My 2014 in Music - Albums - Part 1

With December, traditionally the start of the pre-Christmas hiatus in meaningful musical releases, just hours away it is time to start mentioning those releases of 2014 that have for whatever reason been highlights for me.
One change is that while the acts are grouped in alphabetical order the number of entries has been reduced to ten in this list. This is not due to a shortage of possibilities, far from it indeed, but rather to make compiling and writing each post more manageable.

• Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire For No Witness
• Arc Iris - Arc Iris
• Clara Engel - Looking Glass Fire
• Jennifer Crook - Carnforth Station
• Joanne Shaw Taylor - The Dirty Truth
• The Moulettes - Constellations
• Ninebarrow - While The Blackthorn Burns
• The Rails - Fair Warning
• Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso
• Ward Thomas - From Where We Stand

One thing that changed not a jot is the influence that music I have seen live during 2014 has had on the outcome - eight of the ten above fall into that category and of those eight I have seen four live on at least two distinct occasions. Of the ten, five are LPs that I own on vinyl.

I just felt the need to get the ball rolling on this late autumn afternoon. It is easy to keep putting the start of such things off for another day for while it is certainly not a chore, a certain activation barrier has to be overcome nevertheless. Links - some might be my own and others to the artist or label - and probably some relevant photos will follow shortly.
I am happy if people would like to make comments and suggestions. I will be equally so if this leads anyone to find music of which they were previously either unaware of had forgotten about. If it tempts you to head out and see some live music then that is a real bonus. It is also, truth be told, quite simply the music that I really liked.

The alphabet is as it is; it starts this list with an artist that was a complete surprise, and a revelation, to me. I had heard it said that, as a performer, she is at best diffident and at worst obtuse. Be that as it may I can now go only with what I heard and observed myself. Those descriptions are quite harsh I believe; reserved and self-absorbed maybe, which means it admirably mirrors the album title 'Burn Your Fire For No Witness'. 

Angel Olsen - Green Man Festival 2014.

A bonus that accrued from starting a blog is that I really had to go out to see live music and soon armed with a camera. I often don't go far at all...

Ward Thomas, Cheese & Grain, Frome, 2 August 2014.  The opening date of their début headline tour.

The Moulettes are currently supporting Bellowhead on tour, but often playing as a four-piece and good though this is (dubbed the Moulllites by Hannah Miller) when I saw them thus live at Reading Hexagon just a couple of weeks ago you really do need to see them live as a six-piece playing a full set because that is in another league entirely. This was fresh on my mind as I had seen them thus just ten days previously at Marnhull Acoustic Sessions. You can do exactly that at Behind The Castle Festival on 13 June 2015.

One of the Reading absentees: Ruth Skipper, Marnhull Acoustic Session, 9 November 2014.

New Music 2014 - Part 22 - Sylvan Esso

I'm learning to do things that once I could never do. One of those is recognizing voices that I have heard before when they crop up in unexpected new places. This is an example of that and neither is the artwork of their self-titled LP going to leave you any the wiser.

In 2013 Amelia Meath put her former band, female folk harmony vocal trio Mountain Man, on indefinite hold and teamed up with electronic musician Nick Sanborn as duo Sylvan Esso. This is their début self-titled LP and while the combination might on the face of it seem a little improbable, if not exactly problematic, then the outcome is that both bring their respective strengths to bear and the result  a thing redolent of the dreams of summer. The electronic twists and turns, that at times sound like a xylophone or glockenspiel, never overpower the melody or vocals. Not only have they managed it on the recording, recently released by Partisan Records, but they seem very capable of recreating it live too. Suffice it to say that Sylvan Esso is added to the list of artists that I want to see live.
The lead track, that preceded the LP by months, was the very promising 'Hey Mami' and it turns out not to have been a prelude that flattered to deceive.


This is the penultimate song on the LP, 'Play It Right' recorded live recently.     I can certainly see myself listening to the album many times over the coming months and indeed, because it has made me take notice, you will probably see me mention more from the Partisan roster of artists in the forthcoming weeks.