I Speak Because I Can - Laura Marling

Here it is at last:

It includes 'Alpha Shallows' and 'Goodbye England (Covered In Snow)' which, if you are a fan of 7" vinyl, you will recognise from that format.

I've just listened to it all for the first time, twice back-to back, and the result is oddly as damning as it is a revelation. The album is quite remarkable and yet I should have known that this kind of music could be so rooted in time and simultaneously so fresh.

There are two sides to this observation: I now think I could be better versed in the first wave of new-folk, realized well before she was born and 'Rambling Man' is a case in point; and I'm now acutely aware that this is not something in isolation here in the UK but rather that it lies on a wider plane.

I could find out about a new artist of this genre every few days without trying, which makes me think that this summer's festivals could be very interesting indeed and more on that soon, but equally I now know I need to listen to the classics of the first blooming that have to some extent passed me by. Joni Mitchell is one that comes to mind but I can think of plenty of others...

It is not that the new generation necessarily sounds like them, rather it is the influence and the ethos that matter.

I Tried To Do Hand-stands For You...

It is time for some new 'thoughts', more lyrics and a whole lot of new music, but I tend to fail on the vaulting of my ambition.

The most evident utensil

Is nothing but a pencil

and, from different tracks on the same album...

Permanently black and blue

Permanently blue for you.

All the garbage that you have thrown away

Is waiting somewhere a million miles away.

Your condoms and your VCR

Zip-lok bags and your father's car

Dark and silent, wait for you, yea-hey

And so much garbage will never ever decay.

And just four hints for now:

Esben and The Witch

iLiKETRAiNS - album #2

The Joy Formidable - album #2

Blood Red Shoes - Fire Like This

...and a whole lot more to follow. Guess what? I am not a robot...

'White Holes of Mole Hills', anyone, Ruth Theodore (2010)?

Some thought it was facetious on my part and others saw it for what it was. It is real and another worthy of note in the nu-folk canon, artist and album both. It is released on February 15, 2010 by River Rat Records.

Was It Worth It - Jeremey Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey (aka Summer Camp) seem to think so...

..and (for what it is worth) so do I, very definitely.

Higher Powers - 6 Day Riot - the album lyrics

It is mostly done and, given the new-found popularity of 'Every Third Sunday', I thought it a shame not to share all the lyrics for 6 Day Riot - Have A Plan.

Run For Your Life

And morning comes with a meltdown, this town is needing a shakedown, we've

been burning bridges for hours: guided by higher powers. And rising up from the

edges this land is covered with faces we've been praying for someone to lead us, the

end of those who deceive us. Ooh if I was you I'd run for your life. Her face is in every

paper and may we never forget her... A nation cries together, hoping to remember.

Look back at roads we have taken, as sleeping giants awaken, counting days till

tomorrow we'll beg steal and borrow. It's not the time to stand in line if you wanna

change this. They'll make the world you measure by if you let them take you. And hand

you to the darker side where everything's about you, it's not the time to stand in line

someone has to change this.

O Those Kids

O those kids, those kids won't bat an eyelid if we don't change a

thing. I risked my mind, I risked my mind and sanity to give you

what you need. I'm drowning. I'm leaving this life we made.

I'm drowning, my last thought's of all the money we'll make.

We'll make. O my dear, now don't you fear, just another day

and we'll be done. O my dear now don't you fear, just another day

and the money's coming quick and fast. We'll spend! We'll spend!

We'll spend! O those kids...

Be With Me

I look inside your mind and hide beneath this bed, the sheets are cold tonight the

shapes all blur to life. As I pray for you and watch you as you sleep, as I wait

my turn I hope that you will be with me, we'll find what only the wise men seek.

They hang around in pairs with boards that hold your name, a tick or two for you

could mean another day. As I hold my breath and wait to hear some word, as I beg

for rest I hope that you will be with me, we'll find what only the wise men seek and

though it's hard to tell what only wise men seek. We took a risk our way;

we fought to know, we took a risk our way; open and closed. Come on and tell us,

come on and show us.

Every Third Sunday

If you take this wrong then time will stop, wasted spaces move back

up; many days have rolled into one. Daily meals to calm your eyes,

wisdom seldom realized I could try to reason one more time.

But by the by, by the by, how fear has multiplied wild and lost within

your state of mind. My oh my, my oh my, how tears have multiplied

drowned and lost within your state of mind. To the edge and round the

bend, stubborn till the bitter end hold on tight before this whole

town blows. Get up get up and face the day don't let those hours slip away,

chasing time and talking hate again. I'm drowned and lost within your

state of mind.

Rise Above

Rise above, rise above, rise above all the lies and hatred and new-fangled love,

could you find a way to turn this all around? Wide awake, wide awake, wide awake

as the morning turns another page and the anger lies sleeping one more day.

But oh to be like you, a stranger to all we knew, to hold yourself above what

might be true. Walk away, walk away, walk away turn your back on all that we

once made let the mountain rise upon this land. I don't know, I don't know,

I don't know you could count the lives that have been lost but still your mind

rests firmly on your own. But oh to be like you, a stranger to all we know,

to hold yourself above what might be true.

So You're A Writer

So you're a writer but can you hear this? You've been chasing circles all across

those pages. Another landslide and they're all cheering, got your people outside

every doorway listening. Bring it back to mine, slip back into line, it's harder to

deny so bring it back. You'd take my own mind to hide your old lies and try to save

face if only just to rise above us. So lie in wait there and toast your genius, raise your

glass high while everthing around you crumbles. Bring it back to mine, slip back

into line, it's harder to deny, it's harder when you go sailing past this place take that

trip back round. All a game planned in your mind take that trip back round. These

last days have multiplied the thoughts you hoped to hide as you go sailing past your

soul take that trip back round.

Breakdown

Never thought, never thought to wonder if you heard all that I said, if my house isn't

there any longer then I guess I've burnt that bridge. How.m I ever gonna fight this breakdown

if I'm dead from the waist down? If I thought I could take this over then I might earn

my name, as I lie and wait, lie and wait for answer lie and wait, lie and wait in vain.

How'm I ever gonna fight this breakdown if I'm dead from the waist down. Undo my mind

rewind our time. On the face in the face of all this, like you, like me, like he, it's all I thought

I ever wanted all I thought I'd ever be. How'm I ever gonna fight this breakdown if I'm

dead from the waist down. Undo my mind, rewind our time. Every word that I encounter

holds an old part of me. all the books I've ever opened lie floating on the sea, and my clothes

don't even matter if I have nothing more, could you stay a little longer, help take away

the noise. How'm I ever gonna fight this breakdown if I'm dead from the waist down,

undo my mind, rewind our time.

Go! Canada

Oh we sailed for days to find this view before us, there lies the land an inch or two

below us. Take a look around you'll see the flags are raised again, and rising from

the earth the theatre beckons us along. Way beneath the swell they laugh at our

misfortune. All that holds our wealth lies washed up in Dalston. We fought our

way through broken years to conquer, there lies the land an inch or two below us.

Wave across the rolls at red and white united, may we return another day to find this.

Oh we're losing you, drink to forget what is right. Oh saluting you, drink just to sleep

through the night.

Rise Again

Chasing the circles and fighting the cause it's now that we have come for.

it's now that we needed. Inside your pocket, lined with our gold you hide your

intentions and hold our restless souls. But oh we will rise once more, ignore

those fearful men. I'll try to regain my strength for now I can breathe again.

Lost in the moment still biding our time we swim for this promise and hold

the dark line, now with momentum we run with the waves we're dying to meet

you, we're dying to know your name. To know your name...

Long Slow March

In this place not a face that I can trust, not a scene to be believed it's changing...

From each door to the boot of my car they follow every move I'm making.

Like age they'll take my mind, like years they'll take my sight, a long slow march

through the night, a long slow march tonight. To the next I hear each word I

breathe a stranger to deceive, I'm on you. Here you stand a brother in each sense

but eyes that I can't place: do I know you? Like age they'll take my mind, like years

they'll take my sight, a long slow march through the night, a long slow march tonight.

Previous posts on this topic:

Every Third Sunday - 6 Day Riot

While you're at it why not also check out this CD from 2004...

From Home To Home - Tamara Schlesinger

So much to listen to...

After the customary slow start to the year new music suddenly seems to be bursting out from all sorts of expected and unexpected places! It may still be winter on all counts but the joys of spring seem to have appeared like the first brave snowdrops.

I'll try and add more in the next few days but for now here is another band from the US:

Audio Fiction come from New York and, having only found out about the band on Sunday, I listened to the two free mp3s, 'Way Out' and 'Suffocate', available on download from the website. I like what I heard and the self-titled CD is on order from cdbaby.com.

Have you have ever wondered what late 80s and early 90s New York indie pop-rock might sound like, if it were tinged with a no-shit punk attitude and reinvented in 2010? Well now you have an answer:

Wonderful.

Every Third Sunday - 6 Day Riot Have A Plan

To whosoever asked for the lyric to this song just now, here it is:


Every Third Sunday:

If you take this wrong then time will stop, wasted spaces move back
up; many days have rolled into one. Daily meals to calm your eyes,
wisdom seldom realised I could try to reason one more time.
But by the by, by the by, how fear has multiplied wild and lost within
your state of mind. My oh my, my oh my, how tears have multiplied
drowned and lost within your state of mind. To the edge and round the
bend, stubborn till the bitter end hold on tight before this whole
town blows. Get up get up and face the day don't let those hours slip away,
chasing time and talking hate again. I'm drowned and lost within your
state of mind.

The almost (!?) complete lyrics to the album 'Have A Plan' are now here:

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2010/02/higher-powers-6-day-riot-album-lyrics.html

A great band and an excellent album, but then so is Folie à Deux (2007) and for that matter From Home To Home - Tamara Schlesinger (2004).

What Comes Next? - New Music 2010 - part 6

In a sense the title says it all. In some ways I'm more confident commenting on music than almost anything else. It is time that I added some more music from the US to my wants list and I am happy to do that.

This one was released in the US last year, but I have only just become aware of it, and suspect that I will like it...

It is in fact her fourth studio album, which makes the fact that I was until very recently unaware of her even less excusable. Of Taiwanese heritage and bought up in California she has now relocated to New York. Her music is piano-led, she is a classically-trained pianist, and those tracks that I have heard sound very interesting indeed. This album was released in the US in 2009 and the music is, as she likes to describe it, chamber folk.
Given the patch-work of music currently finding favor on both sides of the Atlantic I can see this being another missing piece of the jigsaw.

Another album I want to listen to is of continental European origin - IRM - Charlotte Gainsbourg (2010). I must say I am still a fan of her 2006 album 5:55. It is true that she doesn't have a remarkable singing voice but, when the tracks are written for it, one that is rather affecting.

Another piano-led singer and also songwriter and another from California, who does have a truly remarkable voice, is Alison Sudol better known as 'A Fine Frenzy' and from what I can gather she is busy with the release of her second album 'Bomb In A Birdcage', the follow up to 'One Cell In The Sea' (2007 -US and 2008-UK). It is due for release in March 2010.

Lyrics, or sometimes the lack of them...

Lyrics continue to feature prominently, and I like that, but yesterday someone asked about those for 'Memories Last Longer Than Dreams' - Leyland Kirby (2009).

Here they are and indeed those to the 3CD/6 vinyl LP set, in its entirety.

...

...

It is the easiest request to fulfil; there aren't any as it is about four hours of totally instrumental music and worth every minute of it. I recently acquired the 12" LP 'Joint Chiefs' - Cursillistas and it is also lyric free. When compared to the former project it is, as well as being only a single LP (I do not know of a CD or download release as yet), much more natural and organic in the more acoustic rather than the overtly electronic sense.

The vital thing is that 'Joint Chiefs' is actually deceptively simple and also totally lovely. It is not hard to like but rather it is for you to recreate that 'snowed in' feeling even if all you want to do is simply to spend a lazy weekend at home and feel guilt-free. I can imagine some of the avant-garde of nu-folk and Americana jamming this kind of thing, simply to amuse themselves, in a remote winter recording hideaway. It is however, for the most part, the mind-warping creation of just two such from Maine - Matthew Lajoie and Dawn Marna.

It deserves a much wider audience.

This Is How It's Meant To Be - lyrics

Thanks once again to whosoever asked and here are the lyrics to the first track on this album.

This Is How It's Meant To Be

He only sees shadows behind shadows and he's been like this a while

for he keeps forgetting every shadow needs light to survive.

He has been lost and I followed like any good friend

and I carried him as far as I could but when I let go he just turned back.

Chorus:
This is how it's meant to be, apparently this is for a reason
This is how it's meant to be, but we can't seem to find a reason.

He is the victim and culprit of his own crime
And I tried to be a mirror so that he may realise
I've been breathing for the two of us and now I am so tired
my patience has fallen hard for he's not even trying.

This is how it's meant to be, apparently this is for a reason
This is how it's meant to be, but we can't seem to find a reason.

This is how it's meant to be, apparently this is for a reason
This is how it's meant to be, but we can't seem to find a reason.

It is a cracking album, just as worthy of you attention as 'Despite The Snow', and she played the second track on it 'Blackbird' in her set at 'End Of The Road 2009'. One of my personal favourites is the call - response duet 'Fields of June' (track 6). How easy it now is to come by is another matter: I got my CD from Rough Trade, London in September 2009 and although they do not seem to have it in stock as of today they may well be able to provide a helpful suggestion.

Other posts about this artist:

Nostalgia - Emily Barker (lyric)

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-is-new-what-is-not.html

Oh! Memories from, and thoughts of, festivals...


Note added October 31, 2010:
This album/tracks on it are now available from amazon.co.uk on download. The CD is also available again.

A Curious Thing - New Music 2010, part 5

I've been quiet for a while, that is true, but I've still been listening and reading. With three new albums by artists I've already mentioned in this respect released tomorrow it is time to move on.

Here are another few that are well and truly on my wants list and they are all by returning artists...

Few might actually recall her 2007 début, This Is the Life, because it was a slow burner but it finally reached #1 in the UK album charts a year after release, while then selling over 3 million copies worldwide (to date). I've heard a couple of the new tracks and 'A Curious Thing' would seem to be well worth the wait. Is it slightly 'rockier' than the first album? Yes, well maybe, but not in a radical way. I can't currently find the album artwork so this will have to do for now.

The same, given what I have heard and including the first single, can be said of the fifth album from Goldfrapp. In this case it would seem to be rather more electro-influenced than 'Seventh Tree' and none the worst for that. Alison's vocals are as good as ever they were but perhaps Will Gregory has twiddled a few more buttons than on their last recording. If summer 2010 sounds like these albums it will be one to remember. I should know the title of this album, due to be released in late Spring 2010, is but it has slipped my mind for the moment.

Jill Jackson is another artist who has promised a second album soon...

This image is from her myspace but what it relates to is only my guess.

Can I think of more? Well yes I can.

Real for me...

According to reports today (the third Monday in January) is the most depressing day of the year in the UK!
Newspapers of a certain leaning drag up no end of 'experts' to explain why it is so... It's cold, its time for the post-Christmas credit card bills; you know that sort of psychobabble. It may be flawed, and it may yet presage disappointments as yet unforeseeable ( but then didn't 2008?), but as of today 2010 became real for me.

While this might seem persuasive I wish to point to another view. The first thought has nothing, at least directly, to do with the situation in the UK today but it is 'Martin Luther King Day' and that has implications that are, albeit in a slightly different way, just as profound in music and thus equally so in the UK. It is hard to say what music, globally, would be like in 2010 if it were not for the contributions of many that became stars before that seminal moment in 1968. Robert Johnson being one that very much comes to mind for he did it the hardest way but it also paved the way for major league female stars... Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Diana Ross to name but three.

It also seems to be the day that that the music for the forthcoming year, wherever it is from and whosoever it is made by, suddenly becomes real rather than merely just something hoped-for. The last few years have been glibly referred to as the age of the female artist and, while many are also songwriters too, regardless of race, colour, creed or the bone of contention that is nationality they all owe a debt of gratitude to the pioneers. That said I don't see the situation changing vastly in 2010, except to say that diversity will probably be the main beneficiary.

You might not agree with the music I like in 2010, and judging from today there will be a great deal of it, but that does not trouble me at all; just be passionate, persuasive and tolerant and I'll be the same.

As the winter winds...

It is twenty-one years since a non-Christmas seasonal song has had such resonance: The last being 'Fairytale of New York' by The Pogues and featuring the late Kirsty McColl. It still sells well on download, better than the following actually, but it finally has a rival.

Yes it was chosen by BBC Radio 1 as its seasonal song but that only makes it more remarkable: it prominently features banjo and even in the UK there has been love. That alone is an affirmation of the effort and dedication that it must have taken to write and record it, but was certainly no guarantor of its success.

Winter Winds

As the winter winds litter London with lonely hearts

The warmth in your eyes swept me into your arms

Was it love or fear that lead us through the night?

For every kiss your beauty trumped my doubt

And my head told my heart

Let love grow

But my heart told my head

This time no, this time no

We'll be washed and buried one day my girl

And the time we were given will be left for the world

The flesh that lived and loved will be eaten by plague

So let the memories be good for those that stay

And my head told my heart

Let love grow

But my heart told my head

This time no, this time no

The shame that sent me off from the God I once loved

Was the same that sent me into your arms

And pestilence has won when you are lost and I am gone

And no hope, no hope will overcome

But if your strife strikes at your sleep

Remember spring swaps snow for leaves

You'll be happy and wholesome again

When the city clears and sun ascends

And my head told my heart

Let love grow

But my heart told my head

This time no, this time no.

If this were the only good track on the album that would be something but it isn't. I am, in fact, unsure that it is any better or worse than the others, which is saying something given that this is a début album, but it is the one that is just perfectly allied with the current scenario. Most of the album would be probably be perfect listening at a barbeque on a warm summer night.

Its depiction of London has just reminded me of another song, again quite recent, and in this instance by an artist from outside the UK but that will have to wait for another post.

Have One On Me - Joanna Newsom

I don't know if her Australian distributor, Spunk, intended to do this on purpose but it seems to have spilled the beans.

Joanna Newsom live at Latitude 2008

The link might be hard to reach, or have even been abolished, but it certainly existed as I and many others reached it. There are however reasons to think that it is probably genuine...

Her US label, Drag City, posted the following enigmatic cartoon on its site a little while back...
The date, 2/23/2010, is very plausible as albums are usually released on a Tuesday in the US. The Australian release date was given as 19 February, which fits with local release practice. In the UK albums are almost always released on a Monday and all of this has to do with the way weekly sales figures are recorded in the respective territories.

If this turns out to be correct I am more than interested to discover what it sounds like: no doubt her harp and trademark vocal acrobatics will be back but I wonder what else. When she performed at Latitude 2008 she played three then very new and unreleased tracks and performed all of them unaccompanied on grand piano and I remember thinking at the time that two of them were really quite special but sadly I cannot remember their titles.

Here it is...

Canada again - New music 2010, part 4

It is almost a week since I last posted, which pains me somewhat, but then it takes time to listen and do the research. While it wasn't my intention to do a second post on new Canadian music straight after the last one a certain flexibility is a necessity.

This one will be more concerned with returning artists and the first is this and my impression is that is going to be a fine continuation of their form. Yes it is true that this is not music for the masses, rather that for those who want to have it with rather eerie cold-war-era lyrics...

Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, The Besnard Lakes, can be relied on to do just that.

This is once again something of a collaborative effort and I really doubt that the new album will disappoint. 'The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night' is released by Jagjaguwar records, on vinyl, CD and download, on 8 March 2010 and is well and truly on my wants list.

Since I wrote last Monday I have learned of a few more new releases from well established Canadian artists...
Arcade Fire are recording their third album, and it better be good, but I know of no title or release date for that. Stars are recording an album, which they say will be released in the summer and Broken Social Scene are also planning a return, complete with a new album, in 2010.

Most remarkable of all is that, after eighteen years and more line-up changes than Sugababes, Martha & The Muffins return in 2010 with a new studio album and perhaps now the time is right.

New music 2010 - a Canadian wants list

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that 2009 new releases had all but ended, which was true, but that was not to say that I had become aware of anywhere near all I should like to have done, let alone hear them. I did also say that I still had a long 'pending list' from 2009...

This is an attempt to deal with a few of them and, because it has proven a treasure trove of new music over the last five or so years during which I have been paying attention, one country has never failed to amaze me. I have thus chosen to start with some Canadian music that I really want to hear...

I mentioned If The Fun and Laughter - Land of Talk (2009) (CD EP) in the side-bar yesterday and it is good indeed. Land of Talk is however not a band new to me. These pretty much all are and, in most cases, I know little except what I have read or otherwise been told.

Years (One Thousand Fingertips) - Attack In Black (2009)

These albums might not be so well known in the UK, and might be a little harder to track down than some, but I'm pretty certain that is going to be worth the effort. Here's another one...

This one shouldn't be too hard to find and it is also available on vinyl.

On a 2010 release promise I can't help but want to hear the 'Kite Hill' début release. Two of the most influential Canadian bands that I heard live in 2009 were Ohbijou and The Acorn, both part of the Toronto music scene, and this project involves members of both.

Spirit Guides - Evening Hymns, which you can get from amazon.ca, is another amongst many and there are indubitably dozens more of which I am sadly unaware...

If you would like to add any corrections, comments or additions please just feel free to do so.

2010 music - What are the prospects?

Now that is a vexatious question! Commenting on the year past is one thing but this is quite another entirely, yet it needs to be done once again.

I'm not too disappointed with the predictions that I made last year but that only serves to make this year's more difficult. Pop, electro and folk-influences all came good in 2009, much to my pleasure. I suspect that they will remain much in evidence in 2010 and there is little doubt that live music, in all shapes and forms, will remain in the ascendancy.

There will be many unexpected surprises, which make the scene change and to be honest what I anticipate liking most are the things that I cannot predict; while 2009 was a good year in that respect I have no reason to think that 2010 will be any less so. I intend to make sure that it is not, seeking the new and the different like never before if I can.

That is not to say that I will abandon everything that has come before; I certainly won't if only because I can't.

I know my question doesn't make sense at all

Because we live outside the realm of yes and no.

The more difficult that proves to be the better the outcome in all probability. I doubt whether, for all the hype concerning the remarkable battle for the 'Christmas #1 single' (a curiously British preoccupation in any case), it says much about that which can be predicted for 2010.

My current thought is that the field is wide open once again, that this circumstance is probably for the best and the lyrics will still matter, especially live.

And I will be your ark; we will float above the storm.

It is true that 2010 holds many fears and for that reason alone it is worth its weight in gold:

This time, baby, I'll be bullet-proof.

Nostalgia - Emily Barker

To whoever asked, I like lyrics and so thank you for asking. This is the best I can do.

Nostalgia

Tram wires cross Melbourne skies
Cut my red heart in two
My knuckles bleed down Johnston Street
On a door that shouldn't be in front of me.

Twelve thousand miles away from your smile
I'm twelve thousand miles away from me.
Standing on the corner of Brunswick
Got the rain coming down and mascara on my cheek.

Oh whisper me words in the shape of a bay
Shelter my love from the wind and the rain.

Crow fly, be my alibi
And return this fable on your wing.
Take it far away to where gypsies play
Beneath metal stars by the bridge.

Oh write me a beacon so I know the way
Guide my love through night and through day.

Only the sunset knows my blind desire for the fleeting
Only the moon understands the beauty of love
When held by a hand like the aura of nostalgia.

Link to earlier posts on this artist:
http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-is-new-what-is-not.html

Whither next?

I have already mentioned some 2010 albums that I am anticipating and you haven't yet seen the list of ones from 2009 that I haven't heard but wish I had. [Suggestions on both , and earlier ones, are always welcome by the way and can be anonymous or credited.]

The list to listen/watch, or both, in 2010 is growing at a rate faster than ever before and it makes me wonder about the kind of music that might become apparent in 2010. I know that Laura Marling is releasing her second album, 'I Speak Because I Can', probably on March 1, 2010 and I know I want that and also to see her live on the ensuing UK tour (April 2010).

On the other hand there will be new things challenging for attention and London-based three-piece Invasion might well be one of them and an oddity in that it fuses two apparently irreconcilable things: guitars and drums that come from the late 1960s flowering of heavy metal combined with decidedly other-worldly, wizard-loving, lyrics rather more typical of its resurgence about twenty years later...

...and, I nearly forgot, a vocalist who (although name-checking Ronnie James Dio) is Chan Brown, happens to be female and in possession of a decidedly soulful voice (soul divas can however scream with the best of them).
The album is incredibly short, so no self indulgent guitar or drum solos here, to the extent that it careers headlong through twelve tracks in just 22 minutes; indeed not one track actually reaches three minutes in length!
This was actually released in October 2009 but perhaps only now is its time coming. The longest track (2:55) is the last, the rather glorious 'Chaos & The Ancient Night', and this is a band now also on my 'live wants-list 2010'.

'Paradise Circus' - New Music 2010 - Part 3

In terms of new music releases 2009 is pretty much a done-deal now and finally even X-Factor has reached its conclusion for another year... I live happily with that, I can tell you, but of more interest is what 2010 might bring and the why and wherefore.

It is a long while since I mentioned much specifically derived from the music scene in Bristol. On the way home from work this evening I turned the radio on and the song playing was quite amazing. I was in a place where it was quite safe to do so and therefore I parked and just listened.

When it ended the DJ said what it was and immediately played it all over again. For BBC Radio 1 that is a very rare occurrence indeed.

It was in fact the first (two) plays of the forthcoming single 'Paradise Circus' and the first from this forthcoming album:

Heligoland is due for release February 8, 2010 in the UK.

Many of the usual collaborators are involved once again, along with an eclectic range of guests. The vocals on 'Paradise Circus' are courtesy of the notoriously performance-shy Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star and other bands). If the rest of the album is anywhere as good as this then 2010 is shaping up to be not only another good year, also a wonderfully varied one, in respect of music.

Some of the new material that is on the album has appeared, albeit in perhaps not quite the same form, on the 2009 download-only (I think) EP Splitting The Atom.

I have to say that until now, although aware of it, I have paid little detailed attention to the music of Massive Attack but I might have to reconsider my position on the basis of what I heard this evening.
It is probably one of the best musical experiences - hearing something wonderful but completely unexpected - and best of all when it occurs live. That too is something I've been fortunate to experience several times in 2009.

Lists, lists, lists...

It may seem as though I've been posting lists for weeks. That is true but not for so many weeks as I have been thinking about them. This is not a lament, at least on my part, and being the not-particularly-organized person that I am lists have a dual function: they are simple in presenting the information that they contain but also serve as a safe anchorage for a wandering mind with an appetite for trivia.
I think that the only list already mentioned here that I have not yet posted concerning 'Music in 2009' is that of singles: it was always going to be a bit of a random, almost fatuous, list and I'm well through working on it.
The latest started as a 'private list', although it largely stemmed from earlier comments and considerations. I started to wonder about all the albums and artists I should have bought or heard live in 2009 but had failed to do. The next thought was that music in 2009 does not stand in isolation, either from 2008 or, as occurred to me this week, what might happen in 2010. Take this approach too far and the list will be of Fibonaccic proportions but comfortingly, perhaps if only statistically, not infinite.

Not that this is a new idea because Fibonacci was a 13th century mathematician from Pisa, Italy. It is an exponential-logarithmic scale in which the numbers increase very rapidly at first but then the rate of increase slows and tends towards a maximum value. It is hard to define but empirically it has obvious natural application: rabbits do not increase in number exponentially, at least not for ever, even in Australia!

Statistics are a great talking point, and make good headlines, but then there is that truism: 'There are lies, damn lies and statistics.'
We are all an unwitting part of these things so we had better get used to it. I might just share some of my list of 'albums I wish I had' in the coming fortnight if only so you can tell me where I went wrong.

Best 'textbite' of 2009?

You are doubtless well aware of all those award ceremonies and the gushing, often excruciatingly long, acceptance speeches that they entail so here is a refreshing antidote.
Ellie Goulding has been named the chosen one, following Adele (Adkins) in 2008 and Florence and The Machine in 2009, as the recipient of the Critics' Choice Brit Award 2010 .

Her initial response, posted on Twitter, was this:
"Er, I won a bloody Brit Award."

After some reflection she was more expansive:
"When I found out, I had a little squeal, I had a little cry and I had a little fall down."

Understatement becomes her, something that is not entirely true of the acts that came second and third in this list: second was Manchester electro-indie band Delphic and third was an act that, since seeing it play live in July, I have tipped for great things - Marina and The Diamonds.

The choice is an interesting threesome in any case: Marina Diamandis does not do shy-wallflower singer-songwriter or anything even remotely approaching it. She does however do both singing, songwriting and also sensational live performance with her band (she also plays keys on some tracks), and the effect is quite remarkable.