Here's another little sneaky listen. I have been waiting upon this LP for some time if I'm to be quite honest.
Inspired by a number of inquiries over time, this is a start on answering that question and perhaps it will also provide an insight (for I am not entirely sure about this myself) into the means by which this comes about. One thing that I am sure about is that I have no science, and certainly no formula, for this. The vagaries of each individual human mind are at least for now still way beyond that level of analysis - and indeed I hope they long remain so.
Curiosity, serendipity and sometimes (possibly skewed) memories are the watchwords here. Of course a modest physical music collection allied to the vast resources now available via streaming help with this.
Many of the artists below I have mentioned before; what lead me to choose them for this list and in this order is not remotely clear to me except to say that "it seemed to make sense". There is one thing that I do know and it is that the search for music, new or simply new to me, is addictive:
It is likely nothing other than the advantage of the perspective provided by middle-age, as applied to the teenage-pastime of compiling cassette mix-tapes, combined with the advances in technology that have made the creation and sharing such things possible in a way that at the former time we would never have believed would be possible in our own lifetime.
If you don't like my choices then that is just fine by me and I am always open to comment and criticism. If anyone finds something hereby that leads them into pastures new then that is everything that I could hope for. This is quite simply music I like at the moment and, starting point and a couple of others aside, of fairly recent vintage. I'm minded that 'An anthology of songs #3' will be a retrospective affair by comparison.
Playlists are like blogging in many ways in that they are is widely available (if you are in a 'free' country and that is a proviso that I much regret that I need to mention). If "shared" social media that has no trace of of that individual's user-generated content, or even their comments on material by others, riles (or roils) then you should do something about it.
Write, publish, use the Oxford comma, and be damned!
I just snagged my ears on this courtesy of NPR. It's getting towards bedtime but I couldn't resist listening and posting. It is not entirely like the music that, as a teen-aged performer, she became known for. See what you think.
Well, now that I'm thinking about festivals in 2016, this memory from Green Man 2015 is worth all the rain and more.
I wandered away from the Mountain stage during a lull in proceedings and took this image of folk making the best of a soggy day whilst on my way...
One day in 2014 three songwriters met in a coffee shop in East Nashville. They had not met before but they wrote a song called Applewood Road.
Shortly afterwards the three - Amber Rubarth, Amy Speace and Emily Barker - recorded it and decided to expand the project to a whole LP. In 2015 they had written the whole set and returned to the same place where they recorded that first song. This is that record and what you get is three part harmony and sparse acoustic accompaniment.
It is the end of the first full working week of 2016 and for that I am thankful. I opened my mailbox on my return home and behind the weekly Domino Pizza flyer, that went straight into the recycling box as always, lurked a small padded envelope. Today had just taken another turn for the better!
Dispatched from the interesting independent label Paradigms Recordings, based in Kent, UK was this.
There is so much 'new music' to be discovered and it is easy to make comparisons that are unwarranted. Then there is the deadly 'genre' debate.
It is not something that I'm inclined to visit anyway but this is one album that tempts me towards that trap even less than most. The best thing is to keep your ears, and your mind, open to all possibilities and see what comes along.
Right! Here we go again and for the last time specifically concerning 2015.
This is not a list of odds-and-ends, far from it. Two of the LPs in this list have appeared near the top of many lists, proffered by major news outlets and suchlike, that are supposedly arranged in some order of merit. That consensus approach is not the way I work. All these lists are about what I liked and in particularly the impact that it had on me.
I mentioned yesterday that I would conclude my lists of 2015 shortly. I am to do that now. While I was writing yesterday it occurred to me that perhaps there are good reasons to move such activities to the very end of the calendar year as I intended or even, as it has turned out, the very start of the new one. The rules here are exactly the same as with 'Part 1':
Welcome to 2016 and the end of a drought in posts here. 2015 saw me writing more and more often than for some time and so a couple of weeks away seemed to be in order. One of the things I have discovered over time is the longer the time that I do not write for the harder it is to get started once again. The hardest post of all was the very first. I guess that is why I'm still here 1084 posts later and in the tenth year of 'Thoughts on music'.
Plenty of listening has been done however and some new thoughts are ready to be written down. That is after some unfinished business in regards of those lists of 2015.
It is true that 2015 was the year in which I embraced streaming in a big way. That is not to say that I have abandoned physical formats. This is now rather focussed on supporting new artists, often via crowd funding or otherwise buying music direct from the artist.
Not everything is available to stream although it might seem that way. Even if it were I think that I would still want this LP for real. This is one of my treasures of 2015. USPS took most of the money to get it from NYC to Frome!
After weeks of listmania it is time for a change. All the time spent thinking about my own lists and more recently reading those by others and listening to things thereupon that have piqued my curiosity have, when combined with the infinitely grey and gloomy weather of late, persuaded me to look for things away from the mainstream both new and old (sometimes both at the same time).
What transpired has several catalysts, one being my liking for bluegrass and things derived at least in part from it. If it includes some Appalachian old-time fiddle and banjo, or gypsy influences then that is not bad thing either. Neither is a foundation in the UK and Irish folk sound for that matter.
Here we are again, just over a week after my first foray on this subject. The rules are the same as in Part 1. I hope you find something to like or to argue about.
Critical comments are quite as welcome as positive ones just so long they are not offensive or defamatory. A fact is that a credited post always has more gravitas than an anonymous one and that applies even if the content of both were to be exactly the same. I reserve the right to publish comments on this post and will credit them accordingly.
Not wishing to get into a debate about what is or is not an EP this category is something of a cop-out. That does however leave an open question concerning quite when does a mini-album become a full-blown LP. In so far as is possible I use the distinction that the artist chooses and if that is indiscernible then I make the decision myself.
In the new order this is however one of the most interesting places in which to dwell: just ten years ago who could have foreseen that the then moribund concept of the EP would find a whole new meaning - whether that be digital only, on CD, vinyl or now increasingly so also cassette. The list is, as usual, alphabetical by artist:
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'Songs for Anyone', which will be released on the estimable Clubhouse Records in January, is the second solo LP released by Paul McClure, the self-styled Rutland Troubadour. This is a rather appropriate moniker for, while the UK as a whole is small in comparison to some US states, I'd wager that a large part of the UK population couldn't describe with any certainty where Rutland lies in our little island.
This has been run since 2012 as a companion to the BBC Sound Of 2016. It takes a different perspective on seeking the same sort of information and sentiment. Rather than explain the background to this I shall refer you to enabler-in-chief Robin Seamer of Breaking More Waves.
I have had the pleasure to participate in this poll once again and the long-list of fifteen acts was revealed (in alphabetical order) today. I am not allowed to reveal my nominations and I'm not even going to say if any of the three featured in the list. The publisher included a one-sentence resumé of each and so I felt it was incumbent on me to offer a slightly different perspective:
So, with December 2015 almost upon us, it is time to kick off the season-of-lists. I'm not really convinced how important this all is despite the fact that so many of us take part in it. My rather simple reason is that it helps me take stock of the year and also that I rather enjoy putting the effort into doing the same.
I was going to keep this back for the start of December but since it was essentially complete I thought that I would share it now.
There are no systemic changes from last year. The acts in each list are grouped in alphabetical order and the number of entries in each list is ten. There is no attempt to 'rank' acts in each list, or indeed between lists (there will be at least three such lists of LPs). One thing that has changed not a jot is the influence that music I have seen live during 2015 or previously has had on the overall outcome but then perhaps remarkably there are actually four in this list that I have never seen live. Needless to say all those are very much in my sights in 2016.
By this time of year I would usually be a dozen, perhaps more, posts into music forthcoming next year. That I am not is not a reflection on the lack of music, nor even on my ability to spot it coming. It is rather more a necessity borne of the sheer quantity of new music I have been introduced to in 2015. Of that more soon.
When she appeared on these shores in 2010 after a couple of very promising EPs, with début album 'Catching A Tiger' in tow, Lissie Maurus found a UK audience surprisingly receptive to her particular brand of alt-country inspired guitar rock. She and the band started playing tiny UK dive pubs and ended an eventually much extended tour with a headline gig at Shepherds Bush Empire that was recorded and released on DVD. The album was top 10 in the UK and certified 'gold' by BPI. It was followed in 2013 by a sequel 'Back to Forever', also on Colombia. I for one never got to like this as much as 'Catching a Tiger'. It was, in some ways, a little flat - it seems as if something or somebody had ironed out the quirks that made her so likeable to start with. Now we get to LP #3 and some speculation on my part as I haven't heard very much of it yet.
I'm still here and still very much listening, watching, and reading too. The lists seem to start earlier each year, or maybe that is just me becoming older each year. On the other hand, if I'm honest I actually start thinking about them at the time I first go to an outdoor festival, so late June!
I've looked through a few already and, with mine in more-or-less in the bag now but they will not be revealed until about the start of December, the common ground and the contrasts are interesting to me and in some cases rather surprising.
In the meantime here are two playlists, each about the length of a typical CD album, that compile some of my favourite songs of 2015:
This mini-album has been bubbling under the surface since its US release back in early June. It is finally getting some exposure this side of the pond thanks to the recent release of 'Me and Johnny Cash' as a single and to promote that Rainey was live on RTÉ in Ireland to kick things off.
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