Festivals... Truck Festival 2018 and other things.

Two three-day festivals down and still three to go!
One of the great things about festivals is the expectation of seeing favourite artists once again. The other, perhaps more exciting still, is those complete surprises; the ones that blindside you and here is one such from last weekend.
Most festivals of any size run a competition for new artists with the prize(s) being a performance slot. Truck Festival is no exception. Once in a while this can be disappointing. This was most certainly not one of those occasions. Almost all original material and always beautifully done.

Charlotte Hackett, Market stage, Truck Festival, 21 July 2018.

This was not to be the first nor the last of such welcome surprises. There has been a big discussion in the media about the relative lack of female artists at UK festivals, especially in headline roles the last year or two. It is a valid point I think and Truck Festival isn't at all good on that count.
On the other hand it is often not the headline acts that make me want to go to a festival anyway. On that premise then Truck Festival actually hosted several very good acts that were either all-female or female-fronted. Given that writing about it seems a pretty obvious thing to do despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that I am male.

Truck has a bit of history when it comes to all female grunge/garage rock as I recall. Here is another manifestation of that.

London-based trio Hey Charlie. Market stage, Truck Festival, 22 July 2018.

Originally formed as an art college project in Brighton in 2014, Dream Wife took wing and perhaps surprisingly it is the only one of these three acts to have yet released a (self-titled)  LP 'Dream Wife' early in 2018, which arguably just goes to show just what new talent is on offer here.

Market stage, Truck Festival, 21 July 2018.

Originally from Iceland, Rakel Mjöll on lead vocals.

New Music 2018 - Part 19 - I'm All Ears - Let's Eat Grandma

I have taken a month off blogging but that certainly doesn't mean that I haven't been listening; be that recorded or live. I spent a wonderful three days at a brand new folk festival last weekend too. There will be plenty about that here sooner rather than later.

To ease back into writing this seemed an obvious start. It isn't folky at all. It is precipitated by the release of the second full-length album by a band that I saw live last summer.

I'm All Ears - Let's Eat Grandma (Transgressive Records, 29 June 2018).

The twisted pop and psychedelic leanings of their début LP 'I, Gemini' were quite something. It is worth noting that Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth are not twins, indeed they are not even siblings. Both from Norwich they met at the start of primary school education. It was certainly a very adept album release, or at least I thought so. Then I saw Let's Eat Grandma live. That is the point at which I realised this was something very special.

Let's Eat Grandma, Big Top stage, End Of The Road Festival, 2 September 2017.

Difficult second album syndrome? My inclination is that this is every bit the equal of their first and, if anything, even more surprising. They do eclecticism and see no reason to apologize for that. This album covers a lot of ground in its eleven tracks and 51 minutes. It is all the more likeable for that.

Let's Eat Grandma - I'm All Ears:

• Whitewater
• Hot Pink
• It's Not Just Me
• Falling Into Me
• Snakes & Ladders
• Missed Call (1)
• I Will Be Waiting
• The Cat's Pyjamas
• Cool & Collected
• Ava
• Donnie Darko

It is also not the only album that I have that includes a song 'Cat's Pyjamas'; there is another quite different one of that name on the 2003 album 'Amorino' by Isobel Campbell! It is another beautifully off-kilter LP that is worth your attention, as it happens. It is here.

New Music 2018 - Part 12 - The Orielles - Silver Dollar Moment

As I have started listening to bands on the increasing wave of acts that I do not know much about and announced for festivals that I am attending in 2018, of which more later, it has caused me to reflect on some that I became acquainted with last summer. One thing that comes to mind here is that, despite all claims to the contrary, indie guitar rock is not dead and neither does it consist only of bands that made their reputations "back in the day", whenever that was.
There seem to be plenty of young bands willing and able to seek out nooks and crannies of the genre that they feel deserving of some attention.  This is the début LP from one of them that I saw at Green Man Festival 2017.

The Orielles - Silver Dollar Moment (Heavenly Recordings, 16 February 2018).

A three-piece from Halifax, Yorkshire the band consists of sisters Esmé D Hand-Halford (lead vocals, bass), Sidonie B Hand-Halford (percussion) and Henry Carlyle Wade (guitar, vocals) and on one level the songs are mirrored by the album artwork: fascinating but difficult to define exactly what it is or what it means. The band cites cinema, and Tarantino in particular, as an influence and that might have a bearing on all this.
What I will say is that although I am no aficionado of cinema I find this album fascinating. Not only do I like it but it works for me either as something to concentrate on to the exclusion of almost everything else but it also works as background music too. Indeed I have been doing both while thinking about, composing and then writing this post. I wonder if the band had and eye on and ear to the possibility that their music might attract cinematic attention. It would certainly be a good commercial move if it were to come off.

Their set at Green Man Festival 2017 was unenviable in one way - the band opened the lovely Walled Garden stage at mid-day Saturday. Opening a stage is never easy after the night before, even if that only applies to the audience, and inevitable nerves. The band showed no sign of the latter and the audience was significant and appreciative; however I found the atmosphere harder to catch on camera!

The Orielles - Walled Garden stage, Green Man Festival, 19 August 2017.

I won't single-out any tracks from the LP but I will mention their first single, which is not on the album, because the eight-minutes-plus of 'Sugar Tastes Like Salt' had already done more than enough to pique my interest and ensure that I was going to be there to discover more. The fact that it was released on Heavenly Recordings helped too; I have rediscovered the concept of "trusted" labels and this is one of them.

Here it is:

The Orielles are confirmed to play End Of The Road Festival 2018.

New Music 2017 - Part 29 - Calico the Band - Under Blue Skies

I spend a considerable amount of time trying to keep up with new music but, be that as it may, one of the greatest delights is to stumble upon something quite unexpected.
Exactly this happened yesterday evening and just how it came about eludes me now. I was feeling somewhat 1970s-nostalgic. I could have listened to all sorts of things. Stevie Nicks, CSNY and even Simon & Garfunkel came to mind, but for some reason I decided to try to find something new, at least to me, that fitted the required specification. By luck or judgement I happened upon a review of this LP. It sounded promising so I listened and it was just what I needed.

Under Blue Skies - Calico The Band (California Country Records, 15 September 2017).

Of course you can hear their influences beyond those mentioned already:  Joni Mitchell, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles and also their predecessors including The Beatles as well as others less well known.  That is not even to mention a cover of John and Michelle Phillips' co-written California Dreamin'. It is one of those songs, and they are numerous, that is recognized by most but the origin of which is known by few. 
With three female vocalists Calico the Band doesn't really sound like any of them. Nor does it sound anything like bands from Texas with the same format but coming from quite different musical bases. The themes are often similar but the treatment very different.
This means that there is a significant population that will hate it and everything it represents. I accept that to be so, but I am not of that mind.

This is indeed the band's second album. In the spirit of research I thought that I should also investigate their first LP too. Why not?

Rancho California - Calico The Band (2 September 2014, California Country Records).

I like it just as much, so that's a win-win situation.  Another way to describe it that came to mind as if in a dream is to imagine that The Pistol Annies came into a bit of money and headed west in search of the dream.

This is the song 'Runaway Cowgirl' from the album 'Rancho California'.

And this is 'The 405' from the LP 'Under Blue Skies'.

New Music 2017 - Part 14 - Holly Henderson - Opium Drip EP

So this is another 2016 release that I missed. No surprise there I suppose, but what a fail this was. 
Holly Henderson has history as a guitarist known as 'Kitty Vacant' in all-female punk group 'The Sex Pissed Dolls'. I realise that this isn't getting me off to a promising start when it comes to enthusiasm for the artist, who hails from Maidstone, Kent. In terms local to here Maidstone evinces the same kind of sympathetic condescension as Trowbridge. Both are very forgettable county towns.

She decided to break away from the outright noise [although she now also plays with Los Angeles-based multinational hard rock outfit DORJA --- about which I shall mention more very soon] to record solo stuff that shows that she is a sensitive guitar player and also a fine songwriter too. The result is this, which she regards as an EP but at seven tracks and almost 33½ minutes in length is at least a mini-album. She is entirely responsible for the cover artwork too.

Holly Henderson - Opium Drip EP (self-released, 30 August 2016).

This is the playlist:

• Breakdown
• Life Has a Bug (I Fell Ill)
• Side Streets
• Your Hands
• Cold Cold Heart
• Opium Drip
• The Game

A full LP is to follow soon and apparently the only track from the EP to appear on it will be the song 'Opium Drip'. If it is as good as the EP then it will be quite something.

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.

New Music 2016 - Part 45 - Lady Nade - Hard To Forget

When you are at a little gig and you hear something that seems too important to ignore...  I am glad to say I have been in that situation plenty of times. Some of those artists are now well known, some are not. There seems to be little rhyme or reason concerning which fall into one category or the other.

Any which way, this is one such; Bristol artist Nadine Gingell whom I first saw play live here in Frome, Somerset way back in 2011. This is her first full length release.

Lady Nade - Hard To Forget (Kitchen Sink Records/Lady Nade, 12 August 2016).

• Hard to Forget
• Waiting for You
• Mind's Made Up
• Those Late Nights
• Don't Make Him Wait
• I Got You Daddy
• Complicated
• Kiss This Troubled Mind
• 6AM
• Get You on My Own

The genre floats effortlessly between acoustic soul, pop and folk and that's not remotely a problem. The lyrics raise the bar and then the voice that sings them nails it.
That's what made me take notice back then. In that sense alone the title of the album is absolutely spot-on too.

Mind's Made Up

A meander through music...

This isn't quite the virtual road or rail trip through music that I have been mentioning in my plans for some while, though I expect I'll come to that sooner rather than later. It's just a spur-of-the-moment thing and I don't really know where I'm headed. Its genesis was last week when I had been listening to lots of stuff that is new to me and, every so often, something quite unexpected ended up in my path.
It really started just fifteen minutes walk from home with live music at the Grain Bar Roots Sessions in my home town of Frome, played by an acoustic trio from down the road in Devon. This is folk (of the English variety) but not quite just that. Amongst the summer rain, so typical of England, touches of blues and even jazz seep in through the cracks whilst the stories told are relevant to those in almost any place or time. That trio is Velvet & Stone and they were touring their six-song début release.

The Storm - Velvet & Stone (self released, 8 December 2015).

Not a weak track on this and how this band has passed under my radar completely requires an investigation. These are not traditional songs but new songs that embody traditional themes and the distinction is a rather important one.

The next is certainly the result of a improbable set of coincidences. It all started with a local (but not particularly so to me) community radio show called FNARW (Folk is Not A Rude Word) that is primarily broadcast on Hailsham FM (Sussex, England) but is also available (almost) worldwide on Mixcloud here. Chris Giles, the presenter, cited his awareness of this duo as a result of 'networking'. I'm going to continue that theme...
He introduced me to this next act and played a couple of tracks from it yesterday. I couldn't wait to find out more. This one is a collection of folk songs revisited and reinterpreted:

Wolf Hunter - The Creek Rocks (self released, 2016).

The Creek Rocks is husband and wife team Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu both from the territory covered by the Ozark Mountains (they are similar in altitude to the "mountains" in the UK so not Rocky mountains or Alps style) but cover extensive tracts of southern Missouri and north central and north western parts of Arkansas. Wolf Hunter is their first truly collaborative work although both have released music before.
It is released on vinyl, CD and d/l but finding the physical versions in the UK is a slight issue at the moment. I rather like the idea of buying the vinyl for myself as a birthday present, even if it has to ship from the US. The album certainly deserves a listen and you can listen to five tracks from it here.

Last but not least is this news from today, about new music from an artist possibly better known on both sides of the Atlantic than either of the aforementioned. This is the follow up to 2014 self-titled début Arc Iris.

Moon Saloon - Arc Iris (19 August, Bella Union in the EU and possibly also the UK too).

The first track released from the second LP from Jocie Adams and her cohort is Kaleidoscope. I'm guessing that the title might serve as a good guide to the rest of the offering.

Arc Iris, The Garden Stage, End Of The Road Festival, 6 September 2014.

New Music 2016 - Part 28 - I Am Snow Angel - Fever

I haven't written much about electronic music for a while. This is in part because warm weather seems to prompt me to listen to it and at the moment winter is digging-in its heels for a final show of strength. Spring, and all thoughts of Summer, are therefore on hold. This kind of situation might change dramatically in a matter of days however - I believe in this - and that brings me to this artist whose moniker might ordinarily suggest a winter-time appeal.

I Am Snow Angel is a New York-based electronic pop performer, producer and visual artist and this is the latest release.

Fever - I Am Snow Angel (self-released, 2016).

There is plenty more by I Am Snow Angel out there to find, including the 2014 digital LP 'Crocodile', and there is more to come quite soon. I think that the thing that really caught my ear is that this is not strident electronica; it is pastoral rather than urban, wistful but still restive, and I'm keen to find more that is somewhat like it.
If I want or need to find urban or revolutionary music then I know that there is plenty of that available too.

New music, Canada and forthcoming festivals...

Only yesterday I was thinking that I hadn't written about new Welsh music for sometime and so I did something about that. I used to write about music from Canada rather often too, indeed it was Arcade Fire that were in large part responsible for my conversion to festival-going, and therefore Latitude Festival, back in 2007.

Here are two Canadian acts that I have never seen live before but are appearing at festivals to which I'm going this coming summer. One thing I am confident about is that nobody could claim that both fall into a single genre. Both have new records to bring to the party, however.

Basia Bulat - Good Advice (Secret City Records, 12 February 2016).

This release is rather more pop-oriented than her earlier acoustic and folk-oriented material that regularly featured hammered dulcimer and autoharp. She is playing End Of The Road Festival, Dorset, UK, and hopefully we will get the best of both worlds.

The Besnard Lakes - A Coliseum Complex Museum (Jagjaguwar Records, 22 January 2016).

The Besnard Lakes is, more or less, the project of  husband-and-wife team Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas. One thing that that they do very well is psych-rock. I have all the earlier LPs too but this is the latest and in any case my liking for this is hardly breaking news. One accusation levelled against the band is that it sticks to the theme too much...  another is that the album is too short; earlier ones were criticised for being too long.
You just can't win!
Any which way, The Besnard Lakes play Green Man Festival 2016.  See what you think. See you there?

New Music 2015 - Part 74 - Cattle & Cane - Home

Here is a thing. Cattle & Cane is another band including siblings that I have chosen to mention. Four of the five band members in this case: Joseph, Helen, Fran and Vin Hammill and Tom Chapman on drums.

I can almost hear the ghostly whisperings now and, just like the lone Wichita lineman, there is with a little luck some method in my seeming madness. This is their first album.

It is, if I may use a dirty word, pop. It is not however pop in the sense that those who deny, based on much modern "pop", that the genre should never have existed at all. Cattle & Cane is certainly no one-trick pony. The nearest that I can bring myself to say is that this is Anglo-American pop of the highest order. It is already released by Quiet Crown Recordings.


This is track 7 from it: Sold My Soul. The other thing I should say is that I really like this whole album; more so with each and every listen and there have been quite a few now.

New Music 2015 - Part 61 - The Mynabirds - Lovers Know

If you are wondering what has happened to my commentary on Cambridge Folk Festival last weekend, fear not. It takes time to sort through the photographs (500+), thoughts and all the related links. In any case I need a change - I'm all folked-out just at the moment.

It is time for something new, the sort of listening that sits well with the chilled end of a BBQ party when everyone left is just hanging and chatting over another glass of whatever takes their fancy. This - Lovers Know from The Mynabirds - is one such LP.

It was released in the UK today by Saddle Creek Records.

I'm not saying for a moment that it is world changing in some way; that indeed is part of the charm of it. Neither is it inane but it is certainly summery in an indefinable way. It is fronted by principal singer, songwriter, and also keyboard player, Laura Burhenn. The rest of the band is just what is needed - nothing more, nothing less.
To sum it up, possibly rather brutally, this is what Lana Del Rey might sound like if she were less in thrall to the melodramatic lifestyle that she portrays in her songs. The Mynabirds' 'Lovers Know' is far from alternately euphoric then miserable; more knowingly resigned contentment. It is certainly none the worse for that.

If you want me to review one truly despondent LP just let me know. Today I discovered an Americana album, one of the best I have heard so far this year. In fact it makes most others look at worst very depressing.
It is that good.

Why Sweden really matters...

Sweden won Eurovision Song Contest 2015 - they have Måns Zelmerlöw and 'Heroes' to thank for that and for seeing off the strong competition from Russia;  Polina Gargarina and 'A Million Voices'. Sweden, even more so than the rest of Scandinavia, is astonishingly good at producing writers, artists and producers of pop - and indeed Eurovision success. The UK on the other hand is not, at least in recent Eurovision terms, but is very good indeed at exporting music more generally.
Sweden has given us in recent years the alt-country sounds of First Aid Kit, with which the Söderberg sisters have made themselves a fixture on both sides of the Atlantic.

That their songs sometimes, indeed rather often, have a melancholic bent leads nicely on to this...  If Sweden did snarly, gloomy --- a garage kind of sound --- but still with two female artists at the helm, what might that sound like?

Much like this...

 

Pale Honey is the work of Tuva Lodmark (vocals and guitar) and Nelly Daltrey (drums) from Göteborg. Their music has divided opinion - some say it is one dimensional - and that is an accusation often aimed at guitar/drum duos. Another is that it is melancholy (see above). Well it often is a bit that way, I suppose, but is that a fault? I'd say not - it has made my day better to be honest - and that is why I'm writing this. I'd wager that, seen live, Pale Honey would be astonishing.

New Music 2015 - Part 38 - Joanna Gruesome - Peanut Butter

More new music from Wales but that is just about where the comparisons with my last post end.
This music is not sung in Welsh and the nearest it gets to a harp is that the band's name is a parody of that of Californian alt-folk harpist Joanna Newsome; indeed one of the latter artist's songs could easily be as long as the whole ten-track LP 'Peanut Butter'.  Only one track on it reaches the three-minute mark.

The party-line, almost certainly an urban myth, is that the five-piece met as students in Cardiff at an anger-management meeting. Its truthfulness doesn't matter  - it something you want to believe and the music lends credence.
It also shows the remarkable diversity in music coming from Wales - and Joanna Gruesome won the 2014 Welsh Music Prize on the basis of début LP 'Twisted Sister'.
The most obvious comparison here, as it is also Cardiff based, is Los Campesinos. I would like to remind you of this, which I mentioned here way back in 2007. I believe that Laura Bryon is still active in the music of South Wales.

It also puts me much in mind of the C86 ethic adopted-and-adapted, from about 2004, by the late, lamented south-coast based Help She Can't Swim. They both share a tendency to music in short-message format - it may not be original, but hell it is fun.
This is the playlist for 'Peanut Butter':

1. Last Year 2:52
2. Jamie (Luvver) 1:41
3. Honestly Do Yr Worst 1:51
4. There Is No Function Stacy 1:58
5. Crayon 3:10
6. I Don't Wanna Relax 2:15
7. Jerome (Liar) 1:39
8. Separate Bedrooms 1:59
9. Psykick Espionage     2:08
10. Hey! I Wanna Be Yr Best Friend   2:01

It is already released on LP, CD and d/l on Fortuna POP! (UK), Slumberland (N. America).

Some bands take years agonising over a sprawling second LP. It has taken barely a year for this 22 minutes of condensed madness to arrive.
 'Last Year' is the introductory, and the second longest, track on the album.

New Music 2015 - Part 37 - Gwenno - Y Dydd Olaf

In the recent times of political and even cultural uncertainty in the UK this album just became an obvious choice for what, to me at least, is a difficult post to write. One thing I pride myself on is a willingness to tackle cross-genre music including that in other languages and this is certainly no exception.
I did a quick survey of my collection yesterday evening and just now: most of my music is unsurprisingly in English. Spanish language albums are in third place. In between those and by some margin...

Gwenno - Y Dydd Olaf was released, in a very limited edition, by Peski Records late last year.

It gets a very much deserved full release - vinyl, CD & d/l - by Heavenly Records on 24 July 2015.

Although - aside from a single track (sung in Cornish) - it is all sung in Welsh that is not to say that, lovely though that might be, it is full of plaintive harp and lilting tradition. The title comes from Owain Owain's 1976 novel that depicts an overbearing dystopia controlled by distant, often malign, robots.

Musically it is gently electronic kraut-pop, or at least that's the best description I can muster at this moment. This is the track-list:

1. Chwyldro 5:18 
2. Patriarchaeth 3:29
3. Calon Peiriant 5:08
4. Sisial Y Môr 5:41
5. Dawns Y Blaned Dirion 1:30
6. Golau Arall 3:31
7. Stwff 4:59
8. Y Dydd Olaf 4:15
9. Amser 4:45

It is a political concept album. It won't appeal to all, I fully understand that, but it is a curiously soothing kind of revolution even if you don't actually understand a word of it.

This is the opening track 'Chwyldro' ('revolution', but also 'rotation' and 'orbit' - generally, that which goes around).

GWENNO - Chwyldro (2014) from Peski TV on Vimeo.

As we often share a similar taste in music, and there's nothing wrong with that at all, I'd be very interested to see what De krenten uit de pop makes of this LP and not least because music in a language other than their own is their normal diet.

New Music 2015 - Part 14 - Golden Fable & Purity Ring

My only New Year resolution at the start of 2014 was to listen to more music that was new, or at least new to me, on a sustained basis. I think that it is one that I not only kept but comfortably exceeded on a week-by-week basis and without counting festivals. My intention for 2015 was to keep up the momentum and, as I mentioned recently, my January hibernation has had nothing but a beneficial effect on that. I have also been listening to a lot of stuff, old and new, that I had never really got around to before. This includes a great deal of a capella and other close-harmony music, both traditional and modern-traditional. This post has nothing to do with that at all.

It has to do with two releases, one recent and the other soon to happen, that echo in some way the idea of the coming of Spring. I can tell you that I and seemingly most others are anticipating its arrival with fervour. Both releases are LPs by a male-female duo and both are dreamily electronic pop. They are also both the second full-length from the respective artists. Logic dictates that I start with the one already released at least in the UK (Full Of Joy Records, November 2014).

Golden Fable - Ancient Blue is the follow-up to 2012 début Star Map (mentioned here).

The second LP in this post is released by 4AD on March 2, 2015 in the UK (March 3 2015 in North America).

 'Another Eternity' is the second release by Canadian duo Purity Ring.

The first track to be released from it is 'push pull' and most tracks on the album have names that are less unfathomable than those on 2012 LP Shrines, which I have on vinyl, but still hardly the kind of thing you are likely to find yourself singing along to in the car. That said the above song has been play-listed by BBC Radio1; I almost lost concentration when I heard it whilst driving home from work one day. Here is track 6 - 'begin again'.

While I'm at it, this is the playlist for the LP (capitalized exactly as it isn't):

• heartsigh
• bodyache
• push pull
• repetition
• stranger than earth
• begin again
• dust hymn
• flood on the floor
• seacastle
• stillness in woe

Just to say, that link below the Golden Fable cover also concerns another band - Stealing Sheep. It has a new album, and again its second, in the offing too. It will rate a post all of its own.

New Music - 2015 - Part 7 - Ruby the RabbitFoot - New As Dew

I'll come clean here - this is actually a 2014 release - but I doubt that many in the UK are aware of the artist who calls herself Ruby The RabbitFoot. She hails from Athens, Georgia.

To some extent one of its greatest virtues is that it isn't challenging, but that can be a good thing in multiple ways. It is acoustic pop, more or less, and there is little country influence either. It certainly isn't all cheerful. This I expect was quite deliberate and, while that was a dangerous hand to play in 2014, I think it worked out for the best here.
It is the music equivalent of comfort food of the best kind (macaroni cheese and fish fingers with ketchup, possibly) and spending the evening wrapped up in a duvet in front of the fire. I'm planning to test this theory, believe me; especially if this coming weekend turns cold, as it is predicted it might.
New As Dew hints at the forthcoming spring and I can't wait for that. It is released by Normaltown Records and the LP is available on vinyl. I'm now curious to listen to the other artists on the label. If you don't actively go looking for new music then you don't find much at all.
It is not the kind of album from which I'm likely to choose stand-out tracks, even when I have listened to it more often, but that is no bad thing either. 

New Music 2014 - Part 15 - Candy Says - Not Kings

Candy Says is the band that opened proceedings at Truck Festival 2013. Regular readers will already know the importance that I attach to seeing support acts and, in particular, festival openers. Here is Candy Says at Truck Festival last July:

Ten months down the line the début album 'Not Kings' is ready for release and, for lovers of pop-chic, here is a selection from it:

'Not Kings' is released on 28 May 2014 and is available in almost any format you could desire, including both vinyl and limited edition cassette tape. 

Anyone for a little West Coast pop?

This will not be to everyone's taste. I know that but if you fancy an early summer dose of West Coast pop, and obviously I do and that is why I am mentioning it, how about this from Seattle-based Seapony?

It won't change the world - it doesn't need to.

New Music 2012 - Part 27 - Melody's Echo Chamber

Continuing the theme of the last post this is another 2012 début album that I have only very recently found out about. Melody's Echo Chamber is the nom de plume of Paris-based Melody Prochet, who is the principal singer, songwriter and instrumentalist behind this confection that was released in November. (Weird World Records - vinyl, CD and d/l).
  
I have several previous convictions for mentioning French artists that some might consider left-field, champ-gauche, perhaps? I have not actually done so for a while but this is another and with good reason I believe.

A few of the eleven tracks on the LP are sung in French, the remainder in English. The exception being 'isthatwhatyousaid', which despite its title is without lyric whatsoever.  Her conspirator in this duo, as both artist and producer, is Australian Kevin Parker who is probably better known as the driving force behind the band 'Tame Impala'.