Live Music 2012 - North Dorset Folk Festival (Part 2)

I told you that I wasn't finished with this, for there was too much goodness for one post. 
Here is the first glimpse into the rest of the acts that I had the good fortune to see last Saturday.

The Moulettes

I saw the last two songs of their set at End of The Road Festival, on the TiPi stage, after I had decamped from watching another on the Garden Stage. They were both remarkable acts - so I deemed it necessary to seek out The Moulettes sooner rather than later.  The 2012 album 'The Bear's Revenge' is excellent, but live they are quite something else.
Bassoon is not an instrument that is used throughout a set or always even just a song. It was, from time to time, supplanted by autoharp.

Why hug it, when not playing it, you might ask.

  

Now, returning to the Studio Stage, here is an artist that I have had the good fortune to witness live several times before and, whilst originally from North Dorset, is now resident further east on the south coast of England.

Emily Baker: singing and playing with vocals unamplified. This new song is 'Tennessee'.
Her second full-length album, All At Sea, is due for release early in 2013.
  

Owing to issues, mainly to do with half-term traffic, Tom James from Falmouth, Cornwall, became the first solo artist and only the second act to perform at NDFF when switching sets with Flatland Wolf.

New Music 2013 - Part 1 - Wash The Sins Not Only The Face

As it was in 2011 so it is in 2013. The first post about new music for 2011 concerned the début album Violet Cries by Brighton trio Esben and The Witch.  The first about new music 2013 concerns their sophomore album.

You might guess by the title that this is not likely to be a whole bundle of fluffy music.
  

'Wash The Sins Not Only The Face' is scheduled to be released by Matador Records on January 21, 2013 in the UK. More detail as soon as I have it.

I anticipate adding at least one more, unrelated, post on New Music 2013 before the end of this coming weekend.

Live Music 2012 - North Dorset Folk Festival

Another weekend, another newly fledged indoor one-day festival to keep the chill autumn winds at bay. The musical subject matter was very different to last weekend and so was the choice of venue. Last Sunday I was at the extremely familiar-to-me Cheese and Grain in Frome whereas as yesterday I was only thirty-something miles away in the totally unfamiliar surroundings of Sturminster Newton High School.
One of the first acts to play the main stage (there was also the studio stage) was an acoustic four-piece that met at Southampton Solent University and the first of several acts that had made it inevitable that I should decide to purchase a ticket.

Flatland Wolf - North Dorset Folk Festival. 27 October 2012.

They are preparing an EP for release but if you want an idea of their sound then avail yourself of this:

I'm sorry about the delay. Here is some more from Saturday, starting with the Studio Stage:

Cloudi Lewis and her band.

The seven-song set started with a cover version of  KT Tunstall's 'Black Horse & The Cherry Tree' and then continued with six original songs:

1. Black Horse and The Cherry Tree
2. Middle Man
3. White Dress
4. The Woods
5. Over 
6. Stop
7. Rambling

This is the way to do it and they are recording an EP in early January, which will hopefully be released soon thereafter. Very definitely one to watch in 2013.

Back to the main stage and an artist that won 'Best Young Artist' at BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2009. One I have wanted to hear live for some while and, quite possibly, the reason I got wind of North Dorset Folk Festival in the first place.

Megan Henwood and her Fylde custom-made guitar 'Rosie' - the other one is 'Coco'.

She also revealed that she will be releasing her second album before too long.

  

Rather than attempt all my thoughts and ramblings in one post I'll rattle though just a couple more that caught my attention before mentioning others and some more general reflections on the whole event in a subsequent post later in the week.

  

All the way from Liverpool came Jaywalkers.

Very conveniently their 'Early For A Thursday EP' has just been reviewed by North West Folk and another to consider treating oneself to for Christmas, if not before.

Last for this post but certainly not least is the act that preceded them on the main stage:

  

Tinderbox, recently back from a major festival in Germany and touring in support of their 2012 album 'Counting Time'. On Saturday the duo was joined, as they were in Germany, by Bob Burke (on the right here) on additional guitar and vocals.

  

Here's something to think about. I have now mentioned about half the acts that I saw on Saturday. The ticket, including booking fee, was £27.50.

Live Music 2012 - Frome Blues Festival

This was always going to prove a tricky proposition for me to review. Firstly I have never been to a whole day of music dedicated to blues before and secondly because just nine days earlier I had seen Joanne Shaw Taylor live at Tavistock Wharf. That was amongst the most astonishing performances that I have seen in any genre this year - and well up in those of all time.

As a result of this I am not going to cover the six acts in order of appearance. I'm going to start with the one I found the most disappointing...

...Stan Webb's Chicken Shack, the headline artists.
  

A slightly clumsily chosen preamble at the start didn't go down too well with the audience assembled in Frome and I get the feeling that I was not the only one to think that. The impression increasingly became that it was a rattling experience, not least when Mr. Webb forgot the lyric to one song part way through. After that it was, I guess, just a case of getting it all over and done, which actually raised the bar considerably.
One thing that I must say is that he generously praised the foregoing acts, the organisers and crew on sound and stage duties and the audience and rightly so. It has actually crossed my mind that fulsomely could be used here but it seemed quite sincere and the audience greeted it as such.

Now I have another problem: in what order should I review the other acts?  If any other showed signs of nervousness then it was Oli Brown at the start of his set but that evaporated after the first few minutes. The remainder, increasingly confident and beguiling, was pretty much as good as I had imagined that it would be - he is signed to Ruf Records and in my opinion that is a good sign. As I have mentioned a couple of times recently I am much liking the re-emergence of  recording labels that one can rely on - in the sense that artists they choose to release are dependably good.

Oli Brown - Frome Blues Festival 2012.

Once he and his band had got into their stride there was no stopping them. If there was a problem with the audience it was a curious one - that it was too quiet, bordering on the obsequious, while the bands were setting up and sound-checking. Artists at End Of The Road Festival have also commented on this and the fact that it is actually rather unnerving.

Here is Oli Brown and his band in full flow.
  

Opening proceedings, something that I have always thought must be an unenviable task, was Laurence Jones. If he felt the weight on his shoulders he and his band didn't let it show.

They certainly got proceedings off on solid foundations.

  

The next act, Jo Harman & Company, was a quite different proposition but as, since Jo is hiding at the far left of this next picture, it is not immediately apparent why.

This is where the fault-lines started to appear.

   This was very much blues-rock, just for starters, but it seemed to go down well.

    

Eddie Martin isn't exactly prototypical blues either, as it has a rather prominent brass section, and they played next. Actually a six-piece but you can't see the Hammond organ and its player in this photo...

...but in this one you can. They were good --- very, very good indeed.

Therefore I am left with one artist to get a mention and, as I had been led to believe, when she is playing live her début album 'Like No Other' (2011) offers little clue what to expect...

There comes a point, however, when the game is finally up.

This is about that point.

Enforced house-keeping...

You may notice that there are now currently two "Recently Listened To" lists.

This is because Blogger has some kind of limit on the number of entries and/or changes to any given list after which it can no longer be added to or edited.
From time to time, and this is not the first occasion, it is then necessary to start a new one and today is one of those times. I shall keep the old one in place until the new version reaches a sufficient number of entries that, therefore, the old one is effectively redundant; until then links in it will, or should, continue to work.

Time now for some more listening, then some more writing...

Some things just go out of fashion for a while.

The 12" vinyl "micro-groove" LP was one of them.

Live Music 2012 - Grip of the Blues

While the title of the post is borrowed from a 2008 album by Finnish blues guitarist and songwriter Erja Lyytinen, who is not actually touring the UK until 2013 but I very much intend to see her live then; it happens to sum up my live music forays in the next couple of weeks rather well.
It all kicks off next weekend and involves only small venues...
If you were watching footage of the Diamond Jubilee Concert in London earlier this summer you might have noticed a rather special guitarist accompanying Annie Lennox for her performance. That was Joanne Shaw Taylor. She is a songwriter and singer too and has very recently released her third album on Ruf Records (Ruf 1181). Here it is.

Live at Bristol Tunnels, 11 October and Tavistock Wharf, October 12.

Having never seen her live before I'm very much anticipating that it will be amongst the live highlights of my 2012 - and there have been many.

  

This next artist I have seen live, in 2009 supporting Seth Lakeman, after the release of her excellent 2008 album 'Kitchen Table'. Bex Marshall also has a new album out and is playing at The Griffin, Frome on 20 October. Here is that album, released on House of Mercy as HOM 002.

The following day, Sunday 21 October, is the first Frome Blues Festival held at the Cheese and Grain. In an exciting line-up one highlight is Chantel McGregor, the recently announced winner of 'Best Female Vocalist' at the British Blues Awards 2012 and an award that Joanne Shaw Taylor had been the recipient of in both 2010 and 2011.
   

  'Like No Other' is her 2011 début album - released by Tis Rock Music as TRM001.

The twelve tracks on it include inter alia a splendid cover of Stevie Nicks' Rhiannon (3:39) and yet the self-written songs vary wildly in length. Track 8 'Cat Song' is just 2:16 but follows the rather remarkable 'Daydream' and another truly astonishing cover version...

The Procession - New Music 2012 - Part 24

Much of the new music that I have mentioned, and indeed purchased, of late has been driven by artists that I have seen over this summer's festivals. These two solo albums, both by artists whom you may know from their 'band' guise, were released in August. I saw neither live this summer.
Tamara Schlesinger, also of '6 Day Riot', released her second solo album and the follow-up to 2004's rather wonderful (but currently hard to source) From Home To Home. Her new LP is The Procession, released on Tantrum Records as TANTRUMCD008.

It is made up of many layers of her vocals recorded acapella with the subsequent addition of strings and some judicious electric guitar and percussion. The playlist is as follows:

The Procession - Tamara Schlesinger

1. Yai Yai
2. I Go
3. Can You See Me?
4. So Long
5. My Future
6. Get Down
7. Find a Way
8. My Home
9. Again
11. Who's Won?

The next is this is from over in Canada and the début solo album from 'Po' Girl' member Awna Teixeira.

It may well come as no surprise, if you know my likes in music, that both LPs cover a fair range of subject matter and far from all of it is cheerful but then neither is it overly depressing; it comes with a healthy dose of optimism and redemption inbuilt. This one is released by Hazy Tales Music.

Where The Darkness Goes - Awna Teixeira

1. Stand Tall 4:53
2. Minha Querida 4:09
3. Where the Darkness Goes 4:44
4. Some Kind of Dream 3:49
5. Faden 5:17
6. Prince of the Park 4:06
7. Rest Your Mind 4:36
8. Stargazer 3:44
9. The Little Review 4:57
10. Little Piggy 4:16
11. Blooming Bounty 3:12

I recommend these particularly if you are finding the current mainstream (radio, etc.) content lacking something new. It takes a little time and ingenuity, but almost no money, to legally discover more new music than you ever knew you didn't know about. The artists will be delighted for the publicity too, should you like what you hear and see fit to tell others about your finds.

EOTR 2012 - Thoughts on new music 2

The reformed Grandaddy and Grizzly Bear were both awesome and some of my friends might have regarded one or other as their own particular highlight of the festival but were I forced to do so, and somebody just posed this question, the highlight of End of The Road Festival 2012 for me was Alabama Shakes. This is, in some ways, a justification for buying an 'early bird' ticket. Just like trusting labels it is a convenient opt in - I know that I can trust the EOTR organizers to put on more bands that I want to see/hear than will actually be possible - and so I already have a ticket for EOTR 2013 (and NDH 2013, too). This means that as the booked artists become known, over the ensuing months, the excitement is purely that of anticipation. When I came to know that EOTR 2012 had Alabama Shakes on the list anticipation started to take full control. I had pre-ordered the début album 'Boys and Girls' on vinyl and at the first opportunity, so I already knew the songs quite well, and then this happened...

Alabama Shakes, the Woods Stage, at about 19:45 on Saturday.
Songs that do not appear on the album were awesome too.

  

This is soul-blues of the of the highest order and they are generous with it too appearing for a second time, on the Big Top Stage on Sunday evening and also various other unadvertised performances. This is another picture from the Woods Stage on Saturday.

Simply astonishing. 

Brittany Howard does have a phenomenal voice on the recording and yet still chooses to wear glasses while performing live, simply out of choice.  It is quite the statement of who she is and this authenticity is at the heart of Alabama Shakes. When heard live that voice makes the vinyl recording sound rather ordinary and, good-as-she-is with guitar and there is no doubt about that either, live the band is tight as hell.
Live music probably doesn't get much better than this but please feel free to prove me wrong.

Summer Festivals 2012 - Deer Shed 3

I recently became aware of the fact there is that a whole lot about my experiences at festivals during the summer of 2012 that I have never mentioned. I think that I shall commence the remedy starting with Deer Shed Festival 3, Baldersby Park, North Yorkshire in mid-July. Before I start on the music the food stalls were amazing. When I find the card, I know it is somewhere just around where I am now, I shall name and fame the stall that sells the best pork pies in the world, ever: Sorry, Melton Mowbray.
I was listening to Simon Raymonde's show on amazingradio.co.uk this evening and it included a live session with, originally Southampton-based, four-piece Pale Seas and they are good even though they have yet to release their first album.

Pale Seas on the '(Far from the) Lake Stage' at Deer Shed Festival 2012.

Things beckon for them in 2013 much as happened a couple of years ago to this band that met at Cardiff University and then discovered that their planned career paths might need a slight rethink.

 Los Campesinos! on the 'Main Stage' at Deer Shed Festival 2012.

This was a band that I had long wanted to see live and one that certainly didn't disappoint. In fact nothing about this festival was a disappointment. It was also phenomenally family friendly so here is a picture or two of that aspect to finish this post.

This was free for kids to decorate before, once complete, it was floated in a pond.

In the main arena, Saturday afternoon.

Here We Go Magic - the internet and poster art.

In its strange way the internet has revived band art - and never more so than that for gig posters. Even in the heyday of bill-sticking you would have been unlikely to find this pair, although they are for gigs by the same band less taking place less than a week apart, side by side.

On the subject of Here We Go Magic please consider the band and the album 'A Different Ship', released by independent label Secretly Canadian, to be in the category of new music that has captured my attention of late and in this case mainly due to the ministrations of Amazing Radio.

EOTR 2012 - Thoughts on new music...

One thing that really appeals to me about End of The Road Festival is the chances it offers to see new music. I mean that - new - in a variety of senses; some of it simply entirely new to me, some new to me live and some about which I am aware (or was aware of) but have subsequently forgotten to follow up.
I really haven't any preconceptions about how this post will unfold, hence this preamble!  I'm not even sure how or where to start. Indeed I have only written this in order to commit myself to actually writing it...
I'm going to have my dinner first and then, somehow or other, get going on this. One thing that is quite certain is that it simply won't work in any festival time-line way.
This is what I decided to start with and for a rather strange reason - listening to a 2010 UK modern-folk album 'One Light Is Gone' by Josienne Clarke.  The reason being that when I heard Hurray For The Riff Raff (live, it so happened) for the first time it had the same impact that hearing the aforementioned album did: that is the admonition-to-self  - "WTF?  Why didn't I already know about this?"

  

Hurray For The Riff Raff, Woods Stage, EOTR 2012 at 12:00, Sunday.

Suffice to say it was 'one of those moments' and that this is another band that I saw twice at EOTR 2012. I promptly purchased the 2012 album 'Look Out Mama', to which I am listening while writing. On reflection there are not many times that I have consciously found myself trying to work out lyrics to songs that I'm listening to live and hearing for the first time. When it happens three times, pertaining to totally different acts in the space of three days, it is becoming something of an addiction! It is likely to define the rest of this post.
It became no secret that Alynda Lee Segarra and her band much prefer playing small venues in the early hours but the pictures above were both taken on the outdoor main stage just after mid-day...

OK folks. Fourteen hours later, on the Tipi Stage, 2am Monday!

  

If you think the story of the evolution of Hurray For The Riff Raff is convoluted than it is easily exceeded by that of the next...

Kai Welch and Abigail Washburn opening The Garden Stage on Saturday.

Bluegrass tunes, but sometimes ones with Mandarin Chinese lyrics.

  

This one was a case in point.

Whilst she explained the bones of how this apparently odd but actually extremely likeable combination, at least to my ears, came about there is a fuller history to be found here.

The article finishes like this...

" [She played] a recently written murder ballad, her delicate frame dwarfed by the surreal dimensions of the cello banjo.

"It's a cut that didn't make the album [City of Refuge] because the producer thought it was too morbid," she explains. "But all the old-time tunes have a female victim. I thought 'How about writing a song which gives the girl a gun for a change?' "

  

She did not have the 'cello banjo at EOTR but she played the song nevertheless, with Kai Welch on acoustic guitar and backing vocals, and the whole set was a highlight of the weekend - if only one amongst many. That only goes to show just how strong and yet diverse End Of The Road Festival actually is.

Bella Union is 15 (Part 2) - EOTR 2012

It has certainly taken me a little longer than I intended to put this, the second half of my account of Friday at End Of The Road Festival (EOTR), together but my ambition increased as I was writing the first part and I decided to include some stuff about bands that were performing but that for reasons of clashes I was unable to catch on August 31 but have had the good fortune to see live at other recent festivals.
I am indeed going to start with one of them, London four-piece 'Veronica Falls', fronted by Roxanne Clifford that appeared on the Big Top Stage at 20:30 on Friday (whilst I was watching 'The Low Anthem' on The Garden Stage).
Here they are performing at the first No Direction Home Festival at Welbeck Abbey back in June this year - a festival that has the same team as EOTR behind it.

  

They were excellent then, notably including several new songs not on the album, and I heard similarly good reports about their more recent performance at End Of The Road.

    

The act that had preceded them on this stage at EOTR was the Swedish electro-gaze duo of Fredrik Balck and Maria Lindén, with bass and drums for the live gig, otherwise known as 'I Break Horses' and touring their 2011 début album 'Hearts'. It proved to be a quite fascinating dichotomy. Whilst on the recorded version, to which I am listening as I write this, the music is really rather soothing and fittingly autumnal - evoking mists and mellow fruitfulness - the same proposition live is by turns squally and unpredictable; decidedly that of the darker side of autumn, of gales and lashing rain but also sudden, striking glimpses of the sun. Given the recent renewed interest in releasing live albums, which really ought to be the basis of a future post, this would certainly be an interesting prospect.

'I Break Horses', The Big Top Stage, EOTR 2012 performing Winter Beats.

  

The first Bella Union act to grace a stage on Friday was a four piece from Oklahoma that, in terms of live music certainly, was quite new to me. I was impressed...

'Horse Thief' live on the Big Top Stage at about 11:55 on Friday morning.

So good in fact that one way and another I saw them play two complete sets within the same calendar day - and there aren't very many acts or artists about which I can say that.

As for the next band what can I say? It is the third time I have seen them live at EOTR in four years... It is of course 'The Low Anthem'...

On the Garden Stage, where else, at 20:20 on Friday.

  

Then came the really big decision. 'Midlake ' headlining The Garden Stage at 21:45 or 'Beach House' doing that duty on the Woods Stage from 21:30. This was for me one of the easier decisions of the day and there was no chance that it would be anything other than watching all of one or all of the other. I have seen 'Midlake' twice live but never Baltimore's 'Beach House'...

'Beach House', The Woods Stage at EOTR 2012 at 22:03 Friday evening.

        

This was one set, of only a few, where I had no particular interest in being right at the front --- for me it was almost entirely about the music performed live and it certainly did not disappoint.

When they came off stage, at about 11pm, there came the realization that it was now 11 hours of live music today and with four hours more still to go - and then to do it all over again for the next two days.

Bella Union is 15 (Part 1) - EOTR 2012

Once upon a time, decades ago and when all was good in the world, there were record labels (remember those things) that you could rely on. I mean that in the sense that if they were on your list of labels to 'like' you could trust that a new release would be at the very least likeable and most possibly lovable even if totally unheard?
Why would one worry about the Iron Curtain, The Cold War or 'mutually assured destruction' when you have a comforting blanket like that?  Or indeed the anti-war artists nibbling at the mainstream... be it in response to events in Malaya, Korea, Vietnam or simply part of a vision of utopia? 
Well, while we haven't reached our panacea yet though the signs are not as poor as some might believe, at least we've got dependable labels back and that is a damn good start.
One of them, Bella Union, is fifteen now and its teenage birthday party was the Friday of End Of The Road Festival 2012 across all four music stages with bands from the Bella Union family. Like all the best parties it started rather early and finished rather late...

Here, on the Garden Stage at around 1pm, is Mountain Man.

Traffic issues, associated with The Dorset Steam Fair apparently, meant they arrived just in the nick of time and without any kit. They borrowed this guitar, that they had never seen before, and promptly nicknamed it 'The Cadillac' - for its white lacquer and shiny chrome fittings...
Suffice it to say that it was not what they would have chosen.

After this start you just knew that it was going to be a remarkable day.

  

Flitting between the various stages at End of The Road is happily very quick and easy to do so off we go to the tented Tipi Stage.  In this case there is a real problem... I didn't take enough pictures but here is one of the only two that I did.

Hannah Cohen, The Tipi Stage @ EOTR 2012.

Another Bella Union artist and her début album 'Child Bride' is quite something. The thing about Bella Union artists, however, is that they are unfailingly good when performing live.
Bella Union does not however just help new artists on the way by releasing their first album... indeed it only signed this one for her second, 'Time Traveller' (2011), although at 22 she is hardly an old-timer. I saw her live at Truck Festival last year, performing with a band, and am now of the opinion that she is better live as a solo artist as here for the band tended to overwhelm the purposefully-fragile beauty of her song-writing and never more so would it be true than of the brand new songs that she essayed last Friday. This really is Alessi in Wonderland and (the prospect of) album #3 is a reason to continue living.
  

Alessi's Ark (Alessi Laurent Marke)  on the Tipi Stage @ 15:05 Friday, August 31.
  

This next artist however, although only recently added to the Bella Union rôster, released his first solo album when I was just a toddler! That, and the next two, have recently been re-released on Bella Union and to go with it he has returned to live touring. He is one of the legendary American songwriters and, as it happens, also a gifted raconteur between those songs.

Van Dyke Parks - Garden Stage @ EOTR 2012, about 17:15 on Friday.

  

This of course just a part of the party and then only those bits of it that, being unable to be in more than one place at a time, I chose to see! Part 2 of that which I saw of the party will follow tomorrow.

New music for autumn? Just go find...

It's not difficult, nor is it illegal, to find new music...
Here, therefore, is my choice for today and it has nothing whatsoever to do with End Of The Road Festival this weekend just gone.

It is the second album by Seattle-based trio Seapony.

At least for the moment you can legally stream it here and I just thought that I'd give it a shout-out. It is most remarkable for what it is not.

Now explain this...

It is what live music is really about: 02:40 BST on September 3, 2012.
They are as thick as thieves.