First Thoughts on Record Store Day 2013

Record Store Day 2013 is looking to exceed all previous events and all expectations. It takes place, all around the globe, on Saturday April 20, 2013. More special releases than even before, more locations and stores than ever before, and that's just the start.

Here's someone who has done quite well these last couple of years...

Who, or what, is going to be the next big breakout?

There is certainly no shortage of new music out there that is well worth listening to.

New Music - Part 10 - Siddi - Un Tro

There are three terms that frequently cause alarm in many readers and, in no rational order, they are thus...

• folk music
• concept album
• foreign language lyric

I'm delighted to say that I have found one that is so wonderful - it combines all three. That, in itself, is not a particularly difficult quest but this is the one I want to mention specifically...

... and it is constructed around a fairy tale, just to make it even more improbable.

It is the début album by Siddi, the sibling duo of Osian and Branwen Williams. They also have previous convictions for appearing with (fraternal trio Hughes) Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog. That includes live performance. The album Draw Dros Y Mynydd was amongst my favourites of 2012.
I just don't get the problem with things such as this.

HMV - what really went wrong?

I have made a few comments in the last few years albeit as an outsider and, some time ago (that says something), as a former customer.

This post is so good it is almost beyond comment:
http://jennakinstxs.tumblr.com/post/42226338294/sound-it-out

Live Music 2013 - Larry Miller live in Frome

I don't seem to have been to see much live music this last couple of months and here in Frome has been no exception.  Back in the autumn of 2012 I mentioned that I had been to see a number of blues-rock artists, many of them here in Frome, although it started off a week or two earlier with Joanne Shaw Taylor live at Tavistock Wharf.
It looks like things are going to change in the next couple of months and it started last Saturday. The first time that the new stage at the Cheese and Grain in Frome was used in earnest was by Bath four-piece Fabric that played a fairly short support set but it was very enjoyable indeed and, to be honest I'd like to catch Fabric playing a longer set very soon. Here is Fabric playing on Saturday.

I must admit this was the first photo that I took, while they were just finishing tuning, but it turned out to be the best of the fifteen that I took of the band. That was entirely my fault, not theirs.
  
After a swift turn-around Larry Miller was on stage. I'd never seen him live before and I don't own any of the albums. On the other hand the fact that I will buy recorded music unheard is reason to suggest that I feel the same way about risking it live, even when not at a festival. For me at least, this justified the approach perfectly. Right from the off I was taken in and as the set went on it just got better and better. This is probably reflected in the number of pictures I took, the majority were unusable but no change there. Here are a few of the better ones:
  

Sometimes slow blues...

 Oft-times nothing of the kind.

  

And then came the encore songs - well over twenty minutes of them!

This picture was taken during one of them.

Not much more I can say. A really good evening of entertainment. So good that, with some friends, I'm off to see it all over again quite soon!

New Music 2013 - Part 9 - Rhosyn - Elbow of Capture

Rhosyn, the stage name taken by Rose Dagul, was one of several acts from around the Oxford area to which I was introduced by the organisers of Truck Festival 2011 and Oxford-based collective Blessing Force. Since then I have been keeping my ears open for more. Here, I'm delighted to say is the first Rhosyn EP 'Elbow of Capture' inspired by writing and recording sessions that took place in a remote cottage at Rhoscolyn on the coast of Anglesey last year.
In its string arrangements you can almost detect the winds and the waves in a landscape where things change only through the forces of nature. It is music for moments of reflection.  It is released on the usual formats. It is also available, to the extent of 250 numbered copies, on translucent 12" 33 rpm vinyl.

The 5-track vinyl EP also comes with a code for a free download.
  

Elbow of Capture - Rhosyn

• A1 - Glass
• A2 - Birds
• A3 - Volcano
• B1 - Euridyce
• B2 - Since The Air Became Frantic

You can listen to the track 'Glass' here:

New music and festivals - random thoughts...

Some excitement.
The first tranche of acts for Deer Shed Festival 4 has been announced and it looks very promising.
Stealing Sheep and Public Service Broadcasting are just two that have appeared in these pages before. On the other hand I have seen neither live! Also of great interest to me are Glasgow five-piece 'Kitty the Lion' and singer-songwriter 'Blue Rose Code'. Things are looking up - this is the kind of news that I like the best.

Music from the past - discovered (Part 1).

The history of this; it became something of a project that in essence goes back a long time and to 1977, at least for me. This is the first post on that, and it involved this album originally released in 1971:

As I mentioned then, back in early 2012, it had taken me almost thirty-five years to actually track this down. For some reason, in early December 2012, I decided upon a more ambitious project. That was (to attempt to) track down the two albums that preceded 'High Level'. The proviso was threefold:

• it would be done on a tight budget, with no particular time limit therefore
• the albums had to be playable (not mint or wrapped, as I fully intended to play them)
• the albums had to be the original vinyl releases

You might wonder about this, as did I but a little searching it proved what recordings I was actually looking for. Knowing what you are trying to find is always a good place to start.  It turned out to be this trio:

• Northumberland For Ever (1968) - Topic Records 12TS186
• The Lads of Northumbria (1969) - Trailer Records LER 2007
• Keep Your Feet Still Geordie Hinnie (1970) - Trailer Records LER 2020

I was already aware in essence of the first two of the above, which are studio albums, but not the third and that is how it turned out to being a search for three albums. The last was the final one to succumb and also the most expensive although not by much. Keep Your Feet Still Geordie Hinnie is a live album recorded in a single take at Balmbaras, an old-time music-hall pub in Newcastle.

Here are the covers of the three albums that I purchased, as taken by me just now:

  

  

So there you are. The total cost for all three, including all delivery charges, was £33.71.  In Part 2 of this post I shall try and comment on the music and also the history behind some of it, not least that of Balmbaras.

Goodbye England (Covered In Snow)

This is a post that I couldn't resist. I love snow, and there is plenty of it here right now, but there is however a certain ambivalence to that comment; it actually makes me want to be at home, warm and with good food. I could do the whole snowed in thing - at least for a week, I guess.
This song sums it up far better than I ever could.

You were so smart then
in your jacket and coat.
My softest red scarf was warming your throat.
Winter was on us,
at the end of my nose,
but I never love England more than when covered in snow.

And a friend of mine says it's good to hear you believe in love even if set in fear
well I'll hold you there brother and set you straight
I won't make believe that love is frail and willing to break.

I will come back here,
bring me back when I'm old.
I want to lay here forever in the cold.
I might be cold but I'm just skin and bones
and I never love England more than when covered in snow.

I wrote my name in your book,
only god knows why,
and I bet you that he cracked a smile,
and I'm clearing all the stuff out of my room,
trying desperately to figure out what it is that makes me blue,
and I wrote an epic letter to you,
but it's 22 pages front and back and it's too good to be used
and I tried to be a girl who likes to be used
I'm too good for that.
There's a mind under this hat,
and I called them all and told them i've got to move.

Feel like running
Feel like running,
running off.
And we will keep you
we will keep you little one,
safe from harm,
like an extra arm you are part of us.

You were so smart then
in your jacket and coat
and my softest red scarf was warming your throat.
Winter will leave us,
left the end of my nose,
so goodbye old England 'till next year's snow.

New Music 2013 - Part 8 - Wolf's Law

One of the things I am really coming to like now is the fact that there are some bands and artists that I have followed, often as a result of festival performances, since the early days and who are continuing to flourish. This is one of them, The Joy Formidable, and here is the band early one day on the small but lovely Sunset Stage at Latitude Festival 2008, before the release of their début mini album 'A Balloon Called Moaning' (2009).

They release their second full LP 'Wolf's Law', and the follow up to 'The Big Roar' (2011) on Monday, 21 January - on Canvasback Music distributed by Atlantic Recordings. To say that their live performance is energetic would be litotes of some order.

They are touring the UK and Ireland in support of the album between late January and early March and I'm much minded to try and catch them during the latter stage of the campaign.

The Fall of Glorieta Mountain

I thought I saw you by the side,
Illuminating foreign climes.
A figment, a splinter, a vessel for me.
To wander as freely as I'll ever be.
  
Shrapnel stars puncture brightly,
Wounding skies that stretch so widely.
Other dunes of dust, in shades of rust
Where shadows claim the both of us.
  
Is that an answer or is this an echo?
Are you the answer or are you an echo?
  
These godly skies kindly provide
The perfect scene for our goodbyes.
A providence, so palpable
It sets aflutter, palpiter.

Bleached by the moonlight
Bathed in bone white
Undercover of cobalt and shelter of slate
You appeared immaculate.
  
Is than an answer or is this an echo?
Are you the answer or are you an echo?
  
I know that distance lends enchantment to the view
But I know that I see you and I know you see me too
And so I called out.

See more here:
New Music 2013 - Part 1 - Wash The Sins Not Only The Face

I just felt like some lyrics. Not particularly cheerful but then what did you expect? The album 'Wash The Sins, Not Just The Face' is released  by Matador Records on vinyl, CD and d/l. Let us celebrate the third Monday in January at it is often said, by those that believe this sort of thing, to be the most depressing day of the year.
You can currently listen to the whole album streaming on Pitchfork here.

New Music 2013 - Part 7 - 'Mericana

It has taken a while for me to get around to this.  In the week that I got to write about Mike Harding's first independent "radio" folk show I thought it about time to pay dues to music from elsewhere.  Some years ago, let's say about early 2005, I had become bored with the horizons of the music that I was listening to. The result, after some vacillation, included starting this blog. That, in order to feed it and my new curiosity, led to a new era of festival attendance.
I had long liked much UK folk music, both traditional and more modern, so I suppose I was predisposed to fall for Americana, even if I didn't really know that it existed as such. Looking back now that seems astonishingly naïve - surely I should have spotted its influences on music of which I was already at least somewhat aware?
Well, apparently not.
Since then however Americana and the rise of UK contemporary folk have extensively, but not entirely, defined my musical existence: is it coincidental that while the UK is increasingly falling for Americana and alt-country 'Mumford & Sons', four tweed-waistcoated lads from middle England, are nominated for six Grammys? I suspect not.
What it has certainly done is pique my curiosity about music, especially new music in genres of which I am less aware, and that is no bad thing. In that vein, rather than a roll-call of the well-known, I'm going to mention one or two artists rather less so.
This is a new song and therefore I can pretty much guarantee that you haven't heard it before:
Lyric to 'Burn it Down', tomorrow I hope, and it's a good excuse to listen on repeat. On the other hand the song I was intending to add must wait. It is, at the request of the artist, going to be re-recorded before it appears here.

I am truly humbled for music doesn't get much newer than that. If you are out that way then catching the duo, Sylvia Novak and Clay Cutler, is still a possibility. In fact they are just waiting to go on stage this evening (5 January, 2013)...
Cigar and Fine Spirits, Auburn, AL.

The Mike Harding Folk Show

Don't get me wrong here, I love the BBC and it is a Great British institution. It has taken a beating in 2012, for a number of reasons. It also made a misjudgement of a less sensational kind that, while it did not make headlines around the globe, certainly annoyed some of its followers.
I refer, specifically, to the axing of Mike Harding's Folk Show on Radio 2. He had built it from a mere niche curiosity that filled some airwaves to the point where it had an audience that would have seemed quite improbable. Maybe that was the problem...

He has done what anyone might do in such circumstances. The first entirely free-of-all-influence version goes live at 17:00 UST (in less than 20 minutes time) here, assuming Sputnik and the aerial made from a coat-hanger both work as they should. Heady days.

[To be continued - after listening]
  

Indeed after not listening. It was one of those glorious disasters - so successful was the launch that it overwhelmed the servers and the result was almost nobody could actually get to receive it at all!  Teething problems are to be expected and the cross-forum banter hints at nothing less. It was a very British triumph.
  
Indeed it is. It may have arrived slightly late but here it is - the very first independent Mike Harding Folk Show! The rest of the site seems to be working as intended too - its a spoiler but this is the playlist, much debated, so just go listen:
01 DOON REEL – FRANKIE LAINE
02 THE RAMBLING SIULER – THE MIGHTY DOONANS
03 MUIREEN NIC AMHLAOIBH – BO NA LEATHDHAIRCE
04 HERE’S THE TENDER COMING – DAVE BURLAND
05 SHOVE THE PIGS FOOT – BRUCE MOLSKY
06 WIND AND RAIN – THE BE GOOD TANYAS
07 WINE AND ROSES – HEIDI TALBOT
08 GENTLEMAN JACK – O’HOOLEY AND TIDOW
09 BYKER HILL – JED GRIMES
10 BONNY SHIP THE DIAMOND – A L LLOYD
11 JACOB’S LADDER – CHUMBAWUMBA
12 THE MONTH OF JANUARY – MARY DILLON
13 WORKING AT CHRISTMAS – PAUL BRADY
14 LE SOUHAIT – LE VENT DU NORD
15 NO GODS AND PRECIOUS FEW HEROES – GAUGHAN
16 BABY WANTS TO BOOGIE – HANS THEESINK
17 DOON REEL – FRANKIE LAINE

I'm getting the idea that this might be something more than it seems. With the inclusion of 'Wind and Rain' - Be Good Tanyas it is hard to conclude otherwise in the current situation.
Just in case you didn't hang on long enough to record this event, I did. If that were to prove a disappointment then I'd have felt it. I'm listening to it again now...

New Music 2013 - Part 6 - Forbidden Fruit

Not so long ago I wrote a post about the resurgence of the live album. One that I mentioned then was by a Finnish blues artist, Erja Lyytinen, and I mentioned that she was touring in Spring 2013 and that, hopefully, this also presaged a new studio album. Here it is.

This is the track list:

1. Joyful Misery
2. Hold On Together
3. At Least We Still Fight
4. Forbidden Fruit
5. Death Letter
6. Change Of Season
7. Jealousy
8. Press My Button
9. Things About Coming My Way

The penultimate track might seem to have a title that suggests 'girl power'. It is indeed a cover version, and one with lyrics that might have made the promoters of 1990's 'girl power' think twice before releasing it.

Press My Button (Ring My Bell) was written by Lil Johnson and recorded, with herself doing duty on vocals, early in 1936. Chicago was quite the place back then. It probably still is.

The album is released by Ruf Records on January 28, 2013.

New Music 2012 - Part 27 - Melody's Echo Chamber

Continuing the theme of the last post this is another 2012 début album that I have only very recently found out about. Melody's Echo Chamber is the nom de plume of Paris-based Melody Prochet, who is the principal singer, songwriter and instrumentalist behind this confection that was released in November. (Weird World Records - vinyl, CD and d/l).
  
I have several previous convictions for mentioning French artists that some might consider left-field, champ-gauche, perhaps? I have not actually done so for a while but this is another and with good reason I believe.

A few of the eleven tracks on the LP are sung in French, the remainder in English. The exception being 'isthatwhatyousaid', which despite its title is without lyric whatsoever.  Her conspirator in this duo, as both artist and producer, is Australian Kevin Parker who is probably better known as the driving force behind the band 'Tame Impala'.

New Music 2012 - Part 26

Here we go again! This comprises two acts that I really should have paid more attention to in 2012. The problem is that I didn't and therefore I don't have sufficient experience of their LPs to include them in any current list (except those albums that I want for Christmas). Here are two that come to mind.
This first Stealing Sheep, a three-piece, from Liverpool or thereabouts. The début album, Into The Diamond Sun, is right up there. It's diverse, somewhat electronic, somewhat folky and quite lovable.

This next is quite possibly less well known. It is the début album, Star Map, by North Wales-based duo Golden Fable and was released in September 2012.
  

It is hauntingly good. Watch out for both acts in 2013 and more links to follow.

If you think this is worth a listen several other tracks will surprise you.

New Music 2013 - Part 5 - The Stand-In (again)

I have mentioned this album once already. This is the second track to be released from it:


'I Was Cruel', with its mandolin and pedal-steel, would be worth it for that alone. It is actually a whole lot better than that might imply. It is the second track on 'The Stand-In', for which a vignette of what I believe to be the LP cover is in the side-bar and the track-listing as follows:

• No One to Call
• I Was Cruel
• Waiting
• Only A Clown
• Dallas
• Pink Champagne
• Golden Boy
• Silver Sings
• Everywhere I Go
• When I'm Gone
• Menagerie
• Old Numbers

Will it be available on vinyl? Well, it would be cruel not to... and I shall be on the case.

A strange retrospective...

It is strange, the things one ends up discussing at work.
Here is one from today and it is anything but new music! (This album was released on September 18, 1970 in the UK: Reprise Records, RSLP 9004). Here it is...

Album artwork and design: Christine McVie.

I don't expect you saw this post coming and... the above picture is one I took, of my example of RSLP 9004 about an hour ago! It is music from the days that I am too young to remember, but I have owned this LP for twenty-three years now, and I love it to bits.

The lure of the 'Live LP'. Again.

The third 'live LP', that I alluded to in my earlier post has finally arrived at the additional cost of £3.07 in VAT to George Osbourne (no relation of Ozzy, we are led to believe) and a further £8 that went to Royal Mail for conniving with the UK Border Agency. Enough of that, which I suspected might happen anyway, the question is was it all worth it?

Just to have it on US vinyl (complete with the dire piracy warnings) most certainly is!

That all actually matters less than I thought that it would and I couldn't care less about the customs charges now. This is very possibly the best live album (on vinyl or otherwise) since forever though you may suggest others; indeed I invite you to do so - PLEASE DO.
It contains songs from his time with the Drive-By Truckers, material from his 'solo' albums including the AMA-winning 'Alabama Pines', and finishes with (the vinyl that is - it comes with a free download code that contains some extra things!) a cover of Neil Young's 'Like A Hurricane'.
If people say there's nothing good today, and no point in revisiting old themes, just point them here. The album was recorded over two live performances in August 2012; at WorkPlay, Birmingham, AL and Crossroads, Huntsville, AL on 16 and 17 August 2012. I can only try and imagine what it must have been like to be there.

2012 In Music - Albums - Part 2

No real change in presentation here from the last two years; two lists of a dozen albums each and both strictly in order alphabetical by artist.  Despite what I said in Part 1 there is a slight change in format this year... there will be more than two parts and I'm not yet decided how many albums will be in the third.
As always, however, within each list the albums will always be alphabetical by artist and their inclusion in a particular list rather than another is also a matter of chance and in no way a reflection of my rating of their status. This explains why, for those who know me well, several albums that would have been assumed almost 100% certain to be be included in my selection were not in the first list. Two are, however, in this list of six:

• Admiral Fallow - Tree Bursts In Snow
• Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man
• Beach House - Bloom
• Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny - Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose
• Carolina Chocolate Drops - Leaving Eden
• Tamara Schlesinger - The Procession

Once again links and additional commentary will follow fairly soon and please feel quite free to add comments, queries, suggestions or questions. It is what this is all about, whether negative, positive or simply mystified!

Equally let me know what is amongst your 2012 favourites that I haven't included, either in these lists or throughout the year.
In a related vein, it surprises me just how many and often I still listen to albums in the lists of previous years. This is, for cumulative reasons, becoming something of a problem. 

2012 In Music - EPs and mini-albums

At first I used to start my annual round-up with this category, so-titled as to avoid pedantic arguments about what strictly constitutes an EP!  Where a mini-album becomes an album is similarly obscure, is it the number of tracks or the overall running time?
It was a genre that I suspected might die out but I'm happy to report that a combination of circumstances has seemingly resulted in rather the opposite. This selection is a bakers' handful of ones that caught my attention during the year and subsequently have found myself listening to repeatedly. Another new development is that I hope to include links to tracks from at least some of the works mentioned.
  
The illustration associated with the first, Craze EP - I Am Harlequin, rather befits the arts-space that the artist seems to inhabit; one where nothing is actually quite what it seems.

I Am Harlequin

My personal favourite is the last track 'Wild One'

The trio of  sisters Haim, with Dash Hutton on percussion, has been cropping up on any number of 'Ones to Watch in 2013' lists in the last month or so. With, I must add, very good reason. Were I to write such a list they would be on mine too. There's a thought; maybe I will.

Earlier this year the band released the Forever EP. As well as the d/l format there was also a very limited UK release on 10" vinyl and this is it.

  
The next artist is the first from this selection that I have actually seen playing live - at Deer Shed Festival 3 back in July though I was aware of Pip Mountjoy somewhat before that - and the first here that generally plays acoustic and solo. This is her first EP - although, at six albeit fairly short songs, it could be a mini-album.  It is available digitally but also on CD - this latter format being an entirely self-released and home-made work of art.
  

Lousiana EP - Pip Mountjoy

Pip Mountjoy at Deer Shed Festival 2012, performing one of the "new" songs.

  

Added 15 December 2012: her second EP, Your Skeleton,  is due out early in 2013 - February, hopefully.

  

This one is also self-released, by Devon-based artist Alice Jemima, and also available on CD as well as download. She is also a huge favourite amongst the writers of the blog Breaking More Waves, which I highly recommend too. Enjoy!
  

  
The following, again available on CD if you are lucky, was probably the first that I knew would be in this list. The good news is that the duo behind it are working towards an LP release of original material in 2013. In the meanwhile check out the 2009 LP One Light Is Gone.
  

Should you be wondering why my version is black and that next to the audio stream is red it is because these too are all hand printed. Mine is red for the track-listing on the reverse and white versions also exist. As of today (1 December) the CD is still available here.

Last, but certainly not least, is an artist who has just completed a pan-European tour, comprising about seventy performances, promoting this EP and also the very recently released début LP 'Under Mountains' (about which in due course).
  

Rachel Sermanni is another artist that I saw live at Deer Shed Festival.

You can get a free download of 'The Fog' (live, acoustic version), one of the four songs on the Black Currents EP, in exchange for your e-mail address, here.

  

Rachel Sermanni, live at Deer Shed Festival, July 2012.