Thinking about Thoughts on Music

Before thinking about today's big news, and the start of Glastonbury 2009, I'd already been thinking about the wider aspects of performance music thanks to two items that very recently came my way.
The first may seem almost inconsequential as it was just a flyer in an album I received...

You can probably see why this appealed to me - and what a great way of making buying physical music more appealing - though I had just bought this, Iamsound IAM024, and imported it from the US anyway unaware of this bonus. The album is Dance Mother - Telepathe on 12" vinyl and the best thing, apart from the fact it is available on vinyl at all, is that doing so is not prohibitively expensive.

I am also reading a book that is proving much more fascinating than I expected it would be. It is a question that lies behind all music, recorded music and live performance, although it is predominantly concerned with the former.
What do we mean when we say "That sounds really good." and why?

If anything that is only an easy question: Is it possible to find answers, or even gauge trends, in a topic so obviously fraught with individual tastes and tolerances?

How do I know if the CD I am listening to now even sounds the same to you as it does to me, regardless of whether it is to your liking or not? It could have been a book of untold ennui but, as I got a free copy to review, I decided to take the risk.
I have only read about half of it so far - at nearly four hundred pages it is no light-weight matter - and the further I get the harder it is to put down. It is factual and sometimes analytical but only because the topic requires it to be thus at times; at others it is reminiscent of a detective novel in search of those responsible for the way in which the story unfolded and what the influences and motives were, or in some cases, might have been.
I am finding it enlightening and simply fascinating. It is certainly not necessary to read it to enjoy recorded music but will it increase my enjoyment of recorded music?
My answer is that it is probably too early to tell really but it is unlikely to do any harm. It is already making me think about the whole process in a different light.

You can find many blogs that discuss the merit of Dave Sitek's production duties on various albums of late, and one of those is that by Telepathe that I mention above (and helpfully I've recently seen them play live, for comparison). Reading the book and listening to this and (other) albums might inspire some to write a PhD thesis. Count me out, I'm too old for that kind of thing now, but tell me about it and I'll gladly read yours.

Do you recall the day the music died?

Today has been one in which news has been dominated by an event directly related to music. When I heard the news of the sudden death of Michael Jackson this morning two things suddenly sprung in to my mind:
The first was the (pre-digital age) response to the assassination of John Lennon but the soundtrack to it wasn't Lennon at all - it was Don Mclean's 'American Pie'. I have no doubt that in the digital world of downloads this week's charts will be full of Jackson's songs and indeed, if that were not true it would be surprising.
While Don Mclean has been careful never to unequivocally confirm or deny that the song was, at least in part, inspired by hearing of the death of Buddy Holly (in the year after Jackson's birth) and the complex and largely unfathomable lyric seems fitting to Jackson, who as much as he was a pioneer of new musical format as spectacularly demonstrated by the video to 'Billie Jean' amongst others, has remained a staple of gossip and speculation concerning his lifestyle and behaviour. Not without reason did the UK tabloid press coin the phrase "Wacko Jacko" at least two decades ago.

In addition there are some hundreds of thousands of ticket-holders for a massive series of come-back gigs at the O2 arena in London and for them in particular this couplet might sum up the current situation pretty accurately:

I knew that I was out of luck
The day the music died.

Now The Green Blade Rises - a lyric hymnal

Note added 25 June 2009:

10:30pm on THURSDAY 16 July, according to the Smoke Fairies' latest e-mail update. Live music on the Thursday evening hasn't been a feature of Latitude as I remember but is certainly a welcome development.

Note added 19 June 2009:

Smoke Fairies has just been added to the bill at Latitude 2009 on the "Film and Music Arena" - see here for current programme - but the day and time are not currently specified. While not a headline act this is certainly something I don't want to miss...

Note added 18 June 2009:

I've just listened to the recorded lyric (several times) while now able to compare it with the (supposéd original) one below. There are some minor differences and I'll post what I think are the actual song lyrics tomorrow.

Richard

I'm sorry about the delay in posting lyric for The Smoke Fairies download single but here it is, or at least that for 'Now The Green Blade Rises' as it appears in the Ox­ford Book of Car­ols, 1928.

Now The Green Blade Rises

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.
In the grave they laid Him, Love Whom we had slain,
Thinking that He’d never wake to life again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.
Up He sprang at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain;
Up from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.
When our hearts are saddened, grieving or in pain,
By Your touch You call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

I didn't imagine when I started this blog, and even though I subsequently realised that lyrics were not simply a curiosity of mine, that I would ever be asked about ones such as these or, for that matter, still be enjoying the challenge even more almost 350 posts later. I now wish I could add more sooner...
For the original post about this song:

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/06/now-green-blade-rises.html

Alright Dynamite - Music I Want in 2009, Part 8

Ooh, just listen!
The Canadian multi-tasking, collective-inspired, ethic is still alive and well I am delighted to report.

A member of Canadian band 'The Paperboys' and also part of the collective 'Outlaw Social' - she plays with both - this is Kendel Carson's second solo album and, as well as being a redoubtable fiddle and violin player, she is a fine vocalist too.

I mentioned Amy Millan's alt-country début solo album 'Honey From The Tombs' (2006) a long time ago and so I now can't wait to hear this too. Nor can I deny my curiosity about Millan's second solo album, currently being recorded I believe. Both of Carson's were largely written and produced by Chip Taylor, with input by Carrie Rodriguez, and that is hardly likely to be a bad thing. The first was this album and I want it too.

Rearview Mirror Tears (2007)

Spoiled for choice... a new dilemma.

Whatever things might be wrong in my world finding, or simply being notified of, new music isn't usually one of them. In one sense it is almost becoming a problem of its own - what to do about it all - but then that is a positive as music is, at least in part, an escape from reality so to be confronted with a different problem is a change if not a rest.

To illustrate that point here are two items. Firstly UK act Blackbud, local to this part of England as it happens, about which I was asked today (by someone in the US) and the second that I was told about today (a US act as it happens) that I had never heard of before and quite fortunately they are not directly comparable.

Released in 2006 this really should be better known. To say that it is traditional rock is something of an injustice and not least because every track on it is an original composition. That would not matter if it were no good but in fact some songs are so surprising that it merely begs the question "why were they not written before?" It is rock, laid back rock, yes, but certainly not asleep. The illustration is actually that of the 12" LP release (ISOM62LP - Independiente Records, 2006).

On the other hand I learned about this today and it is released in the US tomorrow!

The Low Anthem - Oh My God, Charlie Darwin

The multi-instrumentalist threesome (Ben Knox Miller, Jeff Prystowsky and Jocie Adams) are from Providence, RI and went as far from civilisation as is possible in Rhode Island to record this acoustic album in winter. I gather that, and the data is plentiful, it is a masterwork of modern acoustica. It is available from the US on vinyl and so, as an indulgence, it is my birthday present to myself.

It won't be the end of the problems though...

...it is hard enough to keep in touch with UK new releases and this is one that isn't.
Little known over here it is, however, amazingly good.

Innovate never imitate - Music I Want in 2009, Part 7

In a year that electro-pop is back in favour in a big way here is a timely reminder of one of the most consistent and hard-working bands that has been tirelessly trying to raise the status of such music for six years now. They DJ in the UK and abroad, they run club nights, even their own club, and if that were not enough Command is their fourth album as a band and I have already mentioned their third album, Heartland, when it was released in 2007.

The defining streaks are command and control: almost military anonymity [band members are still officially Clients A, B & E] and the musical integrity remains untouched. If the agents at Station X had run riot, in the spare time that they didn't have, and used the machines to make music it would probably have sounded like this far earlier than it did.
I've got to get this - hence the post - as Heartland was in My Charts of 2007 and I can't understand why they are not better known already. It is of course released on the label Out of Line, which is their own, and also this...

Maybe they could run the country too.

Now The Green Blade Rises.

You hadn't forgotten about The Smoke Fairies and the amazing 2008 single 'Living With Ghosts' had you? Well, even if you had you are forgiven as the Frozen Heart EP is out on June 29.

In the meantime they are back with the track 'Now The Green Blade Rises' which, if you are quick, you can have legally and free on <.mp3> and it is a perfect slice of made-for-summer languorous folk.

It is traditional, up to a point. The melody is French - it dates from the 15th century - and still one that accompanies the carol Noël Nou­ve­let although this arrangement of it owes much to that of Martin Fallas Shaw (1875 - 1958). The English lyric was written by John Macleod Campbell Crum (1872 - 1958) who started his career as as­sist­ant cur­ate at St. John the Evan­gel­ist, Dar­ling­ton (1897 - 1901) and ended it as Ca­non of Can­ter­bu­ry (1928 - 43).

Not quite the everyday history of a 2009 cover version!

For the traditional, and largely unchanged, lyric see http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/06/lyrics-again-now-green-blade-rises.html

Thoughts on 2009 music.

Well, after my musings yesterday, I've had some more thoughts. To choose one release in each month of 2009 isn't really representative, so I have decided not to do that, and June is young yet so I'm not worrying about it either, but in time it does not look like being an issue.

I can think of three obvious contenders already but about the fourth and fifth I can't decide but I have determined that the order in which they appear will be random and I'll do it the old fashioned way - with a numbered list of albums and corresponding anonymous 'tickets' - I'll get the draw done at work so I can even blame the resulting order on anyone but myself!
It makes sense to me - these are albums/EPs that I like enough to not wish to attempt to put in any kind of order - and the pickers will in all probability have heard none of them which makes it double-blind!
I may then add one or two more items (which will be clearly mentioned as such) taken from anything and anywhere, perhaps for contrast and comparison or just because I love them. The thing is, if I go with this, I'm gonna need to explain why...
It is starting to sound a bit like hard work but on the other hand it is very tempting.

Rivals - Theoretical Girl

There is simply no let up in the richness and variety of new releases on offer and, as The Guardian commented a little while ago, "....it is a mystery why anyone in a position to do so has not already signed her up after seeing her play live.....4/5".

This is 'Rivals', the latest single by 'Theoretical Girl' Amy Turnnidge who is nothing less than a solo performer but is also often accompanied by three-piece backing band -- The Equations -- Kelly White (guitar), Max Taylor (bass) and Harry Bennett (percussion).
They are now signed to Memphis Industries and the début album is due to appear on August 17, 2009.

Just a little warning note:
Do not confuse (London's) Theoretical Girl with the short-lived late 1970s 'no wave' band from New York called 'The Theoretical Girls'. It would certainly be musical surprise but, as much of their output has been recently re-released, an easy one to make.
It has happened before, with a pair of bands called Ilya (see here for my post about that issue), but another reason to mention this is that the Californian Ilya are now well and truly in the midst of recording their third studio album and I'm very much looking forward to it.

Hello, June Fool.

It has just struck me that I've recently spent a lot of time posting about new artists and/or new releases that I want to listen to but then provided precious little feedback on those that I have heard live or acquired as physical recordings. I'm still adding new ones, as ever, and I'll keep adding those but what I intend to do next is a resumé of the 2009 music that has caught my attention so far. I'm not sure of the format yet; perhaps it could be like an 'Amazon List' or maybe not, as that format doesn't allow much comment, but I can see certain points in favour of both approaches.
My inclination is to take the 'Ash' approach in reverse and to review my current six favourite releases from the first six months of 2009 at the rate of one a week. I don't know if I can do it but surely there would be no harm to at least try. They may not even be albums and some items may not be by UK artists or even readily available in the UK.
It is not, as such, a change of plan as I intend to continue adding the usual random 'Thoughts On Music' but rather a just a new challenge and if I only achieve one such each fortnight then I will still reach the end of 2009 in even time. That said, it might be good to slip in the occasional older one from time to time too, if only by way of comparison or contrast. No promises...

Hello June Fool is also the title of an album by East Coast indie rockers Madder Rose, which is a decade old now. I have mentioned it before and it still seems relevant to me but the self-titled Saint Low is just iconic.

The Devil is in the detail

The devil is in the detail and that makes Latitude what it is. There are the headline acts and there are others including those that have been long known, to me at least, but that is only just a part of what matters. The currently less well known acts on all music stages are an equal part of the experience and I don't expect 2009 to be any different. Here are two more such - very different, one from the other - both with a ferocious attitude to live performance!

No 'Florence and The Machine' but that is no problem! 'Marina and the Diamonds' come from Wales and appearing on the Lake Stage at Latitude 2009, which is once again curated by Radio 1 DJ and champion of music from Wales, Huw Stephens.

He is also the power behind the ever growing Sŵn Festival (held in venues across Cardiff in 2007 and 2008 and to be repeated again from 24 - 26 October 2009) , which is showcasing Welsh bands, and any others that make waves, in both Wales and across the UK throughout the year - everywhere from Brighton's recent multi-venue indoor festival 'The Great Escape' to the surprising venue that is housed within the surplus shed of the still very much operational Wrexham Central station.

Is this the price we pay for progess?
Taking one step forward...
...for every six we take back.
Does your dirty, oil-stained money make you happy?
Do you just want to be remembered
...book your place in history?

Another band confirmed for Latitude 2009 is Leeds' iLiKETRAiNS, which can hardly be a bad thing in my world. Would I like to hear 'The Beeching Report' live? You bet I would!

The Penny Has Dropped --- Old imprint, new brand.

Until very recently there was the 'Universal Classics and Jazz' imprint with a name that quite accurately had all the impression of one that, while representing a very broad approach to the palette implied (also true), was chosen as the result of a lack of a better idea.
Well, its changed... not to some clever digital-age acronym but instead to that of an old friend from the strictly analogue age!
"The penny has dropped" is an appropriately old-fashioned analogy and one of certain relevance.

It is I think part of a policy that is actually more widespread in the world of major labels; witness the current major promotion of the 50th anniversary of Island Records, now another Universal imprint. The rôle of the major label as behemoth isn't the panacea the industry once believed it would be and it certainly isn't cool anymore, if it ever was, with a public that more than ever need tempting with incentives to buy music on whatever format rather than just download it illegally.

Oral or aural - Ritalin or Hjaltalín?

If Ritalin were a band it would of course have its detractors. In fact it is a drug, capable of addiction and a variety of other side-effects, that is increasingly used to treat ADD and other such disorders, most commonly in children. That it not to say that it doesn't have an important rôle to play or that, very possibly, better treatments will be developed from it.

Hjaltalín, while not clinically trialled, is about as good as any homeopathic therapy ever could be. You don't need a prescription, certainly shouldn't swallow even one of them, and it is available as a totally legal download. It might however do exactly the job it is supposed to...

Band members slightly variable, typically seven to nine, always both male and female.

The UK and Iceland may have fallen out about fishing, and much more recently banking, but when it comes to music it is unthinkable. Sigur Rós (Latitude 2008) clones they most obviously are not; nor really quite like any of the many others you can probably call to mind.
Aurally narcotic the album 'Sleepdrunk Seasons' might be and they are confirmed as appearing at Latitude 2009.

Awesome...

They're only putting in a nickel and they want a dollar song.
We're only putting in a little to get rid of a lot that's wrong.

More thoughts later.

No place like home?

Well it's a big claim but I sometimes wonder...

Kerosophiles be aware...

Much anticipated, at least in the UK, is the album 'Hands' by Little Boots and the UK release date is 8th June. It will of course be available to download and on CD from any number of places.

If however, wax-lovers, you want one on vinyl then you had better look sharp and check out the nice folks at Pure Groove.

Black velvet...

A fortnight ago I became the custodian of a few dozen (more) 7" singles originally dating from the late 1960s to the late 1980s that had lain, forgotten and unplayed, for more than a decade. They were quite unsurprisingly very dusty, and thus in need of some basic tlc, but otherwise they are mostly fine and I can imagine few better uses for a wet and windy Saturday afternoon than dealing with a stack of 7" vinyl!
One of the most recent (1989, Atlantic A8742) amongst them happens to be one of my favourite pop songs from the 1980s...

While never a major artist in the UK, Black Velvet was a big single (reaching #2 in the UK) and still frequently appears on mainstream radio play-lists some twenty years later. It is neither pop-rock nor is it a ballad but it does what few try and fewer still succeed in doing, which is both at the same time.

Another classic, and also a blast from the past, is this single...

Twenty-seven years old and by a band appearing at Latitude 2009.

A single that never was - Nice Boys

I don't know exactly what happened to this except to say that it never saw the light of day as a fully fledged single release.

It appears on the album 'My Paper Made Men', which I recommend without reservation, but the release was abandoned perhaps because it was seen as too close to her earlier material as evidenced on her 2003 album 'False Smiles'. Whatever the reason, why would I turn down the chance when offered a promo copy - including the 'radio edit' and six remixes - for a song? We might not share the same taste in music but neither are we stupid!
I have to say that pulling its release as a single was almost certainly a good decision - there is nothing really wrong with it but neither is it, when compared with other tracks on the album, anything remarkable and if there is a 'filler track' then this is it.

The World Is Not My Home, but the good get better...

Another day, another EP but this time it is one quite genuinely from across the Atlantic and it was released on CD in the US - on April 1, 2009 - again on Archer Records. The title track is a cover of the traditional 'Railroad Boy (Died of Love)', 'Lazarus' is a take on a traditional lament and 'Green Grass' is a cover of the Tom Waits song and that is just half of it.

Added: Thursday, 14 May:

I'm sorry that this post sort of ended prematurely. I was tired and I published it rather than saving it. Thanks to whoever added a comment to this asking for 'links' today and I assume that it was to this post you were referring. If not please let me know and I'll try to fix that.

If you want to buy or legally download 'Died Of Love' here are some links:

US & UK CD (cdbaby.com)
US Download (amazon.com)
UK Download (amazon.co.uk)

I do not know of any UK distributors of the CD version but independent music distributor cdbaby do shipping to the UK very well and at competitive prices. They publish reviews, both their own and those written by customers, too.
For more press reviews of Amy LaVere, see here.

Things you just discover --- Songs for Edna.

It is not possible to keep up with all that is going on but there will always be interesting new discoveries. This is one of them and yet another that comes from Brighton. The Edna of the album title is Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950) who was the first woman to receive the Pulizer Prize for Poetry, for The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (1923). Caroline Weeks has appeared in these pages before however, if only in pictures as her alter ego Ginger Lee as part of Bat For Lashes' band at Latitude 2007.

This picture was taken by Natasha 'Bat For Lashes' Khan.

The album is available on vinyl Manimal Vinyl Records (MANI 004).

I suspect that it will not be an album threatening the best-seller lists of 2009 and that is a shame. The seemingly recherché source material does not mean that this album is in any way difficult or inaccessible. It is the sublime; neither obviously poems set to music nor music to accompany poems and what you didn't know you would probably never even suspect.

Stuck on repeat...

In the midst of a global market in melt-down, and with the music industry having long claimed it was in crisis, you might have thought that any release might be readily available anywhere. That it is not the case may actually be a sign of things to come; that the fat, sweaty fingers of greed are finally losing their grip on an industry that might never be the same again. They have strangled the life out of it so, if such a demise is true, both artists and music buyers should celebrate but with both caution and restraint.
That is not to say that the brave new world will be without problems, for it will have plenty of its own, but at least it is a start and the signs are there. It is out there to be found and just as in the old days, of 'wants lists by snail mail,' it still takes some finding but it is more than worth the effort...

'Stuck on Repeat' and 'Meddle' on vinyl are awesome so how good is the album going to be?
Now get this...

A Lot Of Love A Lot Of Blood - Florence and The Machine.

Another vinyl 12" by IAmSound (IAM 027), and one for which the track list is in the wrong order on both sides, is equally magnificent. The blistering bombast of Welch is apparent on tracks such as 'A Kiss With A Fist', 'Hospital Beds' and 'Dog Days' and there is no doubt that she can write as well as sing; the last of these also appears again as a long, but quite beguiling, dance remix.

You might imagine it would be some gritty anthem - she's not afraid to attempt songs by 'The Clash' live and can snarl venom with the best of them after all - but it isn't anything of the kind and the real curve-ball is a cover, and a very short one at that, which is another startling demonstration of the New York state of mind.
'You've Got The Love', a dance-pop song written using left-over bits and pieces of lyric and melody, originally recorded by Candi Staton in collaboration with 'The Source' for a TV documentary in the 1980s, was not released as a single until 1991, and this is a truly worthwhile version of it.

Bittersweet - and it gets under your skin.

It is arguably harder to review this album than most other things if for one reason only; it just so happens that Sloe Jam is a band from these parts - Somerset, UK and that defines it about as poorly as could be imagined - the cross-genre magnificence of the Glastonbury Festival defines music better than the Wurzels could ever hope to. It would be easy if I could say they were 'Scrumpy & Western' or just another pub-band but fortunately they are not.

For a start Next To The Skin consists only of original compositions and, while I have no issue with judicious covers, that is worthy of note and at eleven tracks (49 minutes) is it not short but certainly never overstays its welcome. The band is tight and the production as clean as it needs to be but still quite unforced.
When global warming means that the Somerset Levels again resemble a delta at least there is the soundtrack to go with it and a far bigger stage than this surely beckons....

Sloe Jam, live at the Frome Festival, on a damp 5 July 2008.

Stand-out tracks? That's hard to say, but possibly 'Believe In Magic', 'A Wanderer, She Said' and 'Open More Wine'.
Or try it this way instead and it is a very rash suggestion indeed: play an Eric Clapton album, each track interleaved with one from 'Next To The Skin', and just listen...
They are in no way the same but try and imagine what it might have sounded like if Clapton had a female co-vocalist and Pee Wee Ellis guesting on saxophone...
I did exactly that - using 'Unplugged' as the Clapton album - and now I really understand why they don't do covers. If you want to spoil yourself and also baffle your blues-rock loving friends then this album is mandatory and on two tracks Pee Wee Ellis really does play saxophone!

Too Late To Change Me? - New Music I Want (Part 6)

I'm not sure quite why my taste in music has developed over the years, and in particular why it has become so much more diverse. There is not much that I liked twenty years ago that I dislike now but had you asked me then, about much that of the genres I now devour, I very much suspect that you would have got a pretty withering answer.
I don't think that I'm becoming less discriminating and isn't age said generally to lead to increasing conservatism? Then again would I (if it were possible then) have written what I think in a blog at all let alone in the "this is what I like now, how I feel about it, and if you disagree that's fine and you can just tell me" way I am doing at this moment? Absolutely not!
Neither would I have believed that in 2008-9 I would get to see an average of one live band a week or that I could find out about so much new music and in large part this is a result of the digital revolution of the last decade or so - MySpace and blogs included. On the other hand, and this is a matter of active choice rather than conservatism, I can now find may of those artists and their new music on vinyl...

Perhaps not the album 'Too Late To Change Me' on vinyl, (yet...), but a good example of the way things have changed and the tide of music from, or influenced by, New York.
This particular ripple hasn't really reached these shores yet, more than a year after its US release, but that's no reason not to give it a mention. If you like the style of piano-led songwriting exemplified by, to give just two examples, Regina Spektor and Sara Bareilles then you might consider this.

The next problem is to get my paws on a copy of the six-track CD, as my local independent record store certainly doesn't have one. This is where the cyber-local independent store cdbaby comes to the rescue. This album has already gotten very positive reviews there and I strongly suspect, that once mine arrives on this side of the pond, there will be another and it will appear here first!
Another album that I found out about by the same route last year, and find myself listening to with increasing frequency, is Kira Fontana - The Inner Revolution, which is slightly more alt-rock/pop and was mixed by Howard Bilerman, who has worked with Arcade Fire and Godspeed You Black Emperor, so you can probably now see how this tallies with my Canadian-indie addiction and yes, before you ask, I am going to see Metric live in Bristol next Saturday.
Many thanks are due to Ariel Publicity, NYC for giving me the chance to find out about and mention artists that would have otherwise almost certainly escaped my notice.

The item I was going to include next no longer falls in the 'new music I want' category and it is about as local as it gets. I bought it last week and it deserves a review of its own.

Blue Roses - Doubtful Comforts - lyric

When you come home tonight, my love

Will you take me out somewhere?

You're so good at getting my hopes up
Where they don't belong-
I can't reach them.

This is the place that appears in my mind,
Covered with orange lights,
That I've seen countless times.
When can we find a place where we'll stay for a while?
Till we come back in style,
Oh, they don't know the half of it.

Walls crumble and fall,
You don't have to carry the weight of it all.

For the full lyric of the album Blue Roses see here:

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/08/lyrics-again-blue-roses.html

Coast - Blue Roses, lyrics

To whoever asked here they are (click image for an enhanced version)...

Give the artist her dues please...
Why not just buy the album, on any format you like?

This blog does not have unlicensed music available to download and the reason is as much moral as legal: it is no more mine to provide than it is yours to rip. I'm sorry but that is how it is.

This is the real deal: the 12" vinyl version of 'Blue Roses'.
Gate-fold sleeve, illustrated lyric book...

For the full lyric of the album Blue Roses see here:

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/08/lyrics-again-blue-roses.html

Spring madness - music and cats.

I seem to have had so many items on order (or on pre-order) for so long that I was beginning to become impatient and had begun to wonder if they, or at least some of them, would ever arrive at all.
The way notifications went today it looks like they will, and almost all at once - two vinyl LPs, two vinyl 12" EPs and two CDs. The strange thing is that, of the six items, three are recorded by UK artists and two of those have had to come from the US, along with the two by US artists. The remaining two, one of which is by a Canadian band, were more readily available here and that is a demonstration of the vagaries of the quasi-global market! The Canadian one, which I have not mentioned before, is the latest from Metric, a band that I would dearly love to see live. They are in the UK this spring but it now looks unlikely that I will be able to catch them on tour.

Less electro than 'Old World Underground...' and less rock than 'Live It Out'?

I can't wait to decide for myself and, while talking of electro-reinvented, here is one album that I've listened to a great deal in the last few weeks. Ask most people to name an artist from New Zealand and (Kiri Te Kanawa aside) I suspect you'll get blank looks...

Another inspired signing by (Australian label) Modular Recordings, released under license by Universal/Island Records in Europe, the music is quite remarkable - it sounds like nothing you can remember or pin a name to - and the album artwork is quite strange too, all done in watercolour and depicting the paraphernalia of electronic home-recording...

... and cats, lots of cats. Some look shocked and others are listening or merely asleep.

This is my favourite; it is truly surreal and so different from most current music artwork. It is actually the cover to the 7" single 'Paris Is Burning' as if a cat, particularly one in New Zealand, could possibly know or care.

It is an amazing single, and Pip Brown is a star, so the UK Government responded immediately.

The National Curriculum in 2011.

It has been trialled and all kittens will be taught to sing, read music and play piano from an early age.

One job - two apprentices...

What a great way to spend a Saturday evening in 2009!
Listening to the band that forty years ago advertised for a lead guitarist in Melody Maker and couldn't decide between two of them - ended up with both - and thus accidentally made rock history. Thin Lizzy regularly used twin leads, as did Blackfoot and many others too, but Powell and Turner were the ones who set the ball rolling.
I was just four in 1969 and there was no 'reality TV' either...

Some things however just get better with time and Wishbone Ash appear to be one of them; this was after all part of their '40th Anniversary Tour'. I have seen them twice before, the first time in 1985 at the Folkestone Leas Cliff Hall, and this was the best gig of the lot. Their set was almost two hours long including both new material and, of course, some of the classics. The last track was 'Phoenix' taken from the album Wishbone Ash (1970) on which it was over ten minutes long and so it was again.
These two pictures were both taken during the first encore and that was another track 'Lady Whiskey' from the same album.

Andy Powell still doing the business yesterday!

They appear as the last two tracks, but swapped over, on the 1974 double live LP 'Live Dates', which is the one I mentioned here last week.

That sound was still alive and well yesterday evening in Frome.

I'll add more soon but, at least for now, suffice to say it was one hell of a show!

Things That Happen When You Write Them Down

It's been a while, as someone said to me last week, so here is some new music from Wales that most will probably be unfamiliar with and the 5-track EP is available only on vinyl 7":

This is, as far as I know, the first full release of a solo recording by south Wales artist Laura Bryon amongst whose other projects is the band King Alexander, which has been mentioned here before, but while 'Despot Chic' was shouty punk this is an acoustic affair. The second track, 'The Trees They Do Grow High' is traditional while the others are self-penned and so was, I very much suspect, the artwork too. Released on Bird Records (07EGGS) this is an EP for lovers of the current nu/anti-folk resurgence. To buy it try Spillers Records in Cardiff or, to save a journey, click here instead. As the short review on their site says this is recommended to those who like the music of Cate Le Bon, and that is very true, but taking away the Welsh aspect (and none of this EP is sung in Welsh), another current point of reference would be Blue Roses.

Good Fortune Sounds - bad luck mouse.

Let The Truth Be Told...

I guess that being hailed as one of the "next big things" is a double-edged sword and there have been plenty as we go into 2009. It is a problem for artists as, although it provides the oxygen of publicity, it increases the pressure and raises expectations. Raised expectations can affect the prospective listener too. We all know the pleasure to be found in hearing a previously unheard-of artist only to discover that they are the 'best thing ever'. To be frequently told the very same thing, in advance of listening, can make that experience - when it comes - slightly underwhelming. This album was starting to run that risk, at least as far as I am concerned, and it is not released until 18 May in the UK and 16 June in the US, so that is why I mentioned some weeks ago that I had got hold of a US copy of the 12" single 'From My Heart To Yours'.

It went some way towards convincing me that I was not about to be disappointed and now that I have a promotional copy of the whole album I can say that my optimism is more than vindicated. It is common at points such as this to say that the artist evokes sounds like those of 'so-and-so' to provide a touchstone to readers. In this case I am deliberately not going to do so and for two reasons. This is not the genre of music I predominantly listen to and, perhaps more importantly, coming to it without preconceptions this just seems to be a complete album rather than a mere collection of radio and download friendly titbits for music magpies.

It starts with the UK lead single 'Shine' and that starts with the following lines...

Waking up one morning you realise
Your life is just one big compromise.

Another aspect of the whole album is that it sounds so natural and mature - in the sense that it never seems to be anything other than itself. There are no vocal histrionics, just the voice that has already earned her, in a country that rightly takes much pride in its multi-stranded musical heritage, the title 'The Soul of Ireland' and that can hardly be intended as anything but a compliment albeit a typically sly-humoured one. The restrained backing arrangements and production are spot on. They do not attempt to upstage the artist and the material, neither do they consciously seek to hark back to earlier times and styles. I haven't noticed any faux-vinyl crackle but, that said, I can only imagine how good it will sound on vinyl (hint: Atlantic) and I'll be buying that when it becomes available. At ten tracks and about thirty-eight minutes it is not long; it sensibly eschews any kind of filler that has spoiled many an otherwise fine album.

Live? Again her reputation precedes her - likely one of the most sought-after festival artists of 2009-10.

My favourite songs? Well that's a hard question but currently these three:

• Don't Stay
• The Worst is Over
• Mmm...

Ask me again next week and it will quite likely be three others and that is always a sign of a good album.
As well as big predictions 2009 has already proven to contain a treasure-trove of excellent albums and this is certainly one of them. I have a prediction: this will be in the music industry award shortlists in the coming year, very possibly on both sides of the Atlantic. My one reservation is that, as this is a début album, how is she going to better it?
It is however, as 2009 has already shown, actually quite possible!

Leaf and stream....

As you might know by now I have a thing for lyrics, although I have no real idea how this came about, so here are some more. These are from long ago, but hey its Spring now, so what if it is influenced by the seasons and come from a song - on multi-platinum album Argus by Wishbone Ash - that is 37 years old this year.

I find myself beside a stream of empty thought
Like a leaf that's fallen to the ground.
Carried by the flow of water to my dreams
And woken only by your sound.
I've walked this path for many years and
Listened to the trees that call your name.

It still seems fresher than a daisy-chain around the neck of a faux-hippy ever could; I'm sorry folks, and as you know I like absolutely love loads of new music, but sometimes that is just how it is!
If you are looking for one of the best 'live albums' of the 1970s, and I've mentioned this topic here before, Live Dates (1973) is right up there with the very best of them. It is available on CD but better still is MCA Records MCSP254, the original 2 x 12" vinyl release.

Wishbone Ash are on tour too, a '40th Anniversary' one, and for shameless reasons of nostalgia I'm going to see it. The last time that I saw Wishbone Ash live, and I'm not ashamed to admit this either, was at the Folkestone Leas Cliff Hall more than twenty years ago. Some tell me that I shouldn't go again, that I'll only be disappointed, but they are also very ones that won't risk going to see an artist that they know nothing about.
I'll take the risk, thank you, and they can suffer the outcome. I will be interesting to see what the set list is although my guess it will lean towards the earlier classics.

Sea of Tears - new music I want in 2009 - part 5½

It was perhaps obvious that my last post was left unfinished and so it was...

That was a problem, entirely of my own making, and I apologize for it. April is a good time, so here are some new albums, scattered across genres, that I now want. I don't care if they are popular now: some are, some will be so in the future, and others simply will not.
That is the long term view and I'm disinclined to take it.
If I want an album, and although it is true that I have many that are decades old, when I want a new one the buying choice is wider but so, quite alarmingly, is my taste in music! If that were a surprise then this a very surprising selection, one based on Americana again, but I just can't help it.
You can tell me what you think (either e-mail or comment) but I still think that you should simply listen to whatever it is that you want to so feel free to tell me about whatever music you have found.

The selected ones are already on order, many from the US, something that was not really possible twenty years ago, but this one actually takes its reference points from Americana and also the British 'pop-rock' of the sixties and Jewell does it well - back then you simply couldn't have done it this way. The covered songs are excellent again but the originals are even better.
They have an air of total authenticity and are often narrative, songs that are tales of being fu**ed over, but they do it without appearing self-consciously traditional or, on the other hand, overtly bitter or modern. It certainly isn't nu folk, anti folk or whatever, and I like most of that too, even though this album is much more electric-oriented than LfS&S. The result is engaging, more 1960s than obviously influenced by anything that came later, and really quite special.

Amongst the others are...

Love, Save The Empty - Erin McCarley

There are just so many good things around - this is merely another interim post.

New Music I Want In 2009 - Part 5

Hello, I'm back after two weeks away from writing, but not from listening, which is just something I need to do once in a while. That said I'm now bubbling over with new music to share...

The latest from Metric, and all kinds of other wonderful things plus one that which, should I wish to do so, I could use as my excuse for vanishing for the last fortnight because it really is that good.

To have one alter ego is often one too many and two is beyond countenance.

None should try, and fewer could get away with, the blonde artifice of Pearl.

Only Karen O might give her competition, but perhaps they would talk clothes instead?
One told the lead guitarist that he'd be playing keyboards on the album, the other told Scott Walker to sing a song for her and sent him the part... and they both did.