New Music 2016 - Part 37 - Lydia Loveless - Real

OK. Here I go again - there's no rest for the wicked!
Or, for that matter, the followers of those independent record labels that really matter so much once again. Here is the latest from just one such, and the welcome return of a very significant artist with her third (or fourth, maybe) LP.

Lydia Loveless - Real (Bloodshot Records, BS239, 19 August 2016).

Lydia Loveless - Real:

• Same to You
• Longer
• More Than Ever
• Heaven
• Out On Love
• Midwestern Guys
• Bilbao
• European
• Clumps
• Real

'Longer' is the first track from the album to be revealed:

Somewhere Else (2014) was a fine album, indeed it still is. There is, however, no reason to suppose that it was the high-water mark of Lydia Loveless' career or ambition. She has kept the same core musicians again and also producer Joe Viers. The album was recorded in Columbus, OH.

It may even be too 'real' for some folks' taste. She has never been shy of unlovely images, or raising awkward subjects, and it looks like they are here aplenty; that's just how it rolls. 

Live - Life in the Great Western Saloon.

This is the promised sequel to my earlier post concerning the Great Western Saloon Bar stage at Truck Festival 2016. It took a bit longer to do than I had planned but ain't that just the way...  I intend to mention, if only with links, all the acts that I did not mention in the previous post. It's increasingly looking as though that ambition will require more than this post to achieve!
This looks like a particularly interesting prospect: The Lavens is a five-piece from St. Antonio, Texas and is a band that consists of members of the same extended family. It is certainly not very widely known in the UK:

The Lavens live at The Cove, San Antonio, TX.

Now things get really complicated.
Brighton-based The Raving Beauties does exist, it is signed to At The Helm Records, but started life as a wholly fictional band; the only reason that it exists is the result of the vivid imagination of a writer. Having published the story to some acclaim it seemed a logical step to create the act retrospectively, and so it happened.

Oh Lover - The Raving Beauties (2013/2015).

It's not my desire to retell the story of a story of a story. [I have deliberately kept the sources visible in such cases, in part to fully credit them].
The link below starts with the author explaining the reason for the origin of the written work of fiction:

http://sabotagetimes.com/music/raving-beauties-interviewed-undeniably-kind-tribute-certain-60s-bands

The final result was this recorded work of eleven songs packed into just 30 minutes of playing time. The reviews are solid too:
https://www.americana-uk.com/cdreviews/item/the-raving-beauties-the-raving-beauties


Now we shall get to see it played live.

The Raving Beauties - (At The Helm Records, 28 August 2015).

I intend to be there, inside the iron shed that is the Great Western Saloon Bar, on 16 July, to see how this plays out in an intimate live setting. It's quite clearly going to take several more posts to cover all of this! Will I even be able to tear myself away to visit the other stages?

New Music 2016 - Part 36 - Joanne Shaw Taylor - Wild

Let's just get straight to the point here. This is what this post is about.

Joanne Shaw Taylor - Wild (30 September 2016, Axehouse Records).

This is the playlist:

• Dyin’ To Know
• Ready To Roll
• Get You Back
• No Reason To Stay
• Wild Is The Wind
• Wanna Be My Lover
• I’m In Chains
• I Wish I Could Wish You Back
• My Heart’s Got A Mind Of Its Own
• Nothin’ To Lose
• Summertime

I don't know quite what it sounds like but suffice to say that when I saw her play live (once again) a few months back the omens were good. Very good indeed. This is her fifth studio album and the second to be released on her own independent label Axehouse Records; so take it as read that she has a fine sense of what she wants her music to sound like and who would be the people to work with in order to make that happen.

If you don't believe me then see this piece:

http://teamrock.com/news/2016-06-07/joanne-shaw-taylor-next-blues-superstar-producer-kevin-shirley 

Of course no record producer, it is Kevin Shirley in this case, would seek to undermine their own work or that of the artist that has employed them. On the other hand this, coming as it does more than three months before the recording is released, is a considerable departure from the normal state of things: Muted expressions of understanding, of shared values and so on are the most one usually hears. If one hears if anything at all that is and even when one does it comes from the artist more often than not. I for one am hoping that he is right.
Any which way Joanne Shaw Taylor is a phenomenal live artist and she is touring widely in support of 'Wild'. That is something you need to experience.

New Music 2016 - Part 35 - Kelsey Waldon - I've Got A Way

Before I continue with my thoughts concerning the Saloon Bar stage at Truck Festival 2016 I have decided to mention an artist that is not playing there or indeed anywhere else in the UK in so far as I can currently discover.
This was prompted when today Kelsey Waldon announced a few details of her second album. I decided that, since I had not specifically mentioned the first, it was high time to look at both. This is the forthcoming one:

Kelsey Waldon - I've Got A Way (self released, 12 August 2016).

The previous one is this:

Kelsey Waldon - The Gold Mine (self released, 24 June 2014).

There is a great deal going on in this territory just now. The thing is that this seems to be a community of artists, based in East Nashville and elsewhere, that are determined to push for recognition but on their own terms. I can't see that this can be anything other than for the good.
The first track from 'I've Got A Way' is 'All By Myself' and here it is:

I also need to find a live video from 'The Gold Mine' LP.

If you want me I'll be in the bar...

Another attempt to write a post about a road-trip through music has just been cunningly subverted, this time by a festival announcement. As for the title, it's just a case of me with apologies to Joni.
For all that I shall start with the artists and the LP that I was intending to start with anyway.

This album has been out in the US for a while now but is released in the UK very shortly and there is a tour in the offing too. It should be clear that we are on a trip and that we are starting in California. Or at least this outfit is.

Speedbuggy USA - South of Bakersfield (Wagon Wheel Records, 2015).

The four-piece are purveying the Bakersfield sound of Californian country rock that grew up in counterpoint to the increasingly highly polished and produced sounds emanating from Nashville in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This music is definitely the concern of ordinary, blue-collar folk.  They are coming to a small festival that takes place on a farm in Oxfordshire, England in July. It is rather appropriately called Truck Festival. Those trucks may run on rails as in this, taken from 'South of Bakersfield'. Speedbuggy USA plays Truck Festival on Sunday 17 July.

In fact this trip through music is defined only by the end-point of the various journeys and that is a single small stage - The Great Western Saloon Bar - at the above mentioned gathering. The starting points vary wildly and indeed some of the artists have already been mentioned in these pages. Here is the full schedule.

Applewood Road headline on Friday. Top of the bill on Saturday is BJ Barham, perhaps better known as the on-going lead singer and songwriter for American Aquarium. This is his solo side project that includes the soon-to-be-released LP 'Rockingham'. Robert Chaney, whom I mentioned with regard to his album 'Cracked Picture Frame' early last year, is a must-see as far as I am concerned. In fact there is nothing that I don't want to see, whether I have seen that act or artist live before or have not! Indeed, and as well as the above, at the very least these six have already been mentioned by me specifically in regards to LP releases: The Black Feathers, Danni Nicholls, Delta Bell, Redlands Palomino Company, The Rosellys, Paul McClure. I know quite a bit about them. I have seen Stevie Ray Latham live too, I think, but I need to look into that.
What interests me now is all the rest of the artists on the above list; many of which I know little or nothing about. There is no point whatsoever in going to festivals just to see acts that one is already well aware of.
What I dig up about this will form the second part of this post.

A meander through music...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Music 2016 - Part 34 - The Honeycutters - On The Ropes

I would stay up all night to write about this. This is cognisant music of the most perfect kind. It wasn't for no good reason that their last long-player 'Me Oh My' was on my list of Albums of 2015 - Part 1.
This is the follow-up to that and I am pleased to say the band has made no drastic changes. That certain predictability - the idea that while circumstances may change, for better or for worse, many things will remain much the same and that a gritty determination, and even redemption, will overcome those that don't.

The Honeycutters - On The Ropes (20 May 2016, Organic Records).

• On the Ropes
• Blue Besides
• Golden Child
• The Handbook
• The Only Eyes
• Back Row
• Useless Memories
• Piece of Heaven
• Let's Get Drunk
• 500 Pieces
• Ache
• Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen cover)
• Barmaid's Blues

Jason Isbell is playing Green Man 2016 and Margo Price plays End Of The Road 2016, so that is covered.
If I could wish to see just one more Americana act at a UK festival this summer then The Honeycutters would be it. It's not that this LP is particularly similar in style to those of either of the others and indeed that is a big part of the whole charm of it. They are each happy to plough (sic) their own furrow, however I regard it as an equally noteworthy one.
I have no reason to suspect that given the current mood here in Britain the band would find anything other than a very warm welcome indeed.

This video is for 'Jukebox', which is the opening track on the aforementioned 'Me Oh My'.

It is the perfect match to 'Barmaid's Blues', which is the closing song on 'On the Ropes' and that really matters.

New Music 2016 - Part 33 - Alice Phoebe Lou - Orbit

I listen to and read about far more music than I ever write about. I'm going to make absolutely no secret about why I have chosen this right now. De krenten uit de pop, a blog based in the Netherlands, with which I seem to share more than a little musical affinity, mentioned the South African artist Alice Phoebe Lou and her recent release 'Orbit' only this morning. I knew absolutely nothing at all about any of this but, despite my very sketchy ability to read Dutch (maybe I have a reason to try harder now?) it seemed interesting.
The acid test was of course to listen to it, whilst also trying to find more about the places and influences from where this is coming. It also made me think a bit more about artists from South Africa...
I think that I might have mentioned only one such specifically in the almost 1200 posts that I have published to date and surely that can't be a fair reflection of the situation? That act was Dear Reader, the vehicle of Cherilyn MacNeil, that I saw live at Latitude Festival 2009 and in particular the album 'Replace Why with Funny'. I mentioned that here and clearly I was of the impression that my thoughts about this might have been in the minority though I cannot remember why that was. It's been a long preamble but there is a reason. Why did both artists ultimately choose Berlin?

Alice Phoebe Lou - Orbit (6 May 2016, OMN).

• Girl on an Island
• Society
• Red
• Take Flight
• Haruki
• Walking In The Garden
• Amsterdam
• Orbit
• The City Sleeps

I must say that I am struck by this release on the basis of just a couple of listens. What makes me even more impressed, and it is probably more reliable guidance as regards my impression of where this might be going, is just how this is a reflection of her live performance roots on the streets of European cities. This video of a performance near Warschauer Str. railway station in Berlin is actually two years old now. 

I always have an eye and an ear for live potential. This is just tailor-made for a certain kind of music festival.

New Music 2016 - Part 32 - Hattie Briggs - Young Runaway

When Hattie Briggs' début LP 'Red & Gold' was released in April 2015 I remember thinking that whatever releases the rest of the year was to bring this was sure to remain amongst my favourites. I was quite right and, given the reviews that the album and her live performances have received in the months that followed, many others feel the same way.

Clearly not one to rest on her laurels and a prolific song writer, just as the spring of 2016 was struggling to get going the 'Here's to Hoping EP' came our way.

This consisted of Tilly's Song, the original release of which pre-dates Red & Gold, and three news songs as a taster of a forthcoming LP. This is that record.

Hattie Briggs - Young Runaway (Wise Dog Records, 8 July 2016).

• The Lake
• Lift Me Up
• Here's to Hoping
• On Your Way
• Digging to Australia
• Have We Met Before?
• Castle On the Sand
• Talk To Me
• You Only Live Once
• The River

The ten songs are all new and self-written. 'Red and Gold itself only had a single cover, that being 'Fields of Gold'. The team behind it, including producer Peter Waterman, remains much the same as that featured on the first record. It is however clear that the team had learned a lot during the making of the first.  It shows in a number of ways, from the more intricate use of supporting musicians to the production. The other feature that sets it apart is that it is a set of songs all written over a fairly short period of time. I haven't really listened to it often enough to chose any particular favourites but I suspect that this may not really be possible because, despite countless times of listening, my favourite tracks on 'Red & Gold' tend to be quite mutable depending on the circumstances prevailing at the time.

Whilst I whole-heartedly commend 'Young Runaway' to your attention I very much suggest that you take any opportunity you get to see Hattie Briggs live - be that busking solo, which she often does, or playing with the full band.

New Music 2016 - Part 31 - On Dead Waves

This release has somehow blind-sided me but I'm very excited about it. On Dead Waves is a new act but it combines artists I am much in awe of. It consists of two artists with previous recording histories: James Chapman (as Maps) and Polly Scattergood (as herself).
This is what has happened since they met musically, by dint of performing each the songs of the other, at a showcase at The Roundhouse, Camden, London back in 2011.

On Dead Waves - On Dead Waves (Mute Records, 20 May 2016).

This is the track list:

• Blackbird 
• Never Over
• California
• Hollow
• Alice
• Dead Balloons
• Blue Inside
• Autumn Leaves
• Jupiter
• Winter's Child

The big question, and I'm not minded to make you wait until Friday to find out, is what does this synthesis sound like? I would have been terribly disappointed had the work been unremittingly cheerful.

On Dead Waves.

Red Butler - Frome Blues, Rhythm and Rock Festival

After a break of almost two weeks I am back. I have tried writing posts both 'to order' and from self-imposed obligation and neither has tended to work out well. It seems that it is best not to worry about it and simply to wait until the bug, for that it what it is, bites me again.
It's not that I abandon music in these interstices. It is arguable that quite the opposite is true; in this time I have seen seven bands live and this is one of them.

Sunday, May 8 was the latest edition of Frome Blues, Rhythm and Roots festival. All was good but this was a stand-out for me: of course Corky Laing and Martin Turner were excellent - they are both (in all probability) rather older than the parents of any of the four members of  Brighton's Red Butler! This is their début LP but another is to follow towards the end of the year and they played some tracks from that too. This, together with the fact that it is produced by King King drummer Wayne Proctor, bodes very well indeed.

Red Butler - Freedom Bound (2014, self released).

Red Butler was only the second of the six acts to play that day and received a standing ovation from the otherwise seated audience at the end of their forty-five minute set. That might have been a sign of things to come for, as of this evening (17 May), they are confirmed as one of the six nominations in the category 'Blues Band' at the British Blues Awards 2016. A link to all artists and acts short-listed for all categories is here. 

New Music 2016 - Part 30 - Gill Sandell - Songs Of Our Years

As well as the simple pleasure of putting it together, one of the highlights of writing this blog is getting to listen to some new music before it is widely released. Quite a proportion of the new music that I buy nowadays is a result of pre-ordering direct from the artist, often as part of a crowd-funding campaign. As well as improving the chances of the music seeing the light of day it also means that the highest possible proportion of the purchase price accrues to the artist. Buying music from the artist at live gigs is another route to the same end but in this case the music already has to have been realised physically.

Songs Of Our Years - Gill Sandell (Rowan Tree Records, 6 May 2016).

It comprises twelve tracks, all original songs and also features a number of artists with whom she has performed and worked with previously, including Anna Jenkins and Jo Silverston from The Red Clay Halo on strings, and is released on her own label as were her previous two solo records Tarry Awhile (2010) and Light The Boats (2013) both of which I have mentioned in the past.

New Music 2016 - Part 29 - Kitty Macfarlane - Tide & Time

Whilst I was thinking about that next "road-trip post" --- it's nearly complete, at least conceptually --- I am amazed by how often I get diverted by things that are  local and sometimes actually more immediate.  This is one of them and I chose to say diverted, rather than distracted, for a reason.
Songs about shipping, weather and the possibility of a new Hinkley nuclear power station are all to be found amongst the lyrics on offer here. It has helped me considerably in assigning a better focus to the aforementioned project because it made me think rather more about not just what songs are written about but the possible reason why the subject was chosen for analysis.

Tide & Time EP - Kitty Macfarlane (self-released, 2016).

• Wrecking Days
• Bus Song
• Lamb
• Tide and Time
• Song To The Siren

Four are original songs on which she accompanies her singing with finger-picked guitar. Song To The Siren is a Tim Buckley cover and a song with a history all its own. It is therefore a brave choice to cover and while quite notable it doesn't subsume the other tracks in any way.
His original recorded version appeared on the 1970 album 'Starsailor' but the first artist to release a recording of it was Pat Boone on his 1969 album 'Departure', which was released by Tetragrammaton Records in the US. Tetragrammaton was wound up as a result of insolvency in 1971. Pat Boone has, indeed continues to have, wide appeal in the US but hardly any such in Europe.
The best known version of the song, at least in the UK and as of now, is that by This Mortal Coil and that has a very different treatment to the one on this EP. Tim Buckley did however perform it with The Monkees on TV and in its original folk-like incarnation, on 25 March 1968. This appears on the 2CD 'Morning Glory: The Tim Buckley Anthology' (2001). 

Kitty Macfarlane has recently toured as support for BBC Folk Awards 2016 'Best Duo' winners Sean Lakeman and Kathryn Roberts and she will do so again soon. She is currently supporting Blair Dunlop on many of the dates of his ongoing UK tour including 'The Plough', Torrington, Devon (30 April 2016) and Marnhull Acoustic Sessions, North Dorset (1 May 2016).

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

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

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

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

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

New Music 2016 - Part 27 - Tim Heidecker - In Glendale

I've been thinking about putting up another post that is a road-trip or rail-trip through music. It's an idea that I like and I enjoyed figuring-out the first one but then again it was pretty spontaneous. Ideas and the music to go with them I am not short of. There is no doubt at all about that. There are only three significant matters remaining undetermined; the starting point, the destination and the itinerary. I guess I need a little more time working on that project. It isn't something that I can't conjure up on demand and trying only makes the problem worse.

That neatly brings me to this. A project complete, except for its release to an expectant world, and a project more-or-less about a single place. Tim Heidecker is a comedian by trade and this is his first foray into "serious" music. That might sound alarm bells for many but in this case it shouldn't.
This is his semi-serious take on life, family and anything else (not all of it pleasant) in and around their home in California.

In Glendale - Tim Heidecker (Rado Records, 20 May 2016).

• In Glendale
• Cleaning Up The Dog Shit
• Work From Home
• Ghost In My Bed
• Good Looking Babies
• When The Cash Runs Out
• I Dare You To Watch Me Sleep
• Central Air
• I Saw Nicolas Cage
• Ocean's Too Cold

Rado Records is an imprint, under the Jagjaguwar label, curated by Jonathan Rado of Foxygen. Whatever the sound, and it is mostly indie rock here, music doesn't get much more independent-minded than this.
In a sense Tim Heidecker has a parallel in Courtney Barnett: they are contemplating similar conundrums and the resulting decisions but starting from quite different points of view.

Without comment: The European Question.

When The Common Market Comes To Stanton Drew:

Folks say nowadays we've got to change our ways,
The papers say so, so I s'pose 'tis true,
We've got to take the chance, with Germany and France,
And live like all they foreign people do.
Now, I wonder if they'll build the Eiffel Tower on 'arptree 'ill,
Put gondolas down on the River Chew,
Shall us all drive on the right, and drink up all the night-
When the Common Market comes to Stanton Drew?

Some folks seem to think, we'll 'ave to change our drink,
There's rumours flyin', so I s'pose 'tis right,
They say they've seen a tank of Portuguese vin blanc,
Jammed up in t'High Street t'other night.
They say that port and brandy will sell for £1 a quart,
And the Druids Arms won't close till ver' nigh two,
And we'll all drink caviar from a girt big cider jar,
When the Common Market comes to Stanton Drew!

Now, as for what we eat, we must export more meat,
Send 'em all our best prime beef and ham,
While we does stuff our guts with Transylvanian nuts
And garlic-flavoured processed German spam!
When George comes home from milkin', he'll get a big surprise,
When 'e sits down expectin' Irish stew,
And 'is wife says "George, I'll get 'ee, a girt dollop of spaghetti,"
When the Common Market comes to Stanton Drew!

When the market-time comes round, down the pub we'll all be found
Jammin' up the public bar all day
And you won't get through the doors, for Messieurs and Senors
Arguin' about the price of summer hay.
With Timsbury full of Belgians, and Radstock full of Dutch,
The Paulton farmer won't know what to do,
And you might see Acker Bilk advertisin' Pensford milk,
When the Common Market comes to Stanton Drew!

In the evenin' times I s'pose, we'll sip of our vin rose,
Just like they do in the Argentine
And we'll watch they foreign blokes, with their girt big 'ats and cloaks,
Flamingo-in down on the village green.
We'll 'ave to watch our wenches when they dark-eyed lads gets here,
And the local boys'll 'ave to form a queue,
They'll say "Ooh la la, oui oui," instead of "How's bist thee?"
When the Common Market comes to Stanton Drew.
When the Common Market comes to Stanton Drew
When the Common Market comes to Stanton Drew!

Adge Cutler and The Wurzels (1973)

New Music 2016 - Part 26 - 9Bach - Anian

There is so much interesting music that is being released in the UK at the moment that I often find it hard where to start and what to choose. This one wasn't difficult to include. It's the third LP from North Wales' 9Bach and follows on from Tincian (2014). Once again, although sung entirely in Welsh, its musical influences go far beyond that - particularly in the direction of Greek, Balkan and near Middle Eastern traditions. In comparison with its predecessor it is also more outward looking in terms of time as well as place. That is not to say that what Lisa Jên articulates here is optimistic. It isn't and it is often rather challenging. Anian means nature and, because Welsh is economical and subtly nuanced in its use of words, also related concepts like natural order, morality and such.
If you find modern mainstream chart music rather bland, repetitive and commercial what's not to like?

Anian is released by Real World Records on 29 April 2016 in the UK.

It was recorded with the same musicians as Tincian, but the process and resultant mood is very different. This is the track list:

• Llyn Du
• Anian
• Yr Olaf
• Ifan
• Si Hwi Hwi
• Cyfaddefa
• Brain
• Heno
• Deryn

The first track to be released is Llyn Du (Black Lake) and the video is all shot in the Glyderau, North Wales.

New Music - Part 25 - Half Deaf Clatch - Simple Songs For These Complicated Times

Well what can I say?
It seems no time since I was writing about Half Deaf Clatch and the 2015 LP The Life and Death of A.J Rail. My memory isn't failing me here, I'm pleased to say, even though it was barely longer than a month back.
That was based on seeing Half Deaf Clatch live in Frome somewhat earlier when he also mentioned the possibility of a forthcoming EP, 'The Apocalypse Blues'. Well you can forget that idea. It has been has now taken on an entirely new dimension as a ten song LP.

Half Deaf Clatch - Simple Songs For These Complicated Times (self-released, 11 May 2016).

No frippery is evident in the song titles:

• The Hush Blues
• The Blinkered Blues
• The Apocalypse Blues
• The River Blues
• The Undertow Blues
• The Exodus Blues
• The Lost Blues
• The Struggle Blues
• The Countdown Blues
• The Elysian Blues

Just acoustic blues.
Added 16 April 2016: Here is an archive-based video, to accompany 'Apocalypse Blues', that draws on footage of nuclear weapon tests. Added 16 May 2016: Now the recognition of this is spreading across the Atlantic, as this review demonstrates: http://www.musicnewsnashville.com/half-deaf-clatch-simple-songs-complicated-times/

Why Bristol matters and other thoughts...

I have issues with Bristol. I lived there from early 1990 until late 1995.
I shall try and explain that statement elliptically, in the context of two recent releases.
The first and most recent of these is the third full length from Bristol-based multi-instrumentalist Laura Kidd; it follows Disarm (2010) and Little Battles (2012).

Direction of Travel - She Makes War (The State 51 Conspiracy, 8 April 2016).

Attempt to place Direction of Travel in a pigeonhole at your own peril. It is dark-edged but often rather uplifting. The opening track 'Drown Me Out' starts with a portentious drum figure. The lyrics are uncompromising and unsettling too; that's just the opening salvo. Even a megaphone is not unknown. 

Elements of pop, grunge, folk and electronica, as well as vocal loops, slither in-and-out like Medusa's serpents and with a coterminous unpredictability. 

The one thing that this most certainly is not is comedy for, as she says herself:

She Makes War... because love is a battlefield.

The video to Paper Thin was shot in Boston and New York, February 2016.

To follow this might appear to be something of a problem. That it is not so is the result of a complete oversight on my part!

This next album should probably have been included in my selection of 'Albums of 2015'. Better late than never, I suppose, and again I will make no effort to put the content in any neat little box. Bristol, Brighton and Plymouth are involved here too.

On The Inside - Wildflowers (Caroline International, 28 August 2015).

A trio comprising sisters Siddy and Kit Bennett, and Joe Ashbury, On The Inside is their first full length release. One quote, regarding life on the south coast of England where Siddy Bennett lived between the ages of ten and sixteen, is really rather interesting.

I had a magical childhood, but Plymouth changes a person.

Taken from the album this is 100 Personalities recorded live at The Crypt Sessions, 4 April 2016.

New Music 2016 - Part 24 - Julianna Barwick - Will

I seem to have posted a large run of 'New Music' posts just recently. Here is yet another and a sneak preview. I've been listening to this on repeat this evening simply because I can and I wish to do so.

Will is released by Dead Oceans in North America and Europe on 6 May 2016.

It follows her 2013 LP Nepenthe, which I mentioned briefly, and is her third full length recording. I'm minded to think that is is also the one that I might come to like the best. I have seen her play live too, at End Of The Road Festival 2013, and that aspect certainly comes highly recommended. She is confirmed to play at Green Man Festival 2016 so that is an opportunity I intend to take. The other thing that I have been doing is listening to it some more, from start to finish and now several times. I'm not as a rule much inclined to pick a couple of stand-out tracks unless of course I feel them to be all that is of-note on offer and here that is not any concern of mine.
I suppose you might attribute this to my pre-digital roots when there were only two things available - the singles or the album purchased in its entirety.

Here is the track listing:

Julianna Barwick - Will:

• St. Apolonia
• Nebula
• Beached
• Same
• Wist
• Big Hollow
• Heading Home
• Someway
• See, Know

Beautiful, dreamy and led by keyboards, it's going to take a small and intimate stage setting to show this at its best live - unless of course she has a grand 'Plan B' to reveal, which is quite possible at least in principle.
At End of The Road 2013 she played the Tipi stage with just understated electric guitar, courtesy of Scott Powell, as accompaniment beyond her own keyboards.

Here she is back then at EOTR 2013. The Walled Garden stage at Green Man 2016 would work perfectly.

Whilst I have nothing live to offer from the new album here is an extended live set recorded at KEXP in Seattle a couple of months later:

Julianna Barwick live at KEXP, Seattle - November 22, 2013.