New Music 2017 - Part 35 - Angelina - Vagabond Saint

This follows from my previous post in that I realise sometimes it takes new music time to reveal itself to me. This is a more extreme case in that I first heard it almost a year ago. It has more recently become a a go-to album especially when I find myself in a somewhat ambivalent mood. There is something about it that works for me. That mood is not actually the case just now and probably why I have finally seen my way around to writing about it.

Vagabond Saint - Angelina (WONDERFULSOUND, 2 December 2016). D/l & vinyl.

Vagabond Saint - Angelina:

• Dark Heart 
• Rose Cascade 
• Mandolin Man
• I Don't Cry 
• January Butterfly
• Prayers and Grace
• Vagabond Saint
• Smokes Like A Dream
• Manola
• Wild Cloud
• Sometimes

It's soulful, smoky, southern, pastoral and she wrote the songs too. The artist comes from the nearest that the UK has to an island in the delta, the Isle of Wight, but don't let that put you off.  Had I found it in time last year it would have been on my year-end list. That it was released when it was is a great commitment to the fact that fine new releases no longer stop at the start of November in fawning to the 'don't-offend-anyone' Christmas market fare of decades past.

It is better to buy (or give, or be given) an album you love and an album you detest than end up with two albums that don't evoke much response either way. 

Short lines - a journey with UK folk and Americana

It is fairly easy to follow the big picture but even easier to fail to recognise, let alone even hear or see live, quite what is happening at home. This is a journey through some of that territory because the UK is taking it aboard with relish, sometimes abandon.
This first is the oldest of the three releases that I am planning to mention here. It was released last year.

Angelina - Vagabond Saint (Wonderful Sound, 2 December 2016).

Angelina the artist is named for a Dylan song and this is an album of dust-bowl country blues with a voice to match.  There are tales of high plains and endless trains...  that is all the more remarkable for the fact that she has lived her life and the album was recorded on The Isle Of Wight. It is yet another astonishing omission from my list of 'albums of 2016'. It's tough but this might just be one of my favourite songs, at least today.

Jump forward to 2017 and here are two other acts that have come to my attention. In both cases they take a distinct tack through what should really be regarded as well-charted waters.
This duo had been plying their own solo careers around the smaller live stages in London until their paths crossed and they decided to become writing, recording and performing entity Ferris & Sylvester, comprising Issy Ferris and Archie Sylvester. There is a lot of 60s and 70s influence on show here but never to the point of pastiche; they claim that songwriting must be truthful and honest, even if that is hard to do. It's quite possible to believe that they really mean what they say.

Ferris and Sylvester - The Yellow Line (self-released, 22 June 2017).

I shall end this short tour with another EP, this one from London artist Jade Bird. She does nothing whatsoever to hide her love for Americana folk. The five tracks here run to only just fifteen minutes but it's a determined pitch.

Jade Bird - Something American (Glassnote, 6 July 2017).