New Music 2014 - Part 23 - Joanne Shaw Taylor - The Dirty Truth

Barely a year after the release of the live LP/DVD 'Songs From The Road' and less than two after the release of her third studio album 'Almost Always Never' in 2012, Joanne Shaw Taylor returns on 22 September with her studio LP 'The Dirty Truth' and this is the artwork for it and the track list.

1. Mud, Honey

2. The Dirty Truth

3. Wicked Soul

4. Fool In Love

5. Wrecking Ball

6. Tried, Tested And True

7. Outlaw Angel

8. Shiver And Sigh

9. Struck Down

10. Feels Like Home

It is to be released on her own bijou label 'Axehouse Music' on physical formats including two heavyweight vinyl options. For this project, more blues rock than the last two LPs perhaps, she is reunited with Jim Gains who produced her début 2009 LP 'White Sugar' and if you haven't listened to that then now is the time to do so.

If you have never seen her play live then you ain't heard nothing yet!

        

The most recent time I saw her live was at The Brook, Southampton on 12 June.

New Music 2012 - Part 17 - Joanne Shaw Taylor - Almost Always Never

It is almost unthinkable. 

Announced only today, tickets not yet on sale, is this tour around the UK from US-based, but originally from Wednesbury in the West Midlands, electric-blues phenomenon Joanne Shaw Taylor. What is more it is also in support of her third album 'Almost Always Never' released in the UK by Ruf Records on 17, September 2012 (almost certainly). This is the track listing:
  

ALMOST ALWAYS NEVER
• Soul Station
• Beautifully Broken
• You Should Stay, I Should Go
• Piece of the Sky
• Army of One
• Jealousy
• Almost Always Never
• Tied and Bound
• A Hand In Love
• Standing To Fall
• Maybe Tomorrow
• Lose Myself To Loving You
  
Note added May 22, 2012:
Tickets for the tour go on sale Friday May 25, 2012.  For an earlier comment on this topic see here.

Note added May 23, 2012:
Now think about this; how good this could be in a venue that has a capacity of 400 standing - about 60% of the capacity of the Cheese and Grain here in Frome?
That venue is Tavistock Wharf  and pre-sale tickets are available now.

New Music 2012 - Part 13 - whispers on the wind

This is less focussed than most such posts: just things that I've seen, heard or otherwise divined in the last couple of weeks.
Back in 2009 and 2010 I mentioned Smoke Fairies on several occasions...
Their second LP and the follow-up to 'Through Low Light and Trees' is to be released in May; it is called 'Blood Speaks' and is, in as far as I can do so, pre-ordered already. The timing would be good for a festival or two this summer...
  
One thing that we do know is, while if you are hoping to see Joanne Shaw Taylor live in the UK this spring you might be disappointed, she is however busy recording her third LP. I have no idea of any release date, or title, but the mere fact can hardly be a bad thing. If waiting for that is too much, and really it should be...

New to me... music I found and more that I want.

I'm not sure where to start this.  It has some aspects of things I saw and heard at festivals this summer and more than a bit that also comes from almost all things Americana, which comes from the last four years of festivals and then just trying to find what else is out there. It will be a strange mixture - rent by contradictions - of genre and style. It think I'll start with two artists who are in fact English. Most of us can be snobby about the music we like and I'm no exception but ultimately I don't mind if I hear about something I really like via obscure recommendation or daytime commercial radio.  If you find something that catches your attention here, that you then discover you like, then that is a bonus for me.
I have decided to start with the gentler option first.
The music is soft and ballad-heavy delta blues recorded in Nashville, with the vocal tropes that go with that, but then again 'Delta Maid' comes from Wavertree and while Merseyside has a long and glorious music heritage it is hardly on the scale of the Mississippi. Equally surprising, and perhaps a reflection of the change in UK music taste and the situation of the industry, it is a major label release (Geffen/Polydor).  The two album tracks that also appeared on the 2010 vinyl Broken Branches EP are less raw and conventionally produced, which might be a reflection of this.

The aforementioned EP is also well worth having. The version of 'Any Way I Want To' on it is for my money the best thing that she has done so far; it is world weary and yet perfectly resigned to the fact. If you can find the promo CD version of the EP it includes two very good cover versions too.
If it however leaves you thinking that it is all a bit soppy and easy listening then try this instead.  It is way more rattling and certainly not something to attempt if you are feeling the worse for wear - unless of course kill or cure is what you are after, in which case its just the job.
  
Ten all original songs from an artist in her early twenties when this, her début album, was released in 2009.

I had a listen to the songs on her myspace page but there was no easy way to be sure if it was representative of the album. It is released by German-based independent label Ruf Records and so I ordered it there and then. What a good idea that was!
It is quite a long album, at over 51 minutes, and I can't actually decide on my favourites on it despite a week of listening. One thing I can say for sure is that it doesn't suffer from the tendency of some such albums wherein either one or both of the artist and listener flags rather before the end.  Indeed it finishes with the longest track on the album  - Blackest Day - and despite its 8¼ minutes it is absolutely awesome.
It hardly needs to be said that her 2010 follow-up, Diamonds In The Dust, is next on my wants list and then to see her perform live.


I think I'll continue the theme with some genuine US artists that, although not new on the scene, have come in to the foreground of my conscience in the last couple of months.