New Music 2018 - Part 24 - Fara - Times From Times Fall

Times From Times Fall is the second full length release by Scottish folk four-piece Fara, all of whom are from Orkney, and is the follow-up to 'Cross the Line' (2016) that I mentioned here.
All the music on this record is composed by the band, sometimes co-writing at others individually, and many are tunes. The final track 'Maxwell's Light' is a tribute to Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell, arguably most famous for his unifying theory of electromagnetic radiation published in 1861-2. A true Victorian polymath he was also a fine engineer and the inventor of light-fast colour photography.
Three of the four songs are poems by Orcadian writers set to new tunes by the band. The fourth is a tribute to a lost relative.

Fara - Times From Times Fall (Fara Music, FARA002, 19 October 2018).

Fara - Times From Times Fall

• The Port Polka / Rognvald Ritch, The Little / The Shore
• Speir Thoo The Wast Wind
• At The Ebb
• 7, 8, Nein / I'll Do It Last Friday
• Song (Love Gathers All)
• Miss Rosa Sermanni Holmes / Vintage Pals / Upside Down Under
• Frances' Day
• See It All
• The Depliction / My Favourite Cow / Farewell To The Prid
• Simple Dirt / The Fighter
• The Road Home
• Maxwell's Light

In my opinion absolutely everything on this album is well worth listening to. The lead release taken from it is 'Speir Thoo The Wast Wind', a poem by Christina Costie set to music by Fara. It is available to listen on Spotify here.

Green Man 2018 - a few thoughts and pictures.

If there is a discernible thread to this post then it is that it encapsulates why I like festivals so much. I treasure the ability to explore music I might like, a result of the one ticket for everything ethos, as much as the freedom to wander away from what it turns out I don't much care for and go in search of something else instead. As well as new music I quite purposely choose to see artists again. That even includes ones about which I was undecided on my first live acquaintance. Photography started as a basic aide-memoire when most of the acts I saw were entirely unknown to me at the time of observation.

I attend festivals as a free agent and this entirely selfish approach has a corollary; I am, in so far as it is reasonably possible to be, immune to peer-group pressure or the crowd mentality and open to recommendations as to music worth hearing from anyone I meet. I shall start with three artists that I had never seen live before. I could happily have listened to any or all of these for three hours straight...

Jim Ghedi, Walled Garden stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2018.

Nubya Garcia, Mountain stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2018.

A Hawk and A Hacksaw, Walled Garden stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2018.

The three that follow are acts/artists that I have seen live before and were more than happy to see live once again. This first is one of the artists of 2017 - 2018, both recorded and live.

Courtney Marie Andrews, Mountain stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2018.

Amber Arcades, Mountain stage, Green Man Festival, 17 August 2018.

Joan As Policewoman, Mountain stage, 17 August 2018.

New Music 2018 - Part 23 - Kitty Macfarlane - Namer Of Clouds

This is an album that, having seen the artist behind it live several times, I have been waiting upon for some time. It is her first full length and it follows on from the 2016 Tide and Time EP that I mentioned here. 

Kitty Macfarlane - Namer Of Clouds (Navigator Records, 21 September 2018).

This LP and the aforementioned EP share only one track and that is the EP's opener 'Wrecking Days'. This is the track list for the LP.

Kitty Macfarlane - Namer Of Clouds

• Starling Song
• Namer Of Clouds
• Seventeen
• Sea Silk
• Morgan's Pantry
• Glass Eel
• Wrecking Days
• Dawn & Dark
• Frozen Charlotte
• Man, Friendship
• Inversnaid

One track that particularly caught my attention when first I heard it live at North Dorset Folk Festival last autumn is Glass Eel. That particular festival is sadly no more but here she is playing it at a brand new festival that I had the pleasure of attending just two months ago.

Kitty Macfarlane,  Main stage, Beardy Folk Festival, 24 June 2018.

This is acoustic folk but with a contemporary and often environmentally aware twist but it isn't overtly political. It doesn't have to be; it is too well crafted to need that crutch upon which to stand.

New Music 2018 - Part 22 - Eliza Gilkyson - Secularia

There is a total change of tack for this post. We head over to Austin, Texas and the realm of US folk and, in passing, something of a dynasty in that regard. This is the latest from Eliza Gilkyson.

Eliza Gilkyson - Secularia (Red House Records, 13 July 2018).

• Solitary Singer
• Lifelines
• Conservation
• In The Name Of The Lord
• Dreamtime
• Seculare
• Reunion
• Sanctuary
• Through The Looking Glass
• Emmanuelle
• Down By The Riverside
• Instrument

This has certainly caught my attention. It has also led me to investigate her extensive back catalogue too. I like the fact that it is about finding meaning but that the title suggests that it is, I guess essentially, about humanism.  I know that I will be returning to comment on this further in due course. It's steadfast tone but lack of dogma is very refreshing.

Her brother is guitarist Tony Gilkyson who played almost all the guitar parts for the biopic film 'Walk The Line'. Their father Terry Gilkyson was also a folk writer, singer and musician, being of the same generation as Woodie Guthrie, who wrote songs with and for many well known artists including, amongst others, Johnny Cash. He also widely entertained commissions for other artistic outlets including writing music for cinema.

That included this: one of the most widely recognised songs from animated film that there is:

 This is the original, slightly scratchy and static inflected, version. Just the bare necessities.

New Music 2018 - Part 14 - Darrin Bradbury - Elmwood Park: A Slightly Melodic Songbook

I didn't find this. Someone, that I have never met and quite possibly never will, just saw fit to recommended it to me. That this is how it works is amazing in itself.  I struggle to find many male artists that I really like listening to when compared to female ones. That is just the way it works for me. This is one of those exceptions.
The music here is awesome. I'm quite wary of musical monikers such as 'outlaw country' but be-that-as-it-may this is pretty close to what I imagine it might involve should it indeed exist. It is cynical to a fault, but given a perspective that suggests both a longing-for and respect-of the faults that it reveals. That includes a dose of self-deprecation.
In that sense it makes me think of when I discovered the 2016 album 'Rockingham' by BJ Barham.

Elmwood Park: A Slightly Melodic Audiobook - Darrin Bradbury (Café Rooster Records, 2016).

If I could find it on vinyl at a half-sensible price then I would have already ordered it. I can't. At least (here in the UK) you can enjoy it on Spotify here.

Elmwood Park: A Slightly Melodic Audiobook - Darrin Bradbury:

• True Love
• Life Is Hard
• Joey
• The Almost Great Lakes
• The Roadkill Song
• Junkie Love
• Swordfish
• Elmwood Park
• I Knew Him as Sam
• The Blue Highway

I have listened to it three times right through this evening and that was certainly not part of my game plan three hours ago. On the other hand nothing even half as interesting as this actually was.  It is actually a 2016 release but I had never heard about the artist, let alone the record. Its time is now.

This is 'True Love'.

New Music 2018 - Part 10 - Mike Ross - Jenny's Place

More new music and another release by Brighton's At The Helm Records. Let me see what I can tell you about why I like this after a few days and several listens.

Mike Ross - Jenny's Place (At The Helm Records, 2 March 2018).

Mike Ross - Jenny's Place:

• Bamboozled
• The Big Picture
• Dakota Red
• Coffeecan Telephone
• Baby I Love You
• Jenny (Sun Goes Down)
• Dark Powder
• Loveslide

If you can accept that his influences are eclectic then you are quite likely to be fine with this. If not then it might be a rather bumpy ride.

If I had to chose a favourite, and as you may have noticed I most often eschew doing this, it would go to 'Dark Powder' and it is quite something. This album, or at least some of it, goes back a bit further.

Mike Ross - Dark Powder (2016).

This harks back to his childhood spent in the north-east of England during the death throes of the coal mining industry there. It is a narrative that is familiar in many parts of the world and in many different ways. This album flits across borders, even continents, as readily as it does musical influences. 
This is the point at which this album starts to make complete sense to me. This could be Pennsylvania or West Virginia were it not for the proximity of the sea as a waste disposal unit. To make a record that can merge all these influence and still sound like a coherent whole is quite some feat.

Records such as this make interminable January more bearable and I can't wait for the opportunity to hear how this plays out live. I fully intend to do that and, what is more, I believe that Mike Ross plays Truck Festival 2018.

New Music 2018 - Part 3 - Laura Cannell - Hunter Huntress Hawker

I mentioned this yesterday. Towards the end of 2017 I started a Friday spot on Facebook in which I mention a music release that has captured my attention. I'm planning to revive that idea after the break for Christmas and New Year although perhaps not every week. I rather like the idea of more blog posts but the two are not incompatible by any means.  To date it has been a very recent release but I'm thinking that this should not always be the case.

Hunter Huntress Hawker - Laura Cannell (Brawl Records, 20 October 2017).

This album (it is actually her fourth) is one that, while I mentioned it on Facebook, has not appeared here before. You may find it challenging but I'm not going to apologise for that. It has two key-words that might be used to describe it that tend to put people off  -  experimental and improvised.
It was recorded live in a ruined church (St. Andrew, Covehithe, Suffolk) that is the only significant structure that remains of a one-thriving fishing community on the east coast of England, the rest of which has now been almost entirely claimed by coastal erosion.
Half-an-hour of truly haunting over-bowed violin playing might just make the cold and damp of early January seem rewarding. I have wavered about choosing a tune (for they are all thus, there are no words). I decided on this:

The penultimate item on the collection - Nordhalla.

New Music 2017 - Part 38 - Tilly Moses - Alight & Adrift

So why post New Music 2017 in 2018? For exactly the same reason that I posted New Music 2018 in 2017!

Alight & Adrift - Tilly Moses (Ginger Dog Records, 2 June 2017).

It's a continuum, whatever the calendar might imply to the contrary. Increasingly, and this is much to my liking, the release of new music pays little heed to that nowadays. Now twenty years of age and relocated to York, this is not her first release by any means but it is quite a statement of intent.  The only traditional song on it is Hares on the Mountain.

Tilly Moses - Alight & Adrift:

• Definitions
• Water Man
• Paper Conflicts
• Fear With Fire
• Harbour (feat. Sam Kelly)
• One of Them
• Flatlands
• Lonely Birds
• Hares on the Mountain
• Ragdoll
• Footprints
• Whisky

This is certainly not the only album released in 2017 that invokes the east coast of England and has captivated me. Another notable one, at least in my opinion, will follow in a post tomorrow. The great thing about them is that they are actually very different indeed. This first might possibly be the most accessible of the two, it is certainly the more lyrical but neither suffers from comparison with the other.

New Music 2017 - Part 37 - Coco & The Butterfields - Battlegrounds

It has been a long time since I saw Coco & The Buttterfields live but here is a reminder that they have a lot of new music coming soon. This is the video for Battlegrounds that appeared almost exactly one year ago. It's still worth the wait.

The last time was at Cambridge Folk Festival 2015 and this was taken then.

I intend to continue my lists of 2017 music over the coming weekend and I hope there will be some surprises in the selection.

New Music 2018 - Part 1 - Stick In The Wheel - Follow Them True

Divining the future has to start somewhere. I have chosen this as my starting point for music in 2018, not least because Stick In The Wheel is exactly between the future and the past.
I have no idea what the songs on this, the second LP, will be but I'm happy to trust that I shall like them and so I have pre-ordered it on vinyl.

Follow Them True - Stick In The Wheel (self released, 26 January 2018).

This is the follow-up to astonishing 2015 début 'From Here' and I can't think of an act better qualified to be my first suggestion for music that is to be released in 2018, but there are plenty more snapping at the heels.
This is 'Over Again':

In 2017 the band released a record of other artists singing traditional songs live and that is well worth an hour of your precious time too. It features well known artists and also many less so but no less worthy.

FROM HERE: English Folk Field Recordings (From Here Records, 2017).

The idea was to capture what the essence, the making and the performance of English folk music means in the here-and-now.

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. 

New Music 2017 - Part 33 - Dryadic - In My Blood EP

You might know about my love of the EP format by now. This is a shining example of why that is so.

In My Blood EP - Dryadic (self-released, 20 October 2017).

Dryadic is a Brighton-based two-piece one half of which is Zora Macdonald, formerly the lead of The Tatsmiths. We are going back a few years but that is fine by me. The Tatsmiths recorded an LP Curiosity Shop (2012) here in my home town of Frome, Somerset. That was followed by the Occupy EP (2015). You need to listen to these and not least because they place the new direction and therefore this release in a context that makes complete sense.
This latest is a true EP, comprising just three songs, and includes the use of a fantastically rare English language verb in a song title. Sometimes less is actually rather more than you bargained for.
It is a wonderful thing.

Dryadic - In My Blood:

• Colours of the Hedgerow
• Gongoozling for Two
• In My Blood

New Music 2017 - Part 28 - Top Floor Taivers - A Delicate Game

This has nothing directly to do with the festivals I have been to over this summer. It has a great deal to do with the variety of music that garners my attention. It is also a possible pointer towards my change of direction when it comes to festivals that I'm considering visiting in 2018. I'm almost certain that I have never seen any of the four artists that form the core of Top Floor Taivers live in any of their many and various other guises. This is their first album together as such. Their recorded works as individuals or other bands are a however a different matter and I have listened to them.

A Delicate Game, Top Floor Taivers (TFT Records, 28 February 2017).

Recorded it is a slightly different consideration - as a trans-Britain-and-Ireland collective this is quite something. It treats traditional songs with grace and pressure, but also includes versions of modern folk songs such as Richard Thompson's '1952 Vincent Black Lightning'. The best comes with some new compositions such as 'Jeanie and the Spider' that rate alongside anything else here.
If you want my opinion then it is that this album is under-rated. The version of the traditional Scottish song 'Johnnie of Braidieslee' is as good as it could be. The origin, and age, of the song is anyone's guess; possibly 17th century in approximately current form but it might have origins older than that and have been updated and reconstructed to suit the times. It really doesn't matter that much.
For the curious, here is the track-list:

Top Floor Taivers - A Delicate Game:

• Johnnie of Braidieslee
• Princess Rosanna
• The False Bride
• Everybody Knows
• 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
• Jeannie and the Spider
• Campfires
• Ramblin' Rover
• 10 Little Men

I  don't think that I could leave you hanging, with nothing to listen to, so here are a couple of tunes that are not on the album.


'Captain Ward' (traditional) and 'The Porterhead Reel' (Gráinne Brady).

New Music 2017 - Part 24 - Iona Lane - Pockets EP & Solace EP

One principal artist and two releases make up this little pot of gold. I should have mentioned the first months ago but I didn't, which is entirely my fault. With another now available to pre-order the time is right.

This is the forthcoming one (1 September 2017)...  you can order it here.

With Iona on acoustic guitar and vocals and Abi Plowman on violin and backing vocals this release consists of six tracks.

Iona Lane - Pockets EP:

• Weighted Dice
• The Loch Tay Boat Song
• Living Life out of Pockets
• Carved by Another
• Northern Town
• The Leaving Song

This is the first song to be released from it.

Back in February of this year she released the EP Solace. It was recorded with more of a full band sound.

Iona Lane - Solace EP:

• Amsterdam
• Sometimes
• Fly or Fall
• I'll Run Without You

Which of the four songs here is my favourite very much depends on my mood at the time. I'll go with opening song 'Amsterdam' that has an guitar intro that reminds me of many things and also nothing at the same time, which is very appropriate to the lyric.

The same is true of the seven songs on the 2015 'Dry Stone Walls EP'. 

Taken in total this amounts to a considerable body of original work and one that I enjoy listening to very much.
If you have none of the above you can get all 3 EPs (and a cover of Joni Mitchell's 'A Case Of Me') for £12.60 here. If I were you then I would.

New Music 2017- Part 23 - LosFeliz - Ancestry

I have had a break from writing, but not from listening and now I'm back after a case of writer's block.
I am planning a number of posts, including another imaginary journey, but just now this has taken precedence over that more complicated project. Released only last week it is wonderful music for the late evening when the heat of the day its making way for late evening darkness.

LosFeliz - Ancestry (Union Music Store, 16 June).

Ancestry is one of those début records that seems to have arrived fully-realised from another universe. LosFeliz is essentially the solo work of Brighton-based artist Lucy Powell and it was recorded in a church in her native Wales. It is spiritual and fluid, humanist rather than religious and lies somewhere on a meandering loop-line that has folk and dream pop as its termini. It includes some non-acoustic effects and also found sounds and it is astonishingly devoid of self-consciousness, never mind pretension.
Another thing that it certainly does not have is any sense of hurry, the journey itself is all that matters here and time is not a consideration at all.

• Jupiter
• Daymares
• Dove
• Foreign Lands
• Madonna, Pts. 1 & 2
• Orion
• Bloodline
• Temple
• Moreso Today

Its nine tracks span 41 minutes and soon after you start listening all sense of time becomes an illusion. It should be, and I'm told that this is true, absolutely unmissable live. This could well turn out to be one of the great new albums and artists of 2017.

New Music 2017 - Part 22 - Offa Rex - The Queen Of Hearts

One of the things about doing this [writing a blog] is that it pretty much forces me to listen, read and then actually think about music. I can't really assimilate so-called background music anymore. If it's there than that is how it is, but I'll be either paying proper attention or simply not consciously noticing it at all. Sub-conscious listening is however very much a real 'thing'. I was doing chores at home this morning whilst I had the latest Spotify 'Discover Weekly' playlist playing from the stereo but until this came on I couldn't, had it been a crime scene, have given you a single useful piece of evidence to show that I had paying any attention to what was going on.
Had my head been inside a scanner that measures synapse connections I suspect that the images would have been quite interesting. It was, as subsequent investigations have shown, a song I have never heard before but the apparent jumble of concepts that my mind spewed out in response, much like the coins from a change machine, was surprisingly accurate.

What triggered all that, and it is also the title of the forthcoming LP, is this song:

Offa Rex is a project that sees UK singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Olivia Chaney transported to the Pacific Northwest to weave tradition from British and Celtic folk into a psych-folk influenced tapestry. The rest of Offa Rex will be familiar to many as the Decemberists. The album was recorded and produced by Tucker Martine at his studio in Portland, OR. The majority of the eleven tracks were arranged by Olivia Chaney

Offa Rex - The Queen of Hearts, (Nonesuch Records, 14 July 2017).

Offa Rex - The Queen of Hearts:

• The Queen of Hearts
• Blackleg Miner
• The Gardener
• The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
• Flash Company
• The Old Churchyard
• Constant Billy (Oddington) / I'll Go Enlist (Sherborne)
• Willie o' Winsbury
• Bonny May
• Sheepcrook and Black Dog
• To Make You Stay

To hear this in its entirety is something I am looking forward to very much indeed.  It is another journey in the story of how, for centuries, songs have travelled back and forth across the Atlantic to be reappraised and then returned.
A fine example is Willie o' Winsbury that is from Scottish tradition and probably of late 17th century origin. It is also Child #100 and has been back and forth a few times since. A version also appears on the LP Child Ballads - Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer (2013).

New Music 2017 - Part 18 - Turn Your Face To The Sun - I Draw Slow

This is just so welcome news.
From Dublin, but also Americana and roots inspired, please embrace the return of 'I Draw Slow'. Centered around siblings Dave and Louise Holden the band is so much more than that.

I Draw Slow, Turn Your Face To The Sun (Compass Records, 21 April 2017).

I Draw Slow - Turn Your Face To The Sun:

• Maria
• My Portion
• Same Old Dress Will Do
• Garage Flowers
• Apocalypso
• Don't Wake The Children
• Alveregna
• Tell The Girls
• Carolina
• Twin Sisters
• Crooked Life

This is Don't Wake The Children, taken from the new album...

You might find that a little searching of the bands's earlier recordings is rewarding too. Just one example, and another video, is this.

  'Goldmine', taken from the 2011 LP Redhills .

New Music 2017 - Part 13 - Oka Vanga - Dance Of The Copper Trail

Thanks to many people, not least the band, this is the next in a series of posts about new music that has grabbed my attention for all the right reasons.

Oka Vanga - Dance Of The Copper Trail (Crazy Bird Records, 31 March 2017).

Oka Vanga - Dance of The Copper Trail:

• The Wicken Tree
• Capercaille
• Ashes To The Wind
• She Moved Through The Fair
• Don't Let The Clouds Roll In
• The Devil's Tide
• Song of the River
• Rose of the Hill
• My Sweet Guitar
• Out Of The Fire
• This Train

The heart of this duo is husband and wife Angela Mayer and William Cox, the former from South Africa and the latter from London, but what you get here goes far beyond anything that those facts might begin to reveal. This is their second LP, following 'Pilgrim' of 2014 that was instrumental. If songwriting and singing talent was hidden under a bushel then, neither is the case any longer! This album also features Patsy Reid from Scotland on fiddle and Oliver Copeland on double bass. The variety in the songs is just about perfect.
'The Wicken Tree' is a new revelation of many an old theme; 'She Moved Through The Fair' is a song about as venerable as any that can be reliably traced - the air is likely of mediaeval origin and may have origins in the music of south-eastern Europe. Regarded as of Irish tradition numerous versions, yet still recognisable as such, are to be found throughout the folk canon of the British Isles and especially so in the Romany communities of Ireland as well as further afield, particularly in North American tradition.
The lyric is usually adapted to fit the place and circumstance so it is probably rather recent by comparison. It has been serially adopted by players and singers wheresoever they have found themselves, often far away from their native home, and this elective mutability is another key attribute of folk tradition.
You could sing about the hardships of cod fishing on the Newfoundland Banks when stuck in drought-stricken Oklahoma during the years of the dust bowl and depression, if only for the sake of remembrance. Most likely you would still sing but about things more immediate and pressing.

One of my particular favourites, given just a couple of listens through the whole album so far, is 'The Devil's Tide'.
I'm wondering if this has subconsciously to do with the fact that last week was the fiftieth anniversary of the disaster that was the wreck and foundering of the oil tanker 'Torrey Canyon' off the SW coast of Cornwall on 18 March 1967. The French called the shoreline pollution that the spill caused "la marée noire" - the black tide.  It is in fact about a quite different peril on the high seas - piracy -  and in this case a female pirate from Co. Cork, Ireland!

Here is the aforementioned 'She Moved Through The Fair' performed live:



There is also a song about the plight of coal miners 'Rose Of The Hill' and one about railways 'This Train', so that has most of my folk interests covered.
This is the variety you get here and it is well worth your time to explore it. Oka Vanga is well and truly added to my list of acts to see live.

New Music 2017 - Part 12 - Threaded - Of What We Spoke

First off,  this is their début album from 2015, so not 2017. The reason I am including it here is that having managed to avoid discovering it for eighteen months or so and I'm guessing I might not be the only one.
Secondly, I really like it and I feel that it is too good not to share. Suffice to say 'Threaded' is another act on my list of priorities to see play live.

All classically trained at the Birmingham Conservatoire, Threaded comprises:

• Jamie Rutherford - vocals, guitar
• Ning-ning Li - violin
• Rosie Bott - clarinet

Their music is contemporary folk, both tunes and songs, not least for the inclusion of clarinet. As far as I am aware these are all new compositions but if I'm wrong about that please let me know.  This is the track list:

1. The Living Room
2. Left Off
3. Captain Markham
4. A Secret Charm
5. Dreamfire
6. Mr. & Mrs. Jones
7. Drafted
8. The Courtyard
9. Flat 71
10. Return to Penpole Wood
11. Crosse/Parrack
12. You Will Always Be The One

This is a taste of what to expect.

New Music 2017 - Part 11 - All Our Exes Live In Texas - When We Fall

Sometimes, maybe it is that time of year, I awake to the idea of Spring, albeit as yet unrealised, and some ideas of silliness that befit the March Hare. This is exactly that - the band name is stupendously unhinged - and  it comes from Australia;  Sydney for the most part.
This is just pure delight --- unadulterated and un-adult-rated. Amazon.com reckons that it is rock while Amazon.co.uk reckons it is pop and that only shows that it's not so obvious that it can be pigeonholed. I'll just say that it's a whole lot of fun because it is easy to take music too seriously and there is no real need to do that. The album art effortlessly rolls back four decades and then some, into the bargain.

All Our Exes Live In Texas - When We Fall (self-released/Whirlwind Entertainment LLC, 3 March 2017).

When We Fall - All Our Exes Live In Texas:

• The Devil's Part
• I'm Gonna Get My Heart Cut Out
• Boundary Road
• When the Sun Comes Up
• Tell Me
• Parking Lot
• Candle
• Sailboat
• Oh Lover of Mine
• Don't Cry
• Childhood Home
• Cadillac

Modern folk-harmony anyone. If anything at all it has echoes of The Pipettes (at least to me) and on the other hand it is rather less cynical. Does it really matter when it sounds this good and that Pipettes album is now ten years old? Of course it doesn't!

These acoustic sprites are:

Hannah Crofts  ---  vocals, ukulele
Georgia Mooney  ---  vocals, mandolin
Elana Stone  ---  vocals, accordion
Katie Wighton  ---  vocals, guitar

Just something to make the coming week seem a little better and remind one that there is always so much new music out there waiting to be discovered, enjoyed and championed.