Festivals 2018 - must-see (Part 1) - Kim Lowings and The Greenwood

Right. It is time to jump in and mention the artists and acts that I want to see at the festivals that I am attending this summer.
This post is just one from the first of those festivals. The rule of engagement is that it must be one that I have never seen live before. It's not going to be difficult, apart for the choices between candidates that simply need to be made. I shall start with some folk, much but possibly not all of it, traditional. In any case, what exactly qualifies as traditional?

Kim Lowings and The Greenwood - Wild & Wicked Youth (self-released, 2017).

Other versions of several of the songs on this record have appeared recently; 'The Cuckoo', it appears courtesy of Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker on their 2017 LP 'The Bird', is one.

More remarkable, at least in contrast between versions, is 'Oh The Wind and Rain', Kim Lowings and The Greenwood and 'Bows' as it appears on the LP 'From Here' by Stick In The Wheel (2015). Both are versions of the same macabre tale of sibling murder and mysterious retribution. The source is Child Ballad 10 and the UK version of the song is likely of Northumbrian origin. 'The Twa Sisters' is yet another, more local name for it. The similar stories in other Northern European folklore traditions (see preceding link) are interesting in that, amongst other differences, the drowned sibling is as often as not brought back to life, but the means to this end vary considerably.

There is plenty more from this band and indeed this LP alone is quite sufficient to justify its inclusion in this list. She is not averse to covering Anglo-Scottish-Irish songs either. This, a lyric from which the title of the album comes, is the well known song 'The Newry Highwayman':

Kim Lowings and The Greenwood play Beardy Folk Festival main stage on Saturday 23 June at around 4:30pm.
You might like to check out the rest of the line-up too. I have seen quite a few of them before and there isn't one amongst them that I wouldn't see again. As for those that I have never seen live it is open season.

New Music 2018 - Part 1 - Stick In The Wheel - Follow Them True

Divining the future has to start somewhere. I have chosen this as my starting point for music in 2018, not least because Stick In The Wheel is exactly between the future and the past.
I have no idea what the songs on this, the second LP, will be but I'm happy to trust that I shall like them and so I have pre-ordered it on vinyl.

Follow Them True - Stick In The Wheel (self released, 26 January 2018).

This is the follow-up to astonishing 2015 début 'From Here' and I can't think of an act better qualified to be my first suggestion for music that is to be released in 2018, but there are plenty more snapping at the heels.
This is 'Over Again':

In 2017 the band released a record of other artists singing traditional songs live and that is well worth an hour of your precious time too. It features well known artists and also many less so but no less worthy.

FROM HERE: English Folk Field Recordings (From Here Records, 2017).

The idea was to capture what the essence, the making and the performance of English folk music means in the here-and-now.

My Music in 2015 - Albums - Part 2

Here we are again, just over a week after my first foray on this subject. The rules are the same as in Part 1. I hope you find something to like or to argue about.
Critical comments are quite as welcome as positive ones just so long they are not offensive or defamatory. A fact is that a credited post always has more gravitas than an anonymous one and that applies even if the content of both were to be exactly the same. I reserve the right to publish comments on this post and will credit them accordingly.

• Ange Hardy - Esteesee
• Chantel McGregor - Lose Control
• Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
• Fara - Fara
• Girlpool - Before The World Was Big
• Heather Crosse - Groovin' At The Crosse Roads
• Mad Dog McRea - Almost Home
• Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin - Watershed
• The Rosellys - The Barn Sessions
• Stick In The Wheel - From Here

Part 1 was equally divided between acts from the UK and from North America and that only occurred to me after I posted it. This selection is much more UK biased, featuring just two acts from North America and an Australian. Specifically this one...

Courtney Barnett, Far Out Stage, Green Man Festival - Sunday evening, 23 August 2015.

Girlpool, Big Top stage, End Of The Road Festival - Saturday 5 September 2015.

Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin, Marnhull Acoustic Sessions - Sunday 23 February 2014.

The Rosellys, Saloon Stage, Truck Festival - Friday 18 July 2015.

Fara, Stage 2, Cambridge Folk Festival - Thursday 30 July 2015.

You may be wondering why I often use links to my earlier comments in these lists; this is because they often contain more back-links to the artist, as well as to other related topics. It saves listing multiple links all over again.

New Music 2015 - Part 72 - Stick In The Wheel - From Here

The other strand to modern UK folk is delineated by this. I saw parts of several of the performances that Stick In The Wheel played at Cambridge Folk Festival 2015, but unfortunately all of none of them. Furthermore I was never in a place to take worthwhile photographs, which was a shame too. The album was still many weeks away from release at that time.

The début LP 'From Here' was released on 25 September 2015.

It comprises a mixture of traditional songs and new compositions but what unites all this is the urgency bought to bear on them. The sparse arrangements and the vernacular delivery of Nicola Kearey define it, well actually nail it. There is nothing remotely false or unconvincing about either of these things - in that sense it rather reminds me of the best of Glasgow's (now late lamented) Sons and Daughters and lead singer Adele Bethel. The music of Stick In The Wheel is however acoustic. Messy, but also astonishingly controlled. That brings The Pogues into the equation from time to time but Lucy Ward too. Think 'Alice In The Bacon Box', from her first album, here. It tells a story that could belong to a refugee right now.

It isn't actually backward looking and certainly does not hark back to a golden age. The feeling here is that the daily grind - on Bows of London in particular - just goes on. Whatever the surface shine might belie, it is that nothing has really changed at all.