August and onward.

A one day festival (Behind The Castle) in June. A two day festival (Truck) in July. 
That was just the warm up. In two weeks time I shall be resident in Powys, Wales at Green Man Festival and it will be my first ever visit, which is exciting. Two weeks later comes my annual pilgrimage, since 2009 at least, to End Of The Road (EOTR). There are so many more... this weekend is the 50th Cambridge Folk Festival  and 21-5th August is the 50th Towersey Folk Festival. In an ideal world I would have quite happily gone to all of these and many more too. I have to say that one that has piqued my interest for a couple of years now, although it is in distant south Suffolk, is Maverick Festival. I could list many more that have caught my eye but seven links in the first paragraph is way more than enough. It is time to focus on those that I am going to and what I might wish from them.
It might be leavened with shorter posts on new music.

I'm thinking that this post is something I shall add to over the weekend and it will be thoughts about the acts that I want to see most at Green Man or EOTR and why. Reviews such as this certainly don't hurt. Ezra Furman is playing EOTR. Never seen him live nor heard his music that I am aware of.
I'll tell you one, from EOTR, that is right at the top of my list - Richard Thompson. I don't need to justify that.

In my eight years of festival attendance the changing balance is to be struck between artists that I have heard before and those new to me. As my recent posts concerning Truck 2014 may have made clear, my liking for seeing new artists, or ones that are merely new to me live or otherwise, remains undiminished. There is now a new category too - artists in new acts/guises. Maybe that is where, probably tomorrow, I shall start this discussion. I have two in particular in mind right now and, echoing the recent comments of Robin Seamer at Breaking More Waves, I have also been thinking about those end-of -year lists too. I rather suspect that the début albums by both will feature on mine.
Here is an observation that is just mine: in 2007 I started my end of year reviews with EPs and mini albums because that was easy. The weren't many and fewer still that I felt worthy of mention and I said then that I had felt it was a dying format. I suspect that in fact I had caught it just reviving from its death throes. It is true that much of this has to due with the ascendency of digital music but that is only part of the Lazarus story. Even in 2007 EPs were starting to appear on vinyl, 7", 10" and 12", and the story continues to grow to the present. This is a more recent, but you would not guess it, example of a single:

It was released physically only on cassette tape.

I could tell you about more worthwhile EPs from the first six months of 2014 than from 2007-9 in total. I don't think, for one moment, that this is simply because I am better informed, although I am. It is much more significant than that.

What this post does lack is photographs but that is an interesting demonstration of a cascade of consequence.
When I started to blog a problem soon became apparent - I needed more original stuff to write about. The obvious answer to that was to go to festivals. Festivals are about live music, which is an intrinsically visual medium too, so I needed pictures of what I saw and heard. 

Festivals 2014

This is no long discussion of the many and varied music festivals this summer. I'm simply thinking that this coming long weekend is the time when I really ought to finalize what I intend to do and when so that, as well as getting tickets, there can be a working timetable of sorts. I have some ideas, not all of which are mutually compatible, and I have already ruled several things out due to those to which I have already committed. While pondering I have, of course, been listening to music and also perusing some of the many photos that I have taken at festivals past, and not exclusively last year.

This one is prompted by the release of the recent collaboration between London three-piece Daughter and musicians from The Northern School of Music, Manchester around songs from the 2013 LP 'If You Leave'.

Daughter - The Garden Stage - End of The Road Festival - 31 August 2013.

   

This was memorable especially for its sense of fragility -  that something might just shatter for no apparent reason. Reworked, with an orchestral backing, the songs are every bit as remarkable. This is 'Amsterdam'. The five-song EP is currently available to purchase on download from the usual places; a limited version on 12" vinyl is released on 26 May.

As for the second album from Daughter - if and when it happens - the band has certainly made their first a tough act to follow!

   

You might think I have become distracted from my purpose here, but that is not actually the case. I have to chose just one or possibly two festivals to go to - from amongst of a fistful that I might like to go to - so aspects of what make a festival special to me are very much on my mind. End of The Road (EOTR) has many of those features, and I'm going in 2014, so it is a benchmark in kind.
One possibility is to travel the road of Roots and Americana to its home festival in the UK (I am ruling out foreign sorties in 2014). This is another picture I took at EOTR 2013, also on the Garden Stage, the previous evening.

Diana Jones - The Garden Stage - End of The Road Festival - 30 August 2013.

She was touring her 2013 LP 'Museum of Appalachia Recordings' that, despite its title, consists entirely of new songs.

It is not just about the music; it is about the ambience - that combination of facilities, catering, clientèle, and then the almost indefinable other factors. The weather is something that remains completely unpredictable.
I have narrowed my choice of additional festivals to just two. Which should I choose or, as that is just possible, both?
Not only do the dates not clash with each other, or anything else I to which I am committed, the artist-overlap between the two is probably non-existent.  Further to that I have never been to either before, so I have only reviews and my hunches to go on.
Should you have been watching 'Later With Jools Holland' (BBC2, just now) then you will have seen Rae Morris providing vocals for Clean Bandit. Here she is when I saw her live at Deer Shed Festival 2012.

This is another 2014 festival I can't go to as both it, and Latitude Festival, share the weekend with Truck Festival!