Festivals - a road trip through music

In the last week or so all three festivals for which I have a ticket have released details of the first tranche of artists that are appearing. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that in all cases these are festivals that I have attended on multiple previous occasions and so I had established trust sufficient to purchase tickets prior to having any associated acts announced.

Not all of this post concerns artists announced as mentioned above but it does go some way towards explaining my method and rationale for discovering music that is new or new to me and why festivals play such an important rôle in that. The road trip analogy is apposite - it is a journey for which there is a defined starting point but neither is there a predictable end point or a route.
In addition there is the BCR analysis of this approach, which is similar to the formula applied to assessing the economic value of public works projects. In this case it stands for Benefit-Cost-Risk (as a calculation), rather than Benefit : Cost ratio!
Festival tickets are good value in comparison with individual concert tickets (assuming one makes good use of what is on offer) and there is far less time and money spent on travel.  One can take risks on seeing artists that are little known because if disappointment strikes, and occasionally it does, there will always be others to see instead.  There will also be completely unexpected delights (one from EOTR 2016 here), however much pre-festival homework one does. Indeed I am coming to the conclusion that it is possible to do too much beforehand and that it stifles instinct.

With that in mind here are a few artists that I have on my radar.

Courtney Marie Andrews - Honest Life (Loose Music, 2017) plays End Of The Road 2017.

This one however is not playing the UK festivals as far as I am currently aware.  If she turns up at a festival I am attending then I'll be watching. This is another great album of careworn alt-country.

Goodluck Man - Carson McHone (Good Horse Record Company, 2015).

In recent years there have been accusations that a number of festivals (and I'm not going to name names before you ask, just figure it out for yourself) book a relatively small proportion of female (or female-fronted) acts, particularly as headline artists.

Just for a moment let us put that aside. Here is something that is almost never mentioned at all.
Gaelynn Lea is one of the most astonishing virtuoso fiddle players of recent years, of both her own and traditional music, but you may possibly never even have heard of her. She is playing End Of The Road 2017 and is on my must-see list.
Here are her interpretations of the traditional Scottish song 'The Parting Glass' although it is now often most associated with emigration from Ireland, and 'Brenda Stubbert's Reel' (and similar spellings) that is an Irish tune that has become particularly associated with Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. Music travels!  Gaelynn Lea herself is from none of these places; she hails from Duluth, Minnesota.

The Songs We Sing Along The Way EP - Gaelynn Lea (CDBaby, 2016).

Consider it and then read this article and watch the longer live set. You hadn't guessed that had you?

That seems a natural place at which to end this post. I shall return to the road-trip theme soon. There will be some male artists too on the second leg of this haphazard journey.

New Music 2016 - Part 46 - three doses of garage rock

I feel like a change from narrating my thoughts on festivals because I haven't written a post on new music for what seems like an age (it's about four weeks in truth) and I mentioned female-fronted garage rock in relation to Seratones at End of The Road Festival 2016. This is about that sort of thing.

The first is the only one of the three albums released as of today but all three are by bands that I have seen live.

The band's latest LP is 'Get Gone' (Fat Possum Records, 6 May 2016).

Released tomorrow is this from the Californian duo of Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards. It is their second full-length release following 'Sistrionix' (2013) and a change of label.

Deap Vally - Femejism (Cooking Vinyl, 16 September 2016).

Towards the end of the year Scottish duo Stina Tweedale and Cat Myers pitch in with their own second album. The first, released in 2014, was self-titled.

Honeyblood - Babes Never Die (FatCat Records, 4 November 2016). Vinyl, CD and d/l.

Babes Never Die - Honeyblood

• Babes Never Die
• Ready For The Magic
• Sea Hearts
• Love Is a Disease
• Walking at Midnight
• Justine, Misery Queen
• Hey, Stellar
• Cruel
• Gangs

I imagine all the smallish people had a lot of fun playing the parts in this!

Three bands (two from the US and one from the UK) released on three different independent record labels (one from the US and two from the UK). Track listings, more details and live pictures to follow soon.

An interesting dilemma.

About this time last year I mentioned that I was going to start listening over again to all of my long-list of music (EPs and albums together) that I had noted should be considered for those end-of-year rituals. In the end I did that, twice over, and the result was that I whittled that list of fifty-something down to just twenty LPs and a handful of EPs. Some were something between; let us agree to call them mini-albums for sustained quality, not length, is the defining criterion here. That process now needs to commence all over again.

I'm fine with that but there is a nascent problem. I'm pretty sure that my qualifications for inclusion on this long list are every bit as discerning as was the case last year. It is absolutely vital that this is so; as it stands today my long-list currently runs to one-hundred-and-eight items. A quick survey suggests that on average each is 40 minutes in length. To put it another way, if I were to start listening now (21:15 Tuesday) with no breaks at all I would get to the end of it early on Friday evening!
I'm not planning to do that, not least because I also have live music to go and see tomorrow evening.
It also brings me to another issue. That of all the live music that I have seen in 2015 and the discussions, both in person and remotely, about that. The good thing about this is that I certainly have a lot to reflect on!

My next two posts will both be in the series 'New Music 2015'. Both about albums released in the last couple of weeks, that should logically be included in the category of UK folk, and yet they are two very different beasts indeed.
I shall aim to make sure that both posts are published simultaneously. The order in which they actually appear will be decided by the toss of a coin. I'll get someone else to do that for me and with the outcomes known to them beforehand.
What remains true from the start is that, even as my taste in music has evolved over these last nine years and it most certainly has and in ways I might not have anticipated, I will not chose to write posts about things that I don't much care for. I do make comparisons in order to explain why I favour one thing over another. I regard that as something inevitable.

New Music 2015 - Part 36 - Slow Down Molasses - Burnt Black Cars

'Burnt Black Cars' - by one of the best bands that I have ever seen live at a festival and without any prior knowledge of it - is simply a warning that Canada is well and truly on my mind again! Here it is playing the Tipi stage at End Of The Road Festival 2011.

That band was Slow Down Molasses, from Saskatoon, SK.

The new LP, 'Burnt Black Cars', was released today.

That it was produced by Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes) and the title might tell you something about how you should expect it to sound. You should not be disappointed unless that is you expect it to sound quite like the previous works of either band. I think that I need to write nothing more about this.

New Music 2015 - Part 33 - Lau - The Bell That Never Rang

This release is much awaited and not least by me. It is the latest LP from Lau, a three-piece band that I saw live at End Of The Road 2014 and that I mentioned here.

The LP is 'The Bell That Never Rang', released (in the UK) 4 May 2015.

It is also an example of something else, which might be of interest and not only to thrifty neophiles...
It is free to stream, legally and in full although not necessarily of the highest bit-rate, before its release and possibly only for a limited time. You can find this example at... 
No, that's not fun at all. I'll let you find it yourself. An added twist is that production duties on 'The Bell That Never Rang' were helmed by Joan Wasser. There are only six tracks on it and the title track is seventeen minutes long.
If you are interested in music from at least of now little known artists (and they all have to start somewhere) then the world is your oyster. There are also ways to get music in advance that might cost no more than buying the product when and if it happens - PledgeMusic, Kickstarter are example of this crowd-funding approach and there are many others. I have several LPs that are yet to see public release this way and the bonus is that they are signed copies.

The point may sound Holmesian but is that you have to keep eyes and ears wide open at all times and discretely carry a pocket notebook* so you don't forget things. It is amazing what you can learn at live events, especially festivals, even if it is merely overheard chatter. [Alcohol loosens tongues but certainly doesn't help with remembering what you saw or heard/were told the previous day.]
Beyond that it is up to you and your ingenuity to find out what, if anything, that which you heard or saw means in the great scheme of things. The most important insights are the subtle ones.

*a notebook and a soft black pencil:
It is a passé concept I know. Here's why it is important. You can write in the dark and the damp and your notes will almost certainly survive in a legible form even when the paper dries out. It doesn't have batteries that might go flat or a lit screen that attracts attention to what you are doing (inevitably so in the dark).

Festivals in 2015 - whither do I go?

The question in the title has been on my mind for some weeks now. There were already two given results here, as I have had a ticket for Behind The Castle and End Of The Road for months now. Last year I went to south Wales and Green Man Festival for the first time. I had a wonderful time despite driving most of the way there through the impressive remnants of Hurricane Bertha! In fact it was so good that last week I committed to going again this year.
Much as Glastonbury does, Green Man holds an emerging talent competition 'Green Man Rising' and the winner gets to open the Mountain Stage (the main one) on Friday. I was reminded of that this evening  - in 2014  it was London three-piece Wyldest - this is what 'The Telegraph' had to say quite recently and I wouldn't disagree. I came to much the same conclusion about five minutes into their set and here they are that day.

The band's first proper release, an EP, is imminent. This track taken from it is why I got back on to this today.

I'm interested to see what both Wyldest and the Green Man new music panel come up with in 2015. Its Glastonbury counterpart too for that matter but you can take it as read that Glastonbury is one 2015 festival that I am not, and never had any intention of, going to.

Added 7 March 2015:
Wyldest is included on the long list of 120 artists for the 2015 Glastonbury 'Emerging Talent Award'.

Betwixt the old year and New Year.

At this time every year I feel like writing; that inclines me to think I should be able to write either about the past year, the coming one or even both with some insight. The fact is, and this year is no different, that to a great extent I cannot and that is not for a shortage of content.
Be that as it may I still feel like writing and so I have settled on a suitably time-indeterminate solution. Here are a couple of LPs or suchlike that I have not mentioned in 2014.

This first, released as the end of 2014 approached is a good example of the fact that some of the best Americana comes out of Canada and it isn't that easy to find on physical format in the UK at the moment.

'Chasing The Sun' is the third LP from the female three-piece The Sweet Lowdown based in Victoria, British Colombia. The sound is entirely acoustic and based on traditional and Appalachian playing but many of the songs and tunes are self-written.

Little May is also a female three-piece, but in this case from Sydney, NSW, Australia., and again not that easy to find all that much music from except to say that which I have heard I like. More about this very soon.

To finish a post that has wandered the world more or less on the theme of Americana perhaps less well known I will finish with one from the USA. That is this release by Pennsylvania-based Caroline Reese and The Drifting Fifth.

Electric Year EP (2014).

This track is not from the above but from the 2013 album Slow Code.

I can't wait to see and hear any/all of these artists, and many more, live in 2015. Now that I have started listening, reading and writing after the welcome Christmas break who knows where this will go next? I'm not sure that I do but when I started I didn't know that either. 

New Music 2014 - Part 18 - Table Scraps

Whilst pursuing my New Year Resolution to listen to more new (at least to me) music - my target was 8 hours/week and I'm doing well almost six months in - I was listening to Simon Raymonde's show on Amazing Radio yesterday evening when something came on which, although quite new wasn't as simple as that.
It was 'At The Bottom of Our Stairs' by Birmingham duo Table Scraps.

It immediately struck a chord as there was something about the female vocals that was distinctly familiar but from a long while back. I'd decided that it wasn't one or two possibilities when it was announced that the band was Scott Vincent Abbott and Poppy Twist. It could have been a coincidence, just possibly, but it certainly wasn't. This post could just as easily have been titled 'Whatever happened to Poppy Twist?'
The last time I heard of her was the 2007 release of the six-track  mini-LP 'Follow Me Down' as the lead singer of female four-piece Poppy & The Jezebels. Here is that record, Reveal Records REVEAL 19LP.

To say that this had influences beyond their years is not the half of it - many an artist would kill to write the song 'Gracelin'. The passage of time has, if anything at all, only made it slightly easier to classify. It certainly hasn't detracted from its worth.

Table Scraps keep the angular, feral sound. I like this.

Horse and I - a cover version

This has subverted what I was planning to write about this evening, but no matter. Two of my abiding themes are new artists and cover versions and this covers both bases admirably.
The song, Bat For Lashes' 'Horse and I', is from the 2006 album 'Fur and Gold'. It is only because of that album this this blog exists at all. This is an a capella version by London Contemporary Voices Choir and was only recently recorded live at St. John-at-Hackney church, East London.

New Music 2014 - Part 8

While my recent posts about live music have a very obvious UK (indeed English) folk bias, and the next live act that I'm going to see is Spiers and Boden, that is not the case with the ongoing posts on new music which, even if the artists are UK based, draws heavily on US traditions and that is certainly true of both the artists featured in this post.
Both are 2014 releases by US-based independent record labels and both are by female artists. These are not country, alt-or-otherwise, but neither are they country rock either. They are not an incomprehensible change but, ultimately, they are what they are. I like them, which matters more than anything, and that is why they are here.

Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire For No Witness - Jagjaguwar Records, 2014.

   

Slightly more challenging is this next, released by Bloodshot Records and an album perhaps inadequately described as 'country punk'. It is a demanding listen, no doubt about that, but it is well worth any effort that this involves.

Somewhere Else - Lydia Loveless - Bloodshot Records, 2014.
   

If you are left stranded, wondering what that might sound like...

  LYDIA LOVELESS - Learn to Say No from Kitchen Sessions on Vimeo.

New Music 2014 - Part 6 - Harriet Jones

Barely a week after I discovered one new act from Plymouth (WHOANOWS) as I was listening to Kathryn Tickell's show, on Amazing Radio this evening, along came this statement of intent from 20-year-old singer-songwriter Harriet Jones also from Plymouth.

The track Dealin' Man Blues is released as a single today and is as good a slice of soul-blues as I have heard in some time. It is remarkable for, amongst other things, the minimal accompaniment to her vocal and that works because it simply doesn't need more. Another one to watch in 2014 and I would love to see her play live.

If I were to meet her I should be very wary: If I am reminded by this of any one other song in particular then it is a cautionary tale, with a moral ending - 'The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest' and I'm not convinced that I would come out on the right side of this.
It may seem a curious comparison but it works for me. What she might conjure up next is anyone's guess but hers. I'm fascinated by the possibilities.

EOTR 2013 - its not just about the live music...

The main reason I go to festivals is almost certainly quite apparent; it is to listen to music live and also to take photographs of that. It is not the whole story however, and this issue was thrown into sharper context at EOTR when I was asked how (festivals aside) I came across new music to listen to...
The truth is that I hadn't really thought about that in the "business-like" sense that this question implied I might. That was something of a shock. My first thoughts were "it just happens" and then "much of it finds me", but neither is a satisfactory answer to the question, although to me it might appear to be that way.
Indeed this is the point when it occurred to me that this is exactly how I had seen it. The truer answer, in so far as I have thought it through, is this. Listen, talk to people (I'm good at talking - like I need to say that - but I can listen too) about everything and anything they have to say, remember stuff and the apparent links between them. Then just go explore...
This is no real answer either, if only because of its generality, but I'll attempt a little more detail in a forthcoming post.
The other thing is to watch not just the acts but their audiences and indeed the festival milieu in general. At festivals such as EOTR you have already selected yourself to be part of a somewhat like-minded subset of the population, even the festival-going population! By that last comment I'm thinking that the EOTR subset of festival goers would be rather different to that at, for example, Leeds/Reading and it would be interesting, at least to me, to know more about that kind of social phenomenon. I expect it either has been, or currently is, the topic of several Ph.D. theses or research papers.
I'll leave that to someone else, as it all sounds like hard work, but please feel free to send me links to any such research because I'd love to read someone else's thoughts.

Here instead are images from EOTR 2013 that don't actually include any artists performing but are of other aspects instead. There are five such images, presented in the the order that they were taken between Thursday evening and Saturday evening. The caption with each is just a snapshot on my thought at the time that I took it. That has reminded me of another issue - always take a pencil and paper - a combination that can survive wet conditions although this was not a necessity on this occasion.

'Home for the next few days'

'The shadow audience at the Garden Stage'

'Sunshine always makes things better'

'Waiting for Warpaint'

'Watching Joe Gideon and The Shark'

You can add your own thoughts too [all comments to this blog are moderated by me - so at the very least you know I have read them] and start a cloud-thesis...

New Music - Part 20 - And why EPs really matter...

This was originally started as a follow-up to my previous post about new (to me) music that I saw at Sunrise Festival 2013. On the other hand things change and, at least in the case of this blog, I have the absolute freedom to follow my whim: Yesterday I filed that half-written post in 'Drafts' and started over with this one instead.
It is still about new music and three acts/artists as was its predecessor. On the other hand the only one of these three that I have seen live is the first and all three have only released EPs thus far in their respective careers. The importance of the EP (digital or otherwise) is something that I mentioned at the end of last year when compiling my 'best of 2012' lists.
Most recently that was at Sunrise 2013 but, despite being the youngest, we have crossed paths on several previous occasions. This is Ned The Kids Dylan.

In the 'Groovy Movie' film tent at Sunrise 2013 on Saturday evening.
There is not a cover version to be heard here --- of Dylan or anybody else.
  

That said, and it says a great deal I think, here he is closing End of The Road 2012 (at 3:15 on Monday morning) with Brittany Howard (Alabama Shakes), and Hurray For The Riff Raff.

That is also true of the 'My Life EP', released in May 2013. If the quotes and comments in the link above seem rather surprising then all I can say is if you have a chat with Ned about music you will very likely find that you end up changing your mind! If you are still wondering what the fuss is about, and particularly if you are going to Glastonbury, then here you go:
http://www.virtualfestivals.com/latest/news/14019

Next up, and the longest established, is Oxford-based Swindlestock. I had never heard, or heard of, of them let alone seen them live until this week. It now looks good - live in Oxford and then live at Truck Festival 2013. They are in the throes of recording a new EP. This is the previous one - 'The Flood' - and it is a fine piece of cross-genre Anglo-Americana if ever there were one. (I just made that genre up, although I'm almost certainly not the first to do so.)

 A new EP is in the works. I wanna hear that live.

If you want a bit of 'The Flood' then here it is:

Free EPK from ReverbNation.com

So that brings us to the last of the three; North Somerset based Wolfhound. Now a trio with the addition of Anja Quinn in late 2012, sisters Sally and Natalie Joiner have been playing since 2010.
This is their début EP - 'Empty Lighthouse (2011). The second is imminent. Sometimes they also have a guest - a fourth player live - Bashema Hall on keys.

New Music - Part 19 - Sunrise Festival 2013 - Part 1

No. I haven't vanished; I have just been busy and, in part, that has involved working through the photographs, memories and musings of that which was Sunrise Festival 2013 last weekend.
I didn't think that I had taken photos prolifically. The reality proved to be slightly different - exactly four-hundred of them as it transpired! It is therefore time to dive in - to define what it was that made an impression and why.
I am, indeed still unsure of the subject of this one that I took on Saturday afternoon. Neville Staple, the other photographers, or merely just the fact that I could? I really can't say because I didn't think about it in that way at the time. 

More likely, I didn't really think about it at all and often that is the best way.

It probably hardly needs to be said that much of my time was focussed on the artists and acts less well known, though perhaps that is less obvious at a smaller festival such as Sunrise but I shall start with one that I have seen live and mentioned here before and one of several who stick resolutely to playing their own material.

Frome's Molly Ross - Spit & Sawdust stage - Friday.

This next is of an artist I first heard of, live, on the small Sunrise Stage at Latitude Festival 2009. To see that she was on the roster for Sunrise Festival 2013 was one of the things that made me get a ticket forthwith.

Tallulah Rendall, Main Stage Sunset 2013, Saturday afternoon.

The first time I saw her she was playing with a band - this time she was solo but that bass guitar is a clue. She played several songs from her forthcoming album 'The Banshee and The Moon', which involved live sampling of both guitars and vocals as loops that she then played and sang over. The multi-layered result was very special and the aforementioned album is on my wants-list already. It will be good any-which-way, I'm sure of that, but how about 180gm vinyl...

A band gloriously unpredictable and liable to appear in almost any situation was Calico Jack. They played live several times and also danced with the little kids at others...

Calico Jack live on the Spit and Sawdust stage, late Saturday evening. Here is a taste of that.
  
'Blue Shoes' is a track from the band's début CD Holdfast (2012).

While most pirates and privateers are usually assumed to hunt the oceans far and wide this bunch, although boat-dwelling, are pirates of the inland waterways and have the Kennet & Avon Canal as their home patch.

Free Music Player for Myspace at ReverbNation.com

New music and festivals - random thoughts...

Some excitement.
The first tranche of acts for Deer Shed Festival 4 has been announced and it looks very promising.
Stealing Sheep and Public Service Broadcasting are just two that have appeared in these pages before. On the other hand I have seen neither live! Also of great interest to me are Glasgow five-piece 'Kitty the Lion' and singer-songwriter 'Blue Rose Code'. Things are looking up - this is the kind of news that I like the best.

New Music 2013 - Part 4 - Funding For Something to Happen

We all know it. Music costs - illegal music costs us all more - but that aside making it is far more expensive than buying legal recorded music. There are various options, rarely ever open to new and aspiring artists until recently, to harness the enthusiasm of music fans to directly fund a project they want to reach realization. One such, that has recently rolled-out in the UK, is Kickstarter. I have previous experience with it in its US version and that was without issue (a US based project that was very successful).
As is all such speculative investment it is not without risk but there are upsides - the investment can be small (from £5 typically, but that may be proportional to the sum required for the project), a definitive end date for the appeal for funding and no penalty if the desired target is not reached. Funds are only taken and then released to the appellant upon successful attainment of the target - if it isn't reached you lose nothing.
OK I thought, when I heard Kickstarter was coming to the UK; I won't go looking. I'll wait and see what comes along and grabs my attention although it was never likely to be anything other than music...
This, though I didn't know it at the time, proved to be that appeal. About five weeks ago I attended the first North Dorset Folk Festival. It was a great day and one of many acts was Cloudi Lewis.

I have reviewed it briefly.
So why did I choose to support this? Well, quite simply that performance was wonderful. A band doing what they want to do and if that is the current vogue then that's all to the good. If it wasn't then, hell, they'd probably do it anyway. That, to be honest, is the attitude that the music industry needs even more of right now. I'm prepared to put a small sum of money behind that dream...

There are green shoots, as the old saying goes, but they still need feeding and encouragement to survive.

2011 - The return of the guitar band?

The fabled return of the guitar band...  it is something that has been trailed by many in the last year or so, and the lack of which was oft-bemoaned before that. Is 2011 the year in which it will happen?
Maybe is not an answer to a polar question, so I'm not going to use it. Some languages, English is not usually one of them (but Welsh usually is), have other ways of answering such questions...

Well there are plenty of guitar bands/artists vying for our ear-space in 2011 but wasn't that the case in 2010? Some of them have history, even true pedigree...
Beady Eye, Elbow, Miles Kane, The Strokes to name but a few... (and The View will try again too). Some of them will succeed, some will not, but that is nothing to mark 2011 as remarkable.  Some of the most notable guitar-led bands will be those that are either currently almost unknown or, at best in the wider scene, little known. That is more important.
I think it unlikely that there will be a sudden revolution in 2011. It will, however be an exciting year, again focussing on live music, and in that quiet but subversive way the revolution will continue. I admit it unlikely that 2012 will feature such scintillating tour dates as Coldplay in Havana or Cheryl Cole live in Pyongyang.
On the other hand, had you asked me in 1983 if I believed that my parents would ever go to Romania then my response would have been "only as the result of some catastrophic invasion".

There are signs that lead me to believe that, however good guitar bands may be, they are going to face a struggle in a world now complicated by cross-genre considerations.  Many of the best acts/artists of 2010 played/featured guitars but were not 'guitar bands' in the typical - I hate to say it - male-orientated tradition.
Warpaint, to mention just one such act, play guitars - a lot - but apparently that's different.

It isn't.

A Curious Thing - New Music 2010, part 5

I've been quiet for a while, that is true, but I've still been listening and reading. With three new albums by artists I've already mentioned in this respect released tomorrow it is time to move on.

Here are another few that are well and truly on my wants list and they are all by returning artists...

Few might actually recall her 2007 début, This Is the Life, because it was a slow burner but it finally reached #1 in the UK album charts a year after release, while then selling over 3 million copies worldwide (to date). I've heard a couple of the new tracks and 'A Curious Thing' would seem to be well worth the wait. Is it slightly 'rockier' than the first album? Yes, well maybe, but not in a radical way. I can't currently find the album artwork so this will have to do for now.

The same, given what I have heard and including the first single, can be said of the fifth album from Goldfrapp. In this case it would seem to be rather more electro-influenced than 'Seventh Tree' and none the worst for that. Alison's vocals are as good as ever they were but perhaps Will Gregory has twiddled a few more buttons than on their last recording. If summer 2010 sounds like these albums it will be one to remember. I should know the title of this album, due to be released in late Spring 2010, is but it has slipped my mind for the moment.

Jill Jackson is another artist who has promised a second album soon...

This image is from her myspace but what it relates to is only my guess.

Can I think of more? Well yes I can.

Canada again - New music 2010, part 4

It is almost a week since I last posted, which pains me somewhat, but then it takes time to listen and do the research. While it wasn't my intention to do a second post on new Canadian music straight after the last one a certain flexibility is a necessity.

This one will be more concerned with returning artists and the first is this and my impression is that is going to be a fine continuation of their form. Yes it is true that this is not music for the masses, rather that for those who want to have it with rather eerie cold-war-era lyrics...

Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, The Besnard Lakes, can be relied on to do just that.

This is once again something of a collaborative effort and I really doubt that the new album will disappoint. 'The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night' is released by Jagjaguwar records, on vinyl, CD and download, on 8 March 2010 and is well and truly on my wants list.

Since I wrote last Monday I have learned of a few more new releases from well established Canadian artists...
Arcade Fire are recording their third album, and it better be good, but I know of no title or release date for that. Stars are recording an album, which they say will be released in the summer and Broken Social Scene are also planning a return, complete with a new album, in 2010.

Most remarkable of all is that, after eighteen years and more line-up changes than Sugababes, Martha & The Muffins return in 2010 with a new studio album and perhaps now the time is right.

New music 2010 - a Canadian wants list

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that 2009 new releases had all but ended, which was true, but that was not to say that I had become aware of anywhere near all I should like to have done, let alone hear them. I did also say that I still had a long 'pending list' from 2009...

This is an attempt to deal with a few of them and, because it has proven a treasure trove of new music over the last five or so years during which I have been paying attention, one country has never failed to amaze me. I have thus chosen to start with some Canadian music that I really want to hear...

I mentioned If The Fun and Laughter - Land of Talk (2009) (CD EP) in the side-bar yesterday and it is good indeed. Land of Talk is however not a band new to me. These pretty much all are and, in most cases, I know little except what I have read or otherwise been told.

Years (One Thousand Fingertips) - Attack In Black (2009)

These albums might not be so well known in the UK, and might be a little harder to track down than some, but I'm pretty certain that is going to be worth the effort. Here's another one...

This one shouldn't be too hard to find and it is also available on vinyl.

On a 2010 release promise I can't help but want to hear the 'Kite Hill' début release. Two of the most influential Canadian bands that I heard live in 2009 were Ohbijou and The Acorn, both part of the Toronto music scene, and this project involves members of both.

Spirit Guides - Evening Hymns, which you can get from amazon.ca, is another amongst many and there are indubitably dozens more of which I am sadly unaware...

If you would like to add any corrections, comments or additions please just feel free to do so.