It is the music that matters...

A week away from my blog seems a long time. I have returned from a few days away but, unlike last year, I am back home when I intended and fully functional. This evening a different problem presented; I returned home from work, intent on adding some new blog material, only to discover that my street had no electricity and even vinyl won't play without that!

While my recent meanderings were limited to nowhere exotic, rather the comforting familiarity of North Yorkshire in good company, that doesn't mean that I have spent the last week entirely isolated from the world of new music and, also importantly, music that is merely new to me.
It does possibly mean that such music has no obvious connection, and this is an album and artist that I have never heard before, but it appears to make sense to buy it so it is now on order!

Alternative/indie music from North America is currently on fine form and this is just one album amongst many that holds promise. It is certainly not a new phenomenon but it is also true that music and politics share a lot in common. They know what they are up against - European music - and although this might seem a rather strange comment they are rising, vainglorious, to the challenge and that is exactly what is needed right now.

It is, like politics, a situation far more complicated than it might seem and this is why music has spawned a rash of sub-genres that, while we might disagree about the names we give them, share certain common values. To anyone reading this without some prior knowledge the term "anti-folk" is about as helpful as toothache and, in any case, it is also near impossible to define as it can present as different things in different cases. Given that there are too many sub-genres this is a particularly unhelpful situation that merely hinders communication but it is one quite unsurprising.
While I'm on this topic and, as I forgot to mention that Kira Fontana is from California, I might also mention Carrie Rodriguez.

She is from New York and as well as playing her, rather more folk-influenced, songs she also plays a mean fiddle! This, her second solo album, was released in the US on 5th August 2008 by Manhattan Records but, as of now, seems to have no full release in the UK or Europe.

It is just the music that matters!

New music, old technology...

This is a post with a difference. Some of it will be music new to me, that I have recently acquired, and some will be things that I've heard about and are now on my wish list. The first is in the former category.

What to say? Well, for a start, if you thought you might like Regina Spektor (Begin To Hope, 2006), but found it a bit more weird anti-folk than perhaps you imagined, this could well be more to your liking. I like it too, indeed more with every listen, but I actually fell foul of one of my own rules here! If an album that I'm reasonably sure I will like is available on vinyl then I will buy it on that format if the price is not unreasonable. It was and, unfortunately, I didn't! It is not music for a party or that to listen to while preparing for a night out.

Now here is another US act and one that I haven't heard yet. They are now signed to Bella Union in the UK, an independent label that was very prominent at Latitude 2007, and I have high hopes for one of their newest signings; Fleet Foxes are from Seattle.

Sun Giant EP - Fleet Foxes (SubPop, 2007)

Their eponymous début album should appear on Bella Union in the next couple of weeks. The current date is 9th June (in the UK) and it should also be available on 12" vinyl too.

I know my liking for vinyl is slightly archaic, but I also know that I'm far from the only one who appreciates its tangibility, and thus this article on the BBC website today made me feel good. I could not, of course, blog using a typewriter but that they still have their devotees certainly had some resonance.

When one of the biggest acts of the 21st century sees fit to make the only physical release of the first single from their new album available only on 7" vinyl, who I am I to argue?