Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing...

'The more you have the more you look' is not quite the oxymoron that it might appear to be. Inquisition and acquisition, or at least the desire to do so, are little more than two sides of the same coin.
I mentioned Snowbird, Sleepless Night and Stephanie Dosen yesterday evening and I have just listened to Marissa Nadler - Little Hells (an album that only gets better on repeated listening) so, just now, this is another addition to my 'wants list' even though I was totally unaware of the artist or album this time yesterday evening...

..and not one particularly well known in the UK just now, I contend.

Will I like it?
I don't know, so I can't tell you as I've heard none of this album, or the artist for that matter, but I think so. That has to be the way of things, at least much of the time, because otherwise one would never buy, perhaps even hear and pay attention to, much that is new beyond the usual boundaries of radio or mainstream reviews.
I'll know whether my confidence is well placed, or indeed was not, in a fortnight or so when it arrives from the US. I could have had it slightly quicker and more cheaply had I gone for the CD option but since it was marginal and she is a UK artist why not, if for no reason other than to be contrary and because I like the format, have the original US vinyl release?

A Snowbird In The Gardens Of The North - New Music 2009 - Part 11

This is the continuation of the topic that I mentioned in Music I Want - Part 10 - Infinite Light a week ago (yes, I have it now, it is that good but for a later post).
As I also mentioned then that August is supposed to be a quiet time for album releases; all I can say about that is I hate to imagine what the Autumn-Spring 2009/2010 might bring (aside from the inevitable crop of "festive releases").

No great revelation is this one, given that I'd already mentioned that Bella Union releases would be a theme even before I had a little strop last Friday concerning, amonst other things, the importance of independent labels...

I almost deleted that post yesterday but changed my mind in the end. I'm glad now that I let it be - it was written when it was written: I have never actually deleted a published post in its entirety which, given the blog title, makes sense to me as yesterday's thoughts might not be the same as today's thoughts.

More importantly perhaps, even at my age, occasionally throwing ones toys out of the pram is still - at the very least metaphorically - cathartic and as any child knows it is so much more satisfying to do it when there is an audience, be it a real or imaginary one.

This item is one well publicised and it is on pre-order from an independent retailer. It is the first full-length album from Sleeping States, released in the UK on 17 August by Bella Union, which is fronted by historically peripatetic, but currently Bristol-based, Markland Starkie who is yet another arist I must catch live as soon as possible.
Talking of artists signed to Bella Union in the UK here are two more that I want to see live - Fleet Foxes and The Low Anthem - and that is as near a certainty as is ever possible as they are both playing at 'End Of The Road 2009' and I'm going to that.

When I went to Latitude 2007 however, my first festival in decades, one of the artists who made an immediate impression on the Sunset Stage was then a rather little known singer-songwriter from rural Wisconsin, Stephanie Dosen, who had recently been signed by a label (guess which) that had then just released her second album. I still listen to 'A Lily For The Spectre' on rotation, which says a great deal. It does not, however, demonstrate just what an amazingly good live artist she is.

Why I didn't use this picture two years ago is now an utter mystery to me and I despair!

[Click to enlarge]

Be that as it may she is currently recording her third solo album, again for Bella Union, which should be released in the spring of 2010. The reason it has taken so long is that she's actually recording two albums at the same time - Snowbird is a collaboration between herself and, Bella Union co-founder and ex-Cocteau Twin, Simon Raymonde (in partnership with Robin Guthrie, also of Cocteau Twins). Snowbird have played a few support gigs in the UK since the spring of this year and I haven't caught one of these yet but the potential is obvious.

The Eutectic Point...

The MTV and Mercury Music awards are now both shortlisted, so it is that time of year again. I imagine that many in the major labels are wringing their hands although it is likely that they will score some successes in 2009 even if the personal cost might have been high for music industry executives in terms of bonuses.

Hiya!

'real world' --- aka 'the rest of us' --- because we've known exactly that for ages and were not paid a penny for our wisdom.

I'm happy living with my thought that that the industry is, finally, undergoing some kind of corporate cognitive therapy, resulting in a very slow transformation in terms of both self-awareness and of the changing situation. The issue is that depite (maybe even because of) the riches the-gravy-train that recorded-music history granted them for almost fifty years the magic has finally worn so thin as to have as-wide-an-appeal as a dried-out-tea-bag, awaiting its second-coming, in a student house.
It took, however, the better part of a decade for the industry to wake-up to, let alone make attempts at full engagement with, the new reality. My experience is that students learn such things much faster and probably because they simply have to.

The four major labels are certainly not out of the woods yet but at least they are trying. The real issue is that the decades of sycophantic hegemony are over; it is now a long-established industry under attack from more directions than merely those posed by the rise of illegal downloading alone. That is, however, a phenomenon that both they and the High Street music stores handled catastrophically: a case of corporate self-denial, in the face of a blindingly-obvious rapid change in circumstances, if ever there were one.
Many of the new threats are, and have every reason to remain, valid as they are quite legal and that too is largely a massive failure on the part of the existing players in the market. It is hard to say for sure but, had things been done differently and I'm not talking Draconian measures here, I can't help but think that the 'big-four' might not be in the situation in which they now find themselves.

Good luck independent labels - you are amongst the forces of the future!

My America - 2009 in the 51st state...

In 2008 I was struck by the thought that much of the new music I really wanted actually needed to be imported (on vinyl or CD) from the US. That has continued unabated in 2009 but there is now a subtle change of emphasis. The two-way trade continues but now the bands are importing themselves, and I'm getting to hear them play live in the UK. I have no problem with it whatsoever and it is likely the result of a number of on-the face-of-it unrelated vectors. At the very end of 2008 I read an article that championed three New York bands, the by-line being that you should at least see one of them live in 2009.
Slightly before 2pm on 17th July some complete strangers, all several years younger than half of my age, loudly commented that they were now about to achieve this feat. I said nothing save "yeah, good band and strong songs on the album" (this was just before the band in question was on stage) and, possibly thinking I didn't know what was under discussion, they asked me really rather bluntly what I thought and, as I'd been eavesdropping in the inter regnum, they got it.

"Since you ask, I'm sorry to tell you that this is the last of the three for me." ('Telepathe' and 'School Of Seven Bells' being the others in question). I think I spoiled their ego-trip and, if sardonicism were a concept new to them, they have learnt about it now! After a few minutes of silent bravado they sidled away, crestfallen and unnoticed, which was how I got a front-row place to take this picture of 'Chairlift'.

On Saturday morning there was no sign of them when the band - that might now be regarded as the fourth in this category - was playing. I know that they were there, however, because I saw them leave, from near the back of the arena, at the end. They were clearly in no mood for a repeat of the previous day's meeting and were that a problem it was certainly not mine. I could hardly supress a wry smile!

I was exactly where I will be, if I am so minded, when 'Yes Giantess' were playing on the 'Sunset Arena' at 12:30 on Saturday afternoon. They are now used to playing the most fashionable club venues in New York so you might think that ...

... perhaps a rather leaky, tented, stage in a Suffolk wood might just be anathema to them.

Well, no! The set was special, no doubt about it, even if the setting and context was slightly bizarre. The audience response was incredible, as witnessed by the fact that the band said as much without sounding remotely trite. Aside from my very slight, and it was no more than that, quibble almost everyone else that I met at Latidude was amazing. We might have talked total nonsense (and there is certainly no doubt about that): a paucity of peroration being very much the prevailing theme but so what does that matter?

I have plenty more Latitude 2009 highlights to mention and, if you don't know this already, pre-sales for Latitude 2010 go on sale on 1st September 2009.

Music I Want In 2009 - Part 10 - Infinite Light

Well we might not be getting 'the barbeque summer' that back in the spring we were promised would be ours to lift the mood, at least here in the rain-sodden UK, but not all is bad. August may traditionally be a quiet time for new releases, particularly of albums, but here are a few that I would like...
From Canada - and arguably where else - comes this.

Amber Webber and Joshua Wells - both also members of 'Black Mountain' - return with a second album release from their side-project 'Lightning Dust', the first of which was the self-titled album that I have mentioned before and, very importantly, still love to bits. Infinite Light is, as was the first album, released (yesterday in the UK and today in the US and Canada) by Jagjaguwar Records and is available on 12" LP, CD and download.

Now jump continents, and styles, as here is Sweden's First Aid Kit that was unfortunately a last-minute no-show at Latitude 2009. All is not lost on the live front as they are appearing at the 'End Of The Road Festival' in September, along with many other acts I want to see, and so I'll be there too.

Live at Puregroove Records, London. Better pictures soon I hope!

The 8-track 'Drunken Trees EP' (more of a mini-album really) is available on vinyl too and although in part currently best known for an act of breathtaking bravado --- covering Fleet Foxes' Tiger Mountain Peasant Song barely months after its original release --- they have thus been compared with Seattle's 'Fleet Foxes' and also their 2009 heirs and successors, Providence, RI based 'The Low Anthem' --- but they did more than simply got-away-with-it. Unlike the other two aforementioned, who are signed to Bella Union in the UK, they were snapped up by UK indie label Wichita Recordings.

Maybe, decades later, they still have somebody who can spot such things? I hope so...

I hear you singin' in the wire,

I can hear you through the whine

And the Wichita lineman

Is still on the line.

Whatever the truth this recording suggests that they could get along just fine in such company because the self-written tracks are also pretty special too, so now the surprise factor...

They are two sisters from Stockholm, with a combined age of thirty-five and a remakable world-weary take on music for two so young. In a truly inspired piece of booking, doubtless done months ago when what I have just written was far from obvious, all three bands are on the bill for 'The End Of The Road'!

I've plenty more to add, including more fascinating developments in the pipeline from Bella Union, but this post is getting long enough and unfortunately I have rather more important, but much less interesting, things to do just now.

Live and local...

Thirteen days without live music... I can't remember when I last went so long but so what. Time then to get down to 'The Griffin' to catch one of the bands of 2009 live and up-close before it is too late to do so in such an intimate venue...

It is not much different to having a band play live in one's own living room, other than the performance issues and the fact that the 'The Griffin' also brews its own beers.
About the début album, and on authority as good as you can get, "in September, hopefully". That is on my next 'Want To Listen To...' list for sure.
There are some bands you really need to hear live. This is most certainly one of them but, almost needless to say, very few bands indeed come with an artist in residence...

...fewer still with one who can also be caught live in action.

Tale To Tell - of strings and things.

I'm no longer sure what should surprise me and what should not. I can however still be surprised - and Mummers did it for me.

It wasn't a case of thinking that I wouldn't like it but, equally, it wasn't in the least bit like what I had imagined it to be either. Here they are on the Uncut Arena on Friday. They are also appearing at 'The End Of The Road' in September. Another Brighton-based outfit, the album 'Tale To Tell' was released in 2009; and Londoner Raissa Kahn-Panni's music and lyric actually have much to do with an unhappy year spent as a waitress in Brixton.

I might dispute everything...

It goes without saying that constructive disagreement is the source of all virtue but what I believe to be so is, as likely as not, your poison. My delight was a relatively little known band from South Africa, 'Dear Reader', that however split listener opinion in half...

I'm on the loving side here, as must be quite apparent, but that is not to say that the detractors have no less reason for their opinion other than the fact that they are wrong.

If you don't like them then that's fine by me but here they are anyway.

The current album 'Replace Why With Funny' is just one of many on the list of those that my trip to Latitude has resulted in.

We have stage (and desolation)...

In four days spent with a crowd of thousands the concept of emptiness is perhaps not just improbable but almost unimaginable.
That such preconceptions are totally wrong is possibly one of the best things...

The 'Sunrise Arena', deep in the woods, was quite deserted on Saturday morning.

Back to the barricade: the sound tower on the Obelisk Stage on Friday morning.

A ghostly scene... 12:30 Sunday afternoon in the Uncut Arena.
There were four of us sat chatting, backs against the crowd barrier, looking out at the fifth and sixth persons in a tent that holds about 5750!

Past midnight Sunday @ Latitude 2007.

That which can only be imagined...

Latitude 2009 had a few flaws and one of them was the line-up on 'The Lake Stage', some of which was not available in the progamme and also thereafter. I hope that this will be sorted next year but that is not to say that it was derelict in 2009...
It was home, on Sunday, to a new artist to whom the epithet 'estrella' could hardly be more appropriate.

Marina and The Diamonds was simply awesome; the band members were very good indeed and Marina had both them and us, the audience, exactly where she wanted --- wrapped around her little finger --- and it didn't hurt one little bit.

Latitude Festival 2009

It is easy to say that it was amazing, because it served up what I wanted in terms of the less well known, but to deny that I was in thrall of some more main-stream acts would equally be a travesty.

Little Boots live on the 'Sunset Stage', Friday 17th July 2009.

One is just not enough.

I haven't even posted any real thoughts on Latitude 2009 yet but I will do so soon. Suffice it to say that, while it had the occasional and inevitable flaw, it was simply wonderful and so here a few photos to run with just for now.

Ladyhawke live on the Obelisk Stage on Friday afternoon.

Kap Bambino on the Sunset Stage on Friday...
Such good, if rather curious, behaviour would not last very long!

I don't think I can survive 2009 by going to only one festival... and now I don't have to because I'm going to 'The End of the Road' in North Dorset too. Even as the storm builds, a bit of acoustic never did any harm, and this was in the 'Film and Music Tent' last Thursday evening.

If You Want Mud, You've Got It...

I'm resigned to it and so I'm going to enjoy myself. The first band on the known agenda is tomorrow evening, assuming we are not all swimming, and is one I have mentioned before. As it happens their 'Frozen Heart EP' arrived with me today.

Not remotely like the recording the post-title parodies but one that I anticipate with much enthusiasm.

That's actually just made me think of something quite different:
Gossip are performing at Latitude 2009, so how about an AC/DC cover version?
'Whole Lotta Ditto'. The more you think about it the less you should but the lyric would need little alteration. She could surely do the original Bon Scott vocals proud and it would work alongside 'Standing In The Way Of Control' admirably.

Technical things:
The link to the Bellowhead tour dates and website, to the left of this post, now works as it should. I screwed it up yesterday evening.

Music I Want in 2009 - Part 9 - New European

I'm pondering strategies for a wet weekend at Latitude 2009 but the issues involved are not devolved; the weather is no less my responsibility than it is that of the event organisers and neither of us can blame the other for it. They have contingency plans too and so, even if not ideal, I think it will probably work out OK... Rather than say which acts I'm hoping to see, though I have mentioned a few already, I thought I'd tell you of a few that I won't be seeing because, in so far as I know, they are not playing. It is not criticism, rather curiosity, that got the better of me...

Ray Rumours is the semi-solo project of Ros Murray (Electrelane) and it sounds nothing like their electronic output and this is the second album released under this moniker.
Recorded in St. Martin l'Ardèche, in the autumn and winter of 2007-2008, it is entirely acoustic. It is released on CD by StitchStitch (March 2009) and it available either direct from either of these links or from some independent record stores.

More Scandinavian surprise, this time in the form of ambient folk-electronica from Sweden, comes in the form of the début album 'Aurora'.

The Deer Tracks (2009) - Aurora

And here is another recent release...

Lau are battling with Bellowhead, in press reviews and more, for the crown of best folk-inspired band of 2009 and it is quite obviously a discussion to be had over a couple of pints in the pub(s) of your choice (The Bourne Valley and The Griffin would be mine) but beyond that it means little except to say that we are currently spoiled by such talent and long may it remain so.

Love Tattoo - live

It is hard to say what the most incredible live gig I have ever seen is but this is certainly amongst the top ten or so...

The remarkable band not only played almost all of the 2008 album 'Love Tattoo' but also several impressive new songs that are to appear on the second album which, they also said, is due in January 2010. Come the end everyone was asking random strangers "did I really hear that?" and it is the mark of a gig that, although they were doubtless already high, exceeded everyone's expectations of it.

If I see two sets as good or better than this at Latitude 2009 then I shall regard myself as very fortunate. If I don't I shall not feel hard done-by and doubt that I will come away disappointed.

Life live?

Two venues and five bands in six hours is a good deal however you view it. That it all took place within a fifteen minute walk from home is just a dream scenario. The supposedly showery weather did not materialise for the International Food Event - I had Kenyan fried chicken with spicy accompaniments and, while rather beyond my usual menu choices, it was totally delicious.

The weather was near perfect and the turn-out was quite amazing. The first band was Praying For The Rain and even that couldn't make it happen... The next band, Phantom Limb, could probably invoke a hurricane without warning if they so wished with their unashamed tales of death and despair... and that couldn't do it either.

... but gathered a young following regardless.
This was the final song 'Withering Bones'.

Time to head over to the Cheese & Grain for Acoustic Plus not least because there is not another until September. I got there just in time to hear the last four tracks of the first set:

Ruby Brown live at Acoustic Plus, Frome , Cheese & Grain - 4 July 2009.

Next up, The Rusticles playing energetic cross-genre tunes of their own devising...

and to wind the evening up some funk rock from their début album.

I'll Be On The Common - Port Erin

www.myspace.com/porterin

Yeah So?

It is almost as far as is imaginable from the boisterous indie of Arctic Monkeys but no less genuine for it - Slow Club is the other shimmering face of Sheffield indie music. They are appearing at Latitude 2009 for a third successive year, which may be a record, and this time it is just after the release of their first album, Yeah So, (Moshi Moshi, release date 6 July 2009)!

and then they are off to tour it in the US and Canada.

More links, including the lyric for the 2008 EP Let's Fall Back In Love:

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2008/09/lets-fall-back-in-love.html

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2008/09/to-whoever-just-asked-about-slow-club.html

London, band, Kelly White, Glastonbury...

For those looking for information try here:

The Equations are the band - Kelly White is a member of it - and Amy Turnnidge is Theoretical Girl. Watch out for the début album in August... they are now signed to Memphis Industries.

From The Outside Looking In - Glastonbury 2009

There has been some fuss in the press today. It is said that the BBC spent as much at £5 million on their coverage of Glastonbury across TV, radio and on-line. How many millions do they spend annually on soaps and sport, none of which I watch? I don't watch much TV as a rule, but I certainly still pay the same licence fee. This weekend I watched enough to almost make it worth it alone. I'm not saying that everyone should feel the same way but I'd like to thank the BBC - this is precisely the never-ending dilemma faced by a public-service broadcaster. Please stick to your guns...

This must be also true of choosing acts for a festival but from all accounts it was quite some festival, even by it's own standards. There was rain, and the concomitant mud, but only in reasonable proportions and would it be the same without it?

Starting as it didn't go on... Friday dawns over one of the many camp sites.

The festival atmosphere should electrify but someone left the charger on too long. By lunch time on Friday the sun had appeared and so it remained for all three days! Thanks to all the aforementioned BBC coverage I soon came to one conclusion - I should have tried to get a ticket!

I thought all three headline acts were excellent and enjoyed every moment of each. What however impressed more was just how much the newer acts were gathering coverage and large crowds. The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs - though not very new as they recently released their third LP, It's Blitz, were show-stopping. Three genuinely new artists in 2009 were:

La Roux, whose début album would have been a run-away at the top of the UK charts on Sunday were it not for the demise of Michael Jackson. As it was it made #2, which was an incredible result for the duo of Elly Jackson and Ben Langmaid and single 'In For The Kill' has already become one of the signature sounds of 2009.

Little Boots was another obvious winner and also deservedly so I think.

The third artist that I put in this category will be no surprise either, even though that first album, 'Lungs', is not physically released until this coming Monday (in the UK). Florence and The Machine were simply on another planet.

It would be hard to persuade anyone who had come across them for the first time, that fifteen months ago they were almost unknown outside South London. As well as the main set, which was on TV, they also recorded an acoustic BBC6 Music Hub Session on Friday:

BBC6 Music DJ was Cerys Matthews and she joined them for a duet with Florence Welch.

The Green Fields of Canada...

I still wonder how they do it...

The track that is the title of this post is actually a traditional song - I have two recorded versions of it and neither are by Canadians. They are from the following albums both of which I can recommend, particularly for their original content.

• Cold Blow And The Rainy Night - Planxty (1974) (12" vinyl LP - Polydor Super 2383 301)
  
• A Lily For The Spectre - Stephanie Dosen (2007) (CD - bellacd137x)

The former is now readily available on CD and mp3 but, surprisingly, also as a 1990 vinyl re-issue that is available at about £15 / € 18 / $25. The latter I saw live at Latitude 2007 and if you think she sounds good recorded let me tell you that live she really is something else.

That is something that the three new releases, which follow this reflection, also promise in abundance.

I digress however, for what I have to mention are new releases by three Canadian acts that are in a broadly similar vein. This is in part More New Music I Want but, while all three albums are by Canadian artists, I already have one of them.

Po' Girl - Deer In The Night

I have listened to a great deal of roots/modern folk in the last eighteen months and it is not the nature of the genre to be groundbreaking, in part by definition, but this blew me away the first time I listened to it and on repeated listening it has got even better. I haven't come to any conclusions about favourite tracks yet...

[well kinda - all of them really]

A trio now (R - L), Allison Russell and Awna Teixeira write most of the songs while Benny Sidelinger not only plays guitars and such (as do the aforementioned) but also builds the ones that they play!

I have mentioned this artist before and in fact none of these are début albums so there is an albeit short back catalogue to consider too! I'll continue with this as her début solo album, Honey From The Tombs, was the subject of a very early post on this site and I still play it often so it was a clearly a good choice. This is the second solo album from (Stars and Broken Social Scene regular) Amy Millan. It is due to be released by Arts & Crafts on vinyl, CD and download on September 8.

Amy Millan - Masters of the Burial

Note added 13 July 2009:
A Canadian tour to go with it was announced today. I wish that we could be so lucky.

And, when there could surely be no more from Canada, back to the artists at the top of this post...

Everyone Is Someone is the third LP from Canadian acoustic-pop duet Dala. Not the easiest item to find in the UK at the moment but amazon.ca have it in stock and will ship to the UK without any problem.