appear biased but, on the other hand, that is exactly why I'm writing it!

This is the easiest category to deal with as there are relatively few contenders. Last year the selection process was pretty easy and this year it has not been too difficult either but there still are important differences: last year both artists/acts came from the UK and sung in English but this year that is not true!
The problem with doing this is that, having listened to the contenders for the category, what to listen to while writing that is not apt to influence the decision and is yet complementary? My answer, available on CD and well worth a listen, is Kiln House - Fleetwood Mac (1970, 12" vinyl, RSLP9004).

In 2008 one of the two doesn't come from the UK and one doesn't sing in English (on the EP)! At least you can't say that I've not chosen two that are in a similar genre, though that was not true last year either. Here they are, in no order:

• Sun Giant - Fleet Foxes
  

Released in the US in late 2007 and, following their signing to Bella Union, in the UK in early 2008, is this EP by Seattle all-male five-piece 'Fleet Foxes'. They made tight vocal harmonies cool again - even before the release of their eponymous début album later in 2008 - and they sing in English.

• Edrych Yn Llygaid Ceffyl Benthyg - Cate Le Bon

The long promised album, apparently to be entitled Pet Deaths, has still not appeared but in early summer 2008 this 5-track EP, released only on 10" vinyl and sung entirely in Welsh, more than made up for that! Some of the tracks are far more complex than those she has show-cased before.
I can't yet quite explain why I think this but the final track, O Bont i Bont, sounds like one of the very best modern French pop songs that has never actually been written!

Two incomparable but equally innovative and worthwhile EPs; demonstrating beyond doubt that the genre is still well and truly alive.

Karaoke for big prizes!

While I'm always very happy to celebrate the success of British music I'm certainly not against music made in America, or indeed anywhere else for that matter.

Audition in Seattle, singing Celine Dion's 'Because I Love You'.

This is just such an awful pub karaoke scenario but it didn't matter in the end - Jordin Sparks went on from this to win American Idol 2007. I rather suspect that that her first single Tattoo, which is pure pop and available on download tomorrow, will in time reach the higher reaches of the UK chart. I think it fair to say that it is not so very different from the later power-pop output of the first American Idol, Kelly Clarkson, but I for one wouldn't hold that against her. It is as catchy as sin and I doubt that she'll ever need to wear jeans, t-shirt and a prison number on stage again, unless it is a matter of choice!
The next single, 'No Air', features Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown together on vocal duties.