This blog is intended to do "exactly what it says on the tin" so below are some of my 'Thoughts on Music'. They predominantly concern recent matters but will not always do so. I'll also happily turn to matters of the music industry more generally if and when I feel so inclined. So there!
If you don't agree with something please feel free to add a comment. They are moderated by me (so I'll get to read it) and I might even reply. Above all however just enjoy whatever music you like!
Richard
At the weekend I was delighted to discover the impending release of the second LP by Ruby Boots, the performance name of Australian-raised singer-songwriter Bex Chilcott. It is the follow-up to her 2015 album 'Solitude'. With out further ado this is it. I can't fault the label with which she has now joined forces.
Don't Talk About It - Ruby Boots (Bloodshot Records, 9 February 2018).
Ruby Boots - Don't Talk About It:
It's So Cruel
Believe in Heaven
Don't Talk About It
Easy Way Out
Break My Heart Twice
I'll Make It Through
Somebody Else
I Am a Woman
Infatuation
Don't Give a Damn
The lead single is the title track:
She has moved to the US now, Nashville and that is hardly surprising. This album was recorded there for the most part. Her backing band is 'The Texas Gentleman'. There is absolutely no shame in that.
This is another release from 2017 that has just appeared on my radar and it is the debut full-length from Cat Clyde who hails from Stratford, Ontario, Canada.
Ivory Castanets - Cat Clyde (RED distribution, 5 May 2017).
Cat Clyde - Ivory Castanets:
Sheets Of Green
The Meadow
Running Water
Like A Wave
Heavy Weight
Mama Said
The Man I Loved Blues
Move Along
Walkin' Down The Road
Chimes In The Night
I have listened to the album end-to-end three times this evening. This is fairly unusual behaviour even by my own standards. It is certainly somewhat old-time but that's not really the issue here because the combination of voice, guitar (sometimes slide-acoustic) and keyboards is sublime. The production is not lo-fi but neither is it polished to a point that it might impact on the experience. I'm not going to select a track from the album just now. Instead, and because I suggest that it indicates her desire to push on, this is a track that has been released since then.
The River - Cat Clyde (November 2017).
What we need now is to see her touring over here in the UK.
I can't quite believe that this is my sixth post of 2018 but while I am in the mood for posting I guess I should just go with it. More forthcoming new music but this time from an all male band based in England. It has to be said that this is still mining the rich seam that is UK Americana. As a phrase it might appear an oxymoron but those inclined to solipsism please take note; it is flourishing in a time when the UK might have been perceived to be turning in on itself and back to its perceived core values. If this is the kind of work that is the result then it is just another case of clouds and silver linings.
The genesis of Orphan Colours came out of the accidental wreckage of two bands, ahab and Noah and The Whale, that were forsaken by their respective labels as commercial priorities changed. That is where the independent side of UK Americana plays a vital part. It is a community in the true sense of the word and that shaped this, the band's first LP, as I'm thinking as I listen to it again. All eleven songs on it.
Orphan Colours - All On Red:
Start of Something
High Hopes
Goodnight California
Loving Kind
Waiting
Lonely Lately
Sun Is Rising
Renegade
Sarah
Inside Out
Rambling Rose
The first thing that strikes me is this isn't a UK band aping Americana (from America, obvs.) and that is why the whole thing works quite as it does. It is the concept of Americana filtered through the unique perspective of the UK in recent years. It comes as no surprise to me at all that At The Helm is releasing this record. I'm pondering a post about how labels that can be trusted to release interesting and often challenging new music have slowly risen again.
Here's a little live goodness:
The title of the record 'All On Red' is apparently a reference to table gambling and the putting of all available resources on a single outcome. It is apropos the situation in which the founders of Orphan Colours found themselves after their previous bands folded.
Early last year when I first got to hear Courtney Marie Andrews' latest LP 'Honest Life' I knew that not only was it destined to be on my list of albums of 2017 (which it is, here) I realised that I needed to see her play live too. I did that and so here she is.
Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, Dorset, UK. 2 September 2017.
During the set she introduced several new songs and hinted that another LP might not be too far away. It was so, as confirmed today. This is it.
My next offering was actually released last year but for reasons that I might explain later it is totally new-year vibe for me. It has, at least on the face of it, a very peculiar title indeed and also it just snuck up on me from somewhere! This is certainly not the first music released by Texas-based artist Julia Lucille but it is a benchmark by any standards. If that all seems rather complicated and also awfully depressing for this time of year then please read/listen on. The title, Chthonic, a word derived from ancient Greek denotes things from, offered to, or happening below the surface of the earth and thus the Underworld of classical mythology, albeit not always to the Olympian standard.
Julia Lucille - Chthonic:
Eternally
Darkening
Plot of Ground
Ariadne
I Don't Think I Can
Finery
Lie and Wait
Beneath the Spring
Let's Climb Up on the Car
Julia Lucille's faintly Southern lilt drifts in and out of the nine mostly acoustic songs. Guitars, Julia and Paul Mitchell's both, are prominent and there is some pedal steel courtesy of Luke Dawson but in no way is this country of any kind and it most certainly is not bluegrass inspired. It's dream-indie with roots in pop and modern folk. Charon making the rough crossing of the Styx memorable, and also one for which return tickets are totally invalid, may not be a true reflection of that other life. It is a soothing thought and welcome balm in the cold, mean days of winter.
The cover illustration of the LP, by artist Aimee Lusty, suggests that this version of the underworld is at odds with how it was envisioned from above: Persephone - the undisputed queen of the underworld - skinny dipping. So that's fine as regards mythology. What does Julia Lucille sound like live? Well I want to hear her live for real too, but this will have to suffice for now.
'Ariadne', recorded at a Sofar house concert in San Antonio, Texas.
I mentioned this yesterday. Towards the end of 2017 I started a Friday spot on Facebook in which I mention a music release that has captured my attention. I'm planning to revive that idea after the break for Christmas and New Year although perhaps not every week. I rather like the idea of more blog posts but the two are not incompatible by any means. To date it has been a very recent release but I'm thinking that this should not always be the case.
Hunter Huntress Hawker - Laura Cannell (Brawl Records, 20 October 2017).
This album (it is actually her fourth) is one that, while I mentioned it on Facebook, has not appeared here before. You may find it challenging but I'm not going to apologise for that. It has two key-words that might be used to describe it that tend to put people off - experimental and improvised. It was recorded live in a ruined church (St. Andrew, Covehithe, Suffolk) that is the only significant structure that remains of a one-thriving fishing community on the east coast of England, the rest of which has now been almost entirely claimed by coastal erosion. Half-an-hour of truly haunting over-bowed violin playing might just make the cold and damp of early January seem rewarding. I have wavered about choosing a tune (for they are all thus, there are no words). I decided on this:
The penultimate item on the collection - Nordhalla.
It's a continuum, whatever the calendar might imply to the contrary. Increasingly, and this is much to my liking, the release of new music pays little heed to that nowadays. Now twenty years of age and relocated to York, this is not her first release by any means but it is quite a statement of intent. The only traditional song on it is Hares on the Mountain. Tilly Moses - Alight & Adrift:
Definitions
Water Man
Paper Conflicts
Fear With Fire
Harbour (feat. Sam Kelly)
One of Them
Flatlands
Lonely Birds
Hares on the Mountain
Ragdoll
Footprints
Whisky
This is certainly not the only album released in 2017 that invokes the east coast of England and has captivated me. Another notable one, at least in my opinion, will follow in a post tomorrow. The great thing about them is that they are actually very different indeed. This first might possibly be the most accessible of the two, it is certainly the more lyrical but neither suffers from comparison with the other.
Lionheart - H. C. McEntire (Merge Records, 26 January 2018).
Heather McEntire is part of the vibrant music scene in North Carolina, Durham in this case, and had been associated with the band Mount Moriah, which still includes her incidentally. With this new record she has struck out once again - having also been involved with the very different music of 'Bellafea' or for that matter this, with Jenks Miller of Horseback, and that is before it got really complicated.
That is a whole lot of back-history. This record might just be about going back to an earlier, less cluttered time and finding the time and space to sort the kinks out. This is is 'A Lamb, A Dove' taken from the forthcoming release.
To break up the infernal list-making, much as it appeals to me, I have decided to have a bit of fun. The artists that make it on to the lists aren't necessarily those that I have had the most fun watching live. Nor, for that matter, are the artists that are not featured in lists any less deserving of attention. I have posted a couple of "road trips" in the last year or so. They were virtual and very rewarding to compile but also hard work. This one, and I'll be compiling it over the next couple of days, is put together from a very different perspective. It is what I saw; vitally it is what I pointed my camera at. It is sometimes possible to catch acts sound-checking; rarer still to capture the rituals that accompany this and so that is where we shall start. I have to say that if there is a theme here then you are probably going to have to identify it yourself.
Hinds - Far Out stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.
Two long delays, both on Sunday evenings, provided the material for these photos of acts very late on stage. This first was due to the total failure of the sound board for the stage monitors.
Marika Hackman - Tipi stage, End Of The Road Festival, 3 September 2017.
Owing to the set being delayed by six hours because of extremely adverse weather this next gig became virtually a private show for the couple of dozen of us that turned up to see it. By this time most of the potential audience had thrown in the towel and gone home wet, muddy and dispirited. I had no real reason to leave early. It also had the advantage that it no longer clashed with anything else that I wanted to see. This is amongst the very best live sets that I have witnessed in 2017 and that now numbers over 150.
Billed as Michele Stodart but The Magic Numbers in all but name. Nest stage, Truck Festival, 23 July 2017.
There is also a situation, and I guess artists feel this too, where the question is 'can it work like a dream?' I had exactly that issue with 'Hurray For The Riff Raff' at Green Man. On one hand I wanted thousands to come watch. On the other hand I wanted to be right at the front of the Mountain stage come what may. Even given the positive reception of 'The Navigator', Alynda Segarra took a big risk and played a full-on, politically-liberal set. It could have gone horribly wrong. It was another of the highlights of 2017 for me because it was beyond what, even in my wildest imagination I had thought it could be. The crowd swelled to a surprising size. Then the crowd started singing to her un-encouraged. It was a wonderful place to be and the sun came out. This is the point at which she couldn't really hear her own vocals any longer. Priceless.
Hurray For The Riff Raff, Mountain stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.
Is it easier to continue something than to start it? I'm not quite sure where this is heading; hopefully straight to the heart of music that was new and important to me in 2017, or at least in my mind.
This list is possibly more eclectic than the last. Of the ten four are British, four are from the US and there is one each from Canada and Sweden.
Of the acts/artists I have seen seven of the ten play live at some point in the past. I have seen one of them live five times but not once in 2017! Only one of them have I seen live in 2017 and that was a serendipitous mistake on my part. Leaving my lair that was The Saloon Bar stage I braved the mud but paddled to the wrong stage at the right time. I saw this band, a four-piece from Scotland...
Vukovi, The Nest stage, Truck Festival, 21 July 2017.
I'd never heard Vukovi until this happened. A good result I have to say. As for the band that I was intending to see and were playing the Market stage, well that worked out for the best later in the summer in any case. That was 'Goat Girl'. Vukovi was however far from the only remarkable gig of Truck Festival 2017. Tired now, late on Sunday evening, who could imagine a full band set in the Nest stage with just twelve of us in the audience when it started?
This was the time to forget about Monday morning and how I was going escape from all of this and return to something approaching normality. Sometimes you need to dig deep into the moment.
I think that would be a suitable subject for another post. This idea has got a hold in my mind now.
It has been a long time since I saw Coco & The Buttterfields live but here is a reminder that they have a lot of new music coming soon. This is the video for Battlegrounds that appeared almost exactly one year ago. It's still worth the wait.
The last time was at Cambridge Folk Festival 2015 and this was taken then. I intend to continue my lists of 2017 music over the coming weekend and I hope there will be some surprises in the selection.
Right then, the time for year-end lists is with us once again. This led me to consider that it is my twelfth year of doing such things. The first was posted on 10 December 2006 and that was just three months after starting this blog. It was also before I started attending music festivals. It was to be the driving force for that, and attempts at music photography soon followed. That list of ten albums from 2006 is here. The rules have changed little since: there will be several lists of albums as well as other categories. All entries in each list are alphabetical by artist and inclusion in a first list does not imply that I regard these releases to be superior to those in a later list of the same category. Why do I do this? The answer to this question, which I have been asked surprisingly often, is that it serves to crystallise my thoughts on all the music that I have heard in the past year. That is more important than ever. I don't have exact numbers but I am in no doubt that in 2017 I have listened to more music than in any previous year. That includes approximately 150 live acts. Music by artists that I have seen live at some time or another continues to have a profound effect on my listening habits. To make that point this list consists only of albums released in 2017 by artists that I have also seen live in 2017. The reverse is also holds true; I have made an effort to see a number of artists in 2017 as a result of falling for their music in recorded format. John Moreland is a very good example of that. His LP 'High On Tulsa Heat' was on this list last year. The follow-up 'Big Bad Luv' is on this one and therefore here he is...
John Moreland, Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, 2 September 2017.
Angel Olsen - Phases
Courtney Marie Andrews - Honest Life
Holly Macve - Golden Eagle
Hurray For The Riff Raff - The Navigator
John Moreland - Big Bad Luv
John Smith - Headlong
Otis Gibbs - Mount Renraw
Pumarosa - The Witch
Rosie Hood - The Beautiful and The Actual
Stevie Parker - Blue
Less than an hour later...
Courtney Marie Andrews, Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, 2 September 2017.
I guess it is fair to say that I have rather indie-traditional leanings in the music I favour but in fact I have listened to a surprising amount of pop and electronic music this year too. I'm neither proud nor embarrassed about that. The highlight is possibly that the last few years of political turmoil have re-energised the whole gamut of narrative music based on protest, hardship and (voluntary or otherwise) displacement.
My first attempt at seeing Pumarosa live, at Truck Festival 2016, was entirely successful. Taking photos was not however, thanks to a tetchy memory card. With a new memory card and as it happens a different camera I fared somewhat better in 2017.
Pumarosa's Isabel Munoz-Newsome, Walled Garden stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.
John Smith, Tipi stage, End Of The Road Festival, 2 September 2017.
If there is a curve-ball it is the inclusion of 'Phases' by Angel Olsen because it is in a sense a compilation. My reason is this. I first saw her live at Green Man 2014, knowing next to nothing of her or her work, and was blown away. In great part by the music but also by her faintly diffident approach. Three years on, and after the release of 'My Woman' in 2016, she returned to Green Man in 2017. I was interested to see what might have changed. Quite a lot to tell the truth and much as I expected to be honest. Totally amazing and still playing that 1979 Gibson S-1.
Angel Olsen, Far Out stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.
Based in Boulder, Colo. The Railsplitters is a quintet and a string band that displays not only its independence of traditional constrictions within the genre - traditional bluegrass did not involve women; lead vocal here in the charge of Lauren Stovall, originally from Jackson, Miss. - but also its own ethos as to where it should head musically and therefore the sort of topics that the songs relate to follow likewise. The band members are as follows:
Lauren Stovall - lead vocals
Dusty Ryder - banjo
Peter Sharpe - mandolin
Joe D'Esposito - fiddle
Jean-Luc Davis - upright bass
This is the band's third LP. Like the two that came before it, self-titled 'The Railsplitters' (2013) and 'The Faster It Goes' (2015), it has been entirely cloud-funded and self released.
Jump In - The Railsplitters (self-released, 10 November 2017).
The Railsplitters - Jump In:
Everyone She Meets
Jump In
Lessons I've Learned
Durango River
To Do
Somethin' Sweet
Citronella
Lemon Lime
Bay of Five
Baxes
This is a true touring band. As I write this their schedule shows that the next gigs are at the Woodside Folk Festival in Queensland, Australia between Christmas and New Year. An extensive tour of the UK follows early in 2018 and I am intending to see the band live. The dates for this tour are as follows:
Jan 25 Thu --- The Old Fire Station, Carlisle
Jan 26 Fri --- The Hippodrome, Eyemouth
Jan 27 Sat --- Letham Nights, Letham
Jan 28 Sun --- Birnam Arts, Dunkeld
Jan 30 Tue --- Celtic Connections, Glasgow
Feb 1 Thu --- Eastgate Theatre, Peebles
Feb 2 Fri --- Sage Gateshead, Gateshead
Feb 3 Sat --- The Greystones, Sheffield
Feb 4 Sun --- Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea
Feb 6 Tue --- Helsby Bluegrass Club, Frodsham
Feb 7 Wed --- Musically Monstrous at The Three Horseshoes, Towersey
Feb 8 Thu --- South Holland Centre, Spalding
Feb 9 Fri --- Selby Town Hall, Selby
Feb 10 Sat --- Sands Sessions, Farnham
Feb 11 Sun --- Whitstable Sessions at St Mary's Hall, Whitstable
Feb 13 Tue --- The Canteen, Bristol
Feb 14 Wed --- Biddulph Up In Arms, Stoke-On-Trent
Feb 15 Thu --- Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal
Feb 16 Fri --- The Live Room, Saltaire
Feb 17 Sat --- The Lights, Andover
'Jump In', live from Albino Skunk Music Festival, Greer, SC, October 2017.
Divining the future has to start somewhere. I have chosen this as my starting point for music in 2018, not least because Stick In The Wheel is exactly between the future and the past. I have no idea what the songs on this, the second LP, will be but I'm happy to trust that I shall like them and so I have pre-ordered it on vinyl.
Follow Them True - Stick In The Wheel (self released, 26 January 2018).
In 2017 the band released a record of other artists singing traditional songs live and that is well worth an hour of your precious time too. It features well known artists and also many less so but no less worthy.
FROM HERE: English Folk Field Recordings (From Here Records, 2017).
The idea was to capture what the essence, the making and the performance of English folk music means in the here-and-now.
This follows from my previous post in that I realise sometimes it takes new music time to reveal itself to me. This is a more extreme case in that I first heard it almost a year ago. It has more recently become a a go-to album especially when I find myself in a somewhat ambivalent mood. There is something about it that works for me. That mood is not actually the case just now and probably why I have finally seen my way around to writing about it.
Vagabond Saint - Angelina (WONDERFULSOUND, 2 December 2016). D/l & vinyl.
Vagabond Saint - Angelina:
Dark Heart
Rose Cascade
Mandolin Man
I Don't Cry
January Butterfly
Prayers and Grace
Vagabond Saint
Smokes Like A Dream
Manola
Wild Cloud
Sometimes
It's soulful, smoky, southern, pastoral and she wrote the songs too. The artist comes from the nearest that the UK has to an island in the delta, the Isle of Wight, but don't let that put you off. Had I found it in time last year it would have been on my year-end list. That it was released when it was is a great commitment to the fact that fine new releases no longer stop at the start of November in fawning to the 'don't-offend-anyone' Christmas market fare of decades past.
It is better to buy (or give, or be given) an album you love and an album you detest than end up with two albums that don't evoke much response either way.
The Delta Bell is the work of Brighton-based musician and song writer Kate Gerrard; performing solo or as in the case of this, her second full-length, with a full band.
Kate Gerrard - vocals, guitar, hammond
Beth Chesser - backing vocals, keyboard, piano
Andrew Blake - guitar
James Bandenburg - bass, harmonica
Bob Baker - drums
Mark Jesson - cello
Sophie Jesson - violin
The first Delta Bell LP was 'Bow Out Of The Fading Light' in 2015 and I wrote about that here.
Some albums are immediate in their appeal and although I liked it from the start it is not exactly one that I would describe in that way. For the 'shuffle playlist' generation this will likely not be a big deal unless something snags your ear, resulting in a kind of musical emergency brake application. I hardly ever listen to music on shuffle. That is why I am only writing about it almost a month after its release, despite the fact that I had pre-ordered it on vinyl several months before release. Immediacy and longevity are certainly not two mutually exclusive sides of a coin but neither are they to be conflated. I would suggest that the very title of the record indicates the side of this divide it was intended to inhabit. It takes some growing into. That's not to say that is an effort, less a burden, but it takes time none the less. The lyric of 'Modern City' seems to sum that for me and the repetition of them heightens that further. A similar construct straddles its shapes of isolation and inclusion:
'I pulled up my roots and hang from the branch' ...from opening track 'Berlin' doesn't seem hopeful on the face of it but things work themselves out in one way or another. It's a recording that really requires your attention, almost certainly best alone and with coffee and some cake, played end-to-end before if gets to you. You'll know when it does. It's actually very reassuring. Not may artists write albums that require this singular level of attention any more. You might, like I am, looking to find more somewhat like it. The Delta Bell is also a fine live act, be it Kate playing solo or any combination of musicians beyond that.
The Delta Bell - Saloon Bar stage, Truck Festival, 16 July 2016.
It is rare that I venture to London for live music. Last Wednesday was an an exception and with good reason. It was for to see this artist live a fifth time but the fact that I had never set foot inside the iconic Royal Festival Hall did no harm either.
Photo credit: John Bentley
The artist was Joanne Shaw Taylor and despite a cold that had caused the cancellation of the previous day's show at Bristol Colston Hall we were treated to an awesome set. Her voice held but, sensibly in the circumstance, the guitar parts and the addition of an entirely instrumental number were to the fore. It was to be quite stunning. I have never seen and heard guitar played quite like that by anyone... the acoustics of the room playing a full part here. The whole set seemed to go so very quickly but was not in fact any shorter than might have been anticipated. Support was provided by the impressive South African blues-rock artist Dan Patlanky and his band of which I have to admit that I was previously quite unaware. On the other hand I really like being caught off-guard by new music. Rather suspecting that I would not be permitted to use it I didn't take a camera. In some ways that was liberating too. The whole evening, involving company and travelling to London and back, seems to have pressed some sort of reset button in my mind. Since the summer's festivals I have been listening to absolutely loads of music but had somehow lost the wish to write about it for a month or two. It has to be spontaneous. It isn't something that I can make myself do though I often think in some detail about what I might post even when I don't actually do it.
You might know about my love of the EP format by now. This is a shining example of why that is so.
In My Blood EP - Dryadic (self-released, 20 October 2017).
Dryadic is a Brighton-based two-piece one half of which is Zora Macdonald, formerly the lead of The Tatsmiths. We are going back a few years but that is fine by me. The Tatsmiths recorded an LP Curiosity Shop (2012) here in my home town of Frome, Somerset. That was followed by the Occupy EP (2015). You need to listen to these and not least because they place the new direction and therefore this release in a context that makes complete sense. This latest is a true EP, comprising just three songs, and includes the use of a fantastically rare English language verb in a song title. Sometimes less is actually rather more than you bargained for. It is a wonderful thing. Dryadic - In My Blood:
I intended to write about this a few weeks back and did nothing. This is the latest release from a prolific songwriter, touring artist and, as in this case, an interpreter of the songs of others and she did this on the album 'Butcher Holler: A Tribute to Loretta Lynn' (2010). This is all about the last mentioned trait but here it is blues and for the most part it is not blues 'standards' that is the focus of attention here.
Down Hearted Blues - Eilen Jewell (Signature Sounds, 22 September 2017).
Eilen Jewell - Down Hearted Blues:
It's Your Voodoo Working
Another Night to Cry
You'll Be Mine
Down Hearted Blues
I'm a Little Mixed Up
You Gonna Miss Me
Walking with Frankie
Nothing in Rambling
Don't Leave Poor Me
Crazy Mixed Up World
You Know My Love
The Poor Girls Story
I thought about mentioning the sources of the songs here but decided that it is probably more fun if you explore them for yourself, should you wish to do so. Another point to note is that Eilen and her regular band have not been slavish to the original and have added whatever interpretation that was felt to be appropriate.
All this as well as her own music with the band, her gospel-influenced recordings with The Sacred Shakers, a young family and a vast touring schedule.
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