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. 

The Fall of Glorieta Mountain

I thought I saw you by the side,
Illuminating foreign climes.
A figment, a splinter, a vessel for me.
To wander as freely as I'll ever be.
  
Shrapnel stars puncture brightly,
Wounding skies that stretch so widely.
Other dunes of dust, in shades of rust
Where shadows claim the both of us.
  
Is that an answer or is this an echo?
Are you the answer or are you an echo?
  
These godly skies kindly provide
The perfect scene for our goodbyes.
A providence, so palpable
It sets aflutter, palpiter.

Bleached by the moonlight
Bathed in bone white
Undercover of cobalt and shelter of slate
You appeared immaculate.
  
Is than an answer or is this an echo?
Are you the answer or are you an echo?
  
I know that distance lends enchantment to the view
But I know that I see you and I know you see me too
And so I called out.

See more here:
New Music 2013 - Part 1 - Wash The Sins Not Only The Face

I just felt like some lyrics. Not particularly cheerful but then what did you expect? The album 'Wash The Sins, Not Just The Face' is released  by Matador Records on vinyl, CD and d/l. Let us celebrate the third Monday in January at it is often said, by those that believe this sort of thing, to be the most depressing day of the year.
You can currently listen to the whole album streaming on Pitchfork here.