New Music 2017 - Part 1 - Holly Macve - Golden Eagle

A break from lists and an opportunity to start looking forward to 2017 releases.
I actually started to write this about a fortnight ago when the schedule became clear but I soon ran into a problem. I saw Holly Macve live during the summer but could I find the photos? No!
I knew they were not amongst a few lost to a faulty memory card because the issue was resolved by that time. Just now I had an idea - by this time I was using two cameras interchangeably, one much more than the other and it was the first time that I had such luxury. It turned out that these pictures had been taken with 'the other one' and I hadn't looked for them where they were to be found even though I had downloaded all the images from both devices. Mea culpa.
With that little mystery solved here she is. As I said ten years ago, when this blog project commenced, I don't have the time or the inclination to review things that I don't care for. My listening tastes may have changed over time but that is a completely different matter. 

Holly Macve, Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, 4 September 2016.

Her début album 'Golden Eagle' is released by Bella Union on 3 March 2017 and this is the track-listing.

White Bridge
Corner of My Mind
Heartbreak Blues
Shell
All of Its Glory
Timbuktu
Fear
No One Has the Answers
Golden Eagle
Sycamore Tree

Taken from the album, this is 'No One Has The Answers'.

My Music in 2016 - Live albums

Ten years ago I mused about the resurgence of the EP and have never regretted that comment. Occasionally I have mentioned the interest that I have in live music recorded. I mentioned that my 2016 End-of-Year list would have a new category and this is it. Just two entries in this, at least for now.  I think it interesting not just for their obvious differences but, at least to me, because both are by artists that I have been following from the very first time that I heard about them. It is particularly appropriate because in both cases my first experience of both was actually seeing them play live!

I first came across Northumbrian band Lanterns On The Lake at End Of The Road Festival 2010 and I have seen them play live several times since.

Lanterns On The Lake - Truck Festival 2011.

The music is often almost subconscious in its beauty - bleak yet optimistic. This collaboration is a perfect match and in order to maintain the tension it had to be recorded live. This was the result.

Lanterns On The Lake with The Royal Northern Sinfonia - Live in Concert (Bella Union, 25 November 2016).

This next is a rather different beast. The Black Feathers is a duo comprising husband and wife Ray Hughes and Sian Chandler. I have written about them a few times before now; this was in anticipation of their début studio album Soaked To The Bone.
This next was, by popular request, recorded live at The Convent, South Woodchester, Gloucestershire earlier this year. 

The Black Feathers - Live at The Convent (Bird In The Hand Records, 2 December 2016).

It comprises eleven songs, most of them are original compositions but there are a few covers too. This isn't one of them nor is it actually featured on Live at The Convent! It is a live version of an original song from Soaked To The Bone.


'Down By The River, Under The Apple Tree session, 2016.

Live and local - Domenic DiCicco 'Seeds of Evergreen' album launch

As summer fades into autumn so the outdoor festivals are replaced with the return of regular indoor music events as the staple of my live-listening timetable. The organisers of Acoustic+, an event that I have often mentioned here, decided to bow out at the start of the summer recess having put on 100 shows.
In its place a new approximately monthly event, The Green Room, has arrived on the scene here in Frome. It is not a carbon copy, nor should it have been. From what I saw yesterday I very much like that which I saw and heard.

The opening act was Simon Allen, unaccompanied other than by his own acoustic guitar.

The main act was the album launch for Domenic DiCicco's latest LP 'Seeds of Evergreen'. He is, although Canadian, well known in Frome where he now resides and in particular as part of Praying For The Rain.
While 'Seeds of Evergreen' is a solo LP that is far from implying that he appeares solo, although on one song that was indeed the case, despite the unexpected absence of Paul Sax on violin due to illness. Indeed there were still eight on stage at times. My initial thoughts on the music is that it is slightly less obviously influenced by world music that that of Praying For The Rain, in generality if not specific songs. It was certainly most enjoyable and I think it would stand up well to repeated listening. Here are a couple of pictures.

Domenic DiCicco (2nd left), with Mal Darwen (bass), Delagh King (vocals) and Richard Kennedy (vocals).

As a harbinger of Green Room events in the future it bodes very well indeed. The next, on 24 October, looks like a real treat. It is headlined by The Black Feathers, whom I mentioned here not so long ago, and also includes Exeter trio Wildwood Kin amongst others including Lauren Castle.

New Music 2014 - Part 25 - Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin - Live In Calstock

Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin were relatively little known until s 2012 when, nominated for, and then winning, 'Folk Duo' at BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2013 their public profile changed a little. They seem not to have changed at all.
Less than a week after they were receiving the aforementioned award at London's Royal Albert Hall they were were playing to a capacity crowd of ninety at Marnhull Acoustic Sessions (and they had played Dulverton Village Hall in the meantime).
Somewhere along the line they had hatched a plan to record a live album - a proper live album - recorded in a single take with a real audience in a small venue. This is that album, released 14 July and recorded 14 May at Calstock Arts.

I have mentioned this release before in the 'Something Else To Listen To' section of the blog side-bar. I have to say that if there is a better acoustic live album released in 2014 then it will be truly a year to remember and I'd like that to be true.
For a much more detailed analysis I commend to you this one from Folk Radio UK.

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 Music 2011 - Part 2 - (eponymously) Yuck

As I suggested a while back the début album by UK/US/Japanese band Yuck is to be titled exactly that. It is such a good name for both band and, by extension, not using it for the album would seem contrary.
It is due for release on January 10, 2011 and is a worthy topic of my second post concerning new music to which I am looking forward in 2011, which is not to say that I have lost hope for more worthy of comment in 2010.


I have seen Yuck live twice this year, so I feel able to comment, and on both occasions found them impressive which provides a link between this year and next.
This had many hallmarks of music that in all probability I would like.  I was truly impressed, to the point that what might have been an anticlimax exceeded any expectation that I had. More telling, perhaps, is the tenor of the comments that I overheard, or have received since then, by those who heard them with no preconceptions whatsoever, in some cases not even having any prior knowledge of their existence. 
There have been a couple of tantalizing releases to date:

This one, which was a limited cassette-only physical release (!) is, hence the parentheses, a stripped back, acoustic incarnation of Yu(c)k. I don't have this, nor currently any viable equipment on which to play cassettes, but it may still be available to download from the band's blog [I'll look in to that and report back].
There is also a three-track a 12" vinyl EP 'Rubber' that was released in October, 2010.

With the benefit of hindsight and reflection on my part, and in the light of this wider observation, they should be well worth watching and listening to in 2011.


Further posts on New Music 2011:
Part 1  --- Esben and The Witch
Part 3  --- Duke Spirit
Part 4  --- Low Anthem
Part 5  ---  Go!Team
Part 6  ---  Rhosyn
Part 7  ---  Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo

Part 8  ---  Those Dancing Days
Part 9  ---  Some things I am looking forward to.
Part 10  ---  More things I am looking forward to.
Part 11  ---  New Heads On Old Shoulders?
Part 12  ---  Snowglobe - Jesca Hoop
Part 13  ---  Queen of the Minor Key

I Speak Because I Can - Laura Marling

Here it is at last:

It includes 'Alpha Shallows' and 'Goodbye England (Covered In Snow)' which, if you are a fan of 7" vinyl, you will recognise from that format.

I've just listened to it all for the first time, twice back-to back, and the result is oddly as damning as it is a revelation. The album is quite remarkable and yet I should have known that this kind of music could be so rooted in time and simultaneously so fresh.

There are two sides to this observation: I now think I could be better versed in the first wave of new-folk, realized well before she was born and 'Rambling Man' is a case in point; and I'm now acutely aware that this is not something in isolation here in the UK but rather that it lies on a wider plane.

I could find out about a new artist of this genre every few days without trying, which makes me think that this summer's festivals could be very interesting indeed and more on that soon, but equally I now know I need to listen to the classics of the first blooming that have to some extent passed me by. Joni Mitchell is one that comes to mind but I can think of plenty of others...

It is not that the new generation necessarily sounds like them, rather it is the influence and the ethos that matter.

Lyrics Again - Blue Roses, the album.

I've finally conceded to all the requests. Here they are in full:

Greatest Thoughts
This is the fortress that I built
Cold and uninviting
You stumbled on its stones last night
Beneath the trailing ivy.

These are the shoes that I had worn
It was on that day last winter when
You left me frozen and forlorn
I swore I'd never know you better.

But, oh! You did not know me at all
'Til you had seen me fight
With the dead of the night.

Still, you pulled me closer to your chest and
You were the one that I liked the best,
But I always thought that if someone loved me at all
They would give up the things that I detest.

I know that you'd never change a thing
Not for anyone or anything,
But when you cannot spare an hour won't you
Spare a thought for a dying flower.

But, oh! Who really knows you at all
If you cannot talk of your greatest thoughts?

Still, you pulled me closer to your chest and
You were the one that I loved best
So go to the fields and wait for me there
And I will show you the paths I used to tread.

High on the hill where the rain came down,
Punching its holes in the cold hard ground, well
I stood in your shadow
Jumping and starting at every sound.

Cover Your Tracks
Go, cover your tracks in the snow
Time is slow.
My hands are empty,
Go home.

Years, concrete and cold,
They stared me down.
Avoid town-
Hollow and empty
And falling down.

Oh, we searched all night
For a piece of bread,
And then when it comes
Give it to the birds instead.

Today he was here,
Holding my arms,
"All's not lost!
Your head's not empty!
Come home!"

Oh, I've searched all night
For a piece of bread,
And then when it comes
Give it to the birds instead.

I am leaving
When I decided
To live the rest of my life from a list
Of towns and cities,
And populations,
My home was silent.

My town was hidden somewhere in the dark
And a spark
Ignited my imagination.

Oh! gave me a clue somehow!
My days are so mis-spent now
I'm wasting my time
Worrying all about you.

Oh, soulless city!
Your changing skyline is twisting me up inside
I give away another minute.

All through the stations
I wonder whether constellations can change
A leaden sky, a heart unmoving
I'll tear up letters
I'll take some pictures from their frames
To make a story from the way I'm choosing.

Can't Sleep
When we sleep
The air is made of silence.
The light that cracks our windows
Is settling like dust
And while you dream I lie.
My eyes are staring upwards
Beyond this ceiling's heaven.
Is that where we're aspiring?
Or don't you know?

These are the days that bring me round again.
Tried to stop the sun from falling out of the sky
With my bare hands out.

Oh we ran and ran
You ask too many questions
The birds that sing at night time
They restored my faith in town but
For too long.

And God knows,
I want to write a love song
You asked me so nicely for one.
I promise I will do one
Before too long.

These are the days that bring me round again.
Tried to stop the sun from falling out of the sky
With my bare hands out.

Listen to me-
Oh my...oh my darling
I will never believe you again
But please start trying
'Cause I don't want to leave you.

Oh, from this day on
I promise I won't wish on
Anything unreachable,
Especially the stars,
'Cause they're too far away, yes.
They're too far away.
They're too far away.

I Wish I...
I called you and got what I deserved.
Heard that laughing in your words.
I wish that I could photograph my moods,
Show them to you,
Just to prove
Something.

Down in the town, I'm trying to prove something
But the clock hands won't move
So I'll go on singing about the same thing
And reading myself into books.

The roadside buildings are black-eyed and aged,
They can't see me anymore.
How would I mean anything to anything
Now I am not the hues in your city square puddles?

But when he touched my hand like it was gold,
I want to pull away and say,
"Look, it's only...
It's only made from plain old skin and bone
Don't try to give me credit you don't owe me!"

You've got your eye on the door.
This is what my life is for now.
I'll pray that you won't drop your anchor here.
We'll share our ancedotes from last time we spoke.
We'll never change.

Let's go out for a drive in your car
We don't have to go that far.
Let's try to find a road that we don't know
Till we don't know where we are.

And I can smell the bonfires in the street,
I want to say that I love you...love you

But you've got your eye on the door.
This is what my life is for now.
I'll pray that you won't drop your anchor here.
We'll share our ancedotes from last time we spoke.
We'll never change.

Coast
Leave my house
Leave the troubles at the door
I need the coast of the East of England

He says "We're all going one day
Why cling on?"
I think that he and I will be saved.

I want to see the electricity
On the masts of the ships
As the storm builds.

Lighthouse beams-
I know where I am
By counting the flashes.

Years ago read that there were
Ghosts here.

I want to see the electricity
On the masts of the ships
As the storm builds.

Does Anyone Love Me Now?
(When we were on the way).
I know we're too far away when I see besteepled plains.
Nothing is concealed,
Nothing is revealed by the brow of a hill.
I believe in plans
And I believe in maps that you drew
Sitting next to me.

Two nights in a row
I didn't see the moon hanging in the sky
And I need its cool pale face
To believe in this place and believe your lies.

Imagination-go! And free me from your secrets-
Heavy and cold as stone.

Well does anyone love me?
'Cause I asked the deep sea,
But it wouldn't speak to me.
My darling I'm sorry.

And I tried so hard.
So long, so long.
By the time I woke up
Then you were gone.

And on the way back home
Our wandering eyes met fleetingly in window glass
And we're etched on a block of night.
Its something I will treasure
And you'll just let pass.

I will just lie in wait
If only to hear the stories
You don't seem to know how to tell.

Well does anyone love me?
'Cause I asked the deep sea,
But it wouldn't speak to me.
My darling I'm sorry.

Doubtful Comforts
When you come home tonight, my love
Will you take me out somewhere?

You're so good at getting my hopes up
Where they don't belong-
I can't reach them.

This is the place that appears in my mind,
Covered with orange lights,
That I've seen countless times.
When can we find a place where we'll stay for a while?
Till we come back in style.
Oh, they don't know the half of it.

Walls crumble and fall.
You don't have to carry the weight of it all.

Rebecca
I have come to realise
My bad memories
Were an indulgence of mine.

So I close my tired eyes-
Stop this train of thought.
Stop it dead in its tracks.

But will you put your faith in something
When you are afraid?
That's what we were taught-
To bow our heads and pray.

Turn yourself around.
You can do better Rebecca.
Turn yourself around.
Make yourself better Rebecca.

I can sit and try to conjure words,
But there is nothing left to prove to you.
Let me sit and watch you working-
I won't be a pain.
You will not notice me at all.

Gone like seasons
All wasted.
I did not hate winter
Like a child.

Imaginary Fights
I heard a song and remembered his bed.
Love alive and love dead.
I'll never believe in the things that you said,
anyway.
Love alive and love dead.

A matter of time, yes,
I knew it would be.
Until there was a bad dream
In which you forgot about me
And cursed the stars
And cursed the sea,

But oh, how I hate it when you go,
So, I'll walk to the station.
I'll see you leave.
I'll see you leave.

Sixes and sevens, and dimly lit lights.
A lifetime full of sleepless nights.
Imaginary glimpses at imaginary fights.
You're better off leaving-
Just go in the night.

Hard to find, easy to like and still largely unknown.

It's rare these days that I can spend a whole evening listening, over and over again, to an album that I've just acquired. It has happened before and this evening, for the second time in a month, it just happened again.

While the album cover is hard to reproduce to any exciting degree I have tried my best. The same cannot be said of the album and, yes, I have already started on the lyrics! The ten tracks on it are these:

• All Of The Colours
• Last To Know
• What If I Stay
• Inside Out
• Mind In Bloom
• Stumble
• Don't Let Me Go
• Fragile Heart
• Rain On My Window
• Lullaby
  

It is unusual in many ways. It had to come to me from the US, yet this is an album by an artist from Scotland. It is certainly influenced by Nashville, country and Americana both, but is not remotely derivative and on several songs her native accent shines through. It is more Americana-influenced and less rock-acoustic, particularly in the choice of backing instruments I think, than Amy Macdonald's This Is The Life but also not really oceans apart, at least in music territory.

She is a talented songwriter and guitarist - entirely acoustic on this album.

For those lucky enough to be at 'The Green Martini', in Concorde NH, this evening then you are soon to hear her perform live and, to tell the truth, I envy you. Just enjoy it and if you were there - or at any other gig on her tours - please feel free to really wind me up by telling me about it!

The rumour machine whispers that the Grasshopper EP is due soon and I await that with great interest. Acoustic or not? I don't know!

That which ails your mind...

I certainly can't always do this, often because I don't have the answer, but this search is an exception. I love lyrics, maybe you know that already...

Let Me In
Make me understand
What it is to be a troubled man
And why you think that I'm the leaving kind
What else it is that ails your mind

Oh let me in, I swear... I'll stay there

Tell me what gets you off
I don't mind if it's rough or soft
Just as long as you can make me moan
I promise I'll never leave you alone

Oh let me in, I swear... I'll stay there

I'm so tired of bailing out
when push comes to shove
Six long years to figure out
all I need is your love

Take me to your cave
I promise you that I won't behave
But I will give you all of my love
And a body sent from heaven above.

Oh let me in, I swear... I'll stay there
Let me in, I swear... I'll stay there.

This album, let alone this song that is only one amongst many just as good, has rarely been off my personal play list since I got it a few months ago. The songs are good, the instruments equally so, and when she plays fiddle it is to die for.
That is not to say that the UK is in any way short of similarly talented artists, for it is, but there is no harm in sharing...

It is a wonderfully warm and involving album and, before people start asking me about my 'Top ten Albums of 2008', I'll tell you that already I'm minded to sneak in a new category this year. While this does not mean it won't also be included in the former, barring the unthinkable this one will be in the latter!
If you want more lyrics then, while I can't always make promises, asking certainly doesn't hurt anyone.

Not too late... maybe the dinosaurs can adapt?

I got this album today. My local supermarket had priced the DVD/CD version as the normal one and s0 I had to buy it there and then! The good news ends here and because I generally don't do negative posts I hope this is as near as I will get in 2007. I fear, however, that it may not be so.

There is nothing wrong with the audio content of this album, which I believe is exactly the same as that on the regular release (I haven't yet watched the DVD content that also came with this version) but as far as I can tell far it has fewer truly memorable tracks than "Feels Like Home". Maybe people who like "Come Away With Me", which I still like less than 'Feels Like Home', will prefer it to her last album?

She has a great voice, and the album might well grow on me in time, but I seriously wonder if it will win her many new converts. EMI were also playing down its likely success last year and, particularly worryingly is that it was then still pre-release in the US. If they can't appear to be confident in an established artist in their home market what is the point in their existence?

Track 2 Sinkin' Soon has the following lyric:

In a boat that's built of sticks and hay
We drifted from the shore
With a captain who's too proud to say
That he dropped the oar
A tiny hole has sprung a leak
In this cheap pontoon
Now the hull has started growing weak
And we're gonna be sinkin' soon.

It is not a bad album but I can't help thinking that it could have been so much better. I wonder if the lyric above has something to say about the industry?
It is true that she has to worry about offending the strange sensibilities of a major label. That is hardly something an artist should have to worry about but it seems to me that this album is a result of playing rather too safe. Maybe she would be better off elsewhere?

Harpo's Ghost - Thea Gilmore

I have had this album since it came out last summer - to no great commercial fanfare unfortunately - and I've been meaning to review it for months but it is a uniquely difficult prospect.

It named for Harpo Marx, who only expressed his on-screen personality via music, and had it been a début album such a gimmick could have been regarded as just that. In this case it can't!
Although Harpo's Ghost is her first album released on Sanctuary Records - and it comes after a break of 2½ years - it is not her second commercial release but her seventh; she released her first six in little over four years and even now she is only 26 years old! Most of them can still be found fairly easily, though The Lipstick Conspiracy (2000) is probably an exception.

Thea Gilmore got married in 2005 and had a baby in November 2006 but in the meantime she wrote, released and then toured this album around the UK and only this week she has announced a 26-date UK tour from February - April 2007. It does perhaps help that her husband, Nigel Stonier, is also her producer and occasional co-writer but it is still a considerable achievement.

Harpo's Ghost is quite special as it is an album full of influences from folk to early pop, rock and blues, but they are never hammed up or too obviously reverential and while it references Americana too, as Gilmore has also toured extensively throughout both the US and Canada, it is never in danger of becoming in awe of it. Sandi Thom, who has today been nominated for a 'Brit Award' for her first album Smile, It Confuses People, writes great songs but listen to these two albums back to back and you can soon spot the difference!

If the world were a fair place Harpo's Ghost would have been nominated for at least one 'Brit Award' tonight, but then nobody expected it to be and of course it wasn't. The world is patently not a fair place - a theme that is at the heart of this album - and she frequently rails against the music industry, but never against the music or the musicians, and also often the politics that underlie it and almost everything else.

While many labels despair at the slow output of their cherished artists - Michael Jackson only released five studio albums in the 20 years or so before his fall from grace - don't ever expect her to sign to EMI! Do however expect to hear more new songs soon (not least on the forthcoming tour) as she has recently blogged that during the aforementioned 2½ years she continued to write songs at the usual rate and that the result, by her own admission, means about three albums worth of songs ready to record!
It is hard to choose any favourites, but the 'hidden track' on the CD is a splendid closing salvo to a really rather persuasive, yet uncompromising, album.

I don't need triggers and I don't need a sword
There's a tool of revolution there in every single chord
I've got an old Neil Young record and a bottle of red
And I know he'll still be saying just what needs to be said.

If you like it, then I suggest listening to her 2004 album Rules For Jokers next.

Looking Forward to Listening to...

There are now several albums due for imminent release that I really want to listen to but, far more than any other, it is 'Back To Black' that I want to hear and it is reckoned to be even better than her début. That the first single, Rehab, from the forthcoming album, which is released on 30th October, entered the UK singles chart today at #27 on download alone is rather promising but ever since she released Frank, back in 2003, I have believed that Amy Winehouse was a star simply awaiting her place and time. I reviewed Frank back then, and I still stand by everything that I wrote almost three years ago, so here are my comments newly retrieved from amazon.co.uk!

10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

***** I'm wasting my time. You can only listen..., 4 Nov 2003

I wouldn’t have thought this album to be my kind of music at all. I was intrigued by the reviews I had read in the press and so I bought it anyway. I was disappointed; but only by what I had read, not what I heard.

One of my favourite tracks, ‘Cherry’, is not even on the sleeve play-list.
Tacked on after ‘You Sent Me Flying’, it is short, sweet and devastatingly brutal. Comparing a love to her new guitar, Amy sings...

“Maybe we could talk ‘bout things
If you were made of wood and strings.”

No one gets off lightly on this album - she doesn’t spare herself on ‘What Is It About Men?’ and ‘Amy, Amy, Amy’. The lyrics are thoroughly modern; the music is a stunning blend of jazz, blues and things… Somehow it doesn’t seem false or contrived as she can make it all sing, and then some.

This album will surprise you: and keep listening beyond the Outro as there are a couple of bonus tracks there.