New Music 2016 - Part 15 - Margo Price - Midwest Farmer's Daughter

The first I heard about what is to follow was just a song.  Three things struck me about it all at once:

• The vocals - my first thoughts were Melanie and Lindi Ortega.
• The lyric and attitude - reminiscent of those of Loretta Lynn, not to mention the above.
• The falling-scale slide guitar arpeggio.

'Desperate and Depressed', for that was clearly its title, is not perhaps the most welcoming of introductions but that wasn't going to evince anything other than an immediate need to find who was singing and what is going on here.  A fourth thing and an assumption, which turned out to be correct, was that it wasn't a cover of a song that I simply hadn't heard before.  If it had been such then it was certainly due some time in the sun anyway...

Let us start with the lyric, if only because I haven't featured them so much of late.

Desperate and Depressed

I'm pissed off at the number of people that I meet

Who go to shake my hand with a viper up their sleeve.

They freeze me out in winter, burn me up all summer.

Try to take my money when I'm desperate and depressed.

Ain't it a mess.

I've played for free and paid for the miles on my truck.

Got no sleep in motels cause the worry keeps me up.

It almost drives me crazy thinking about my baby

And how he's gonna love me if I'm desperate and depressed

Can't get no rest.

Momma never told me that things would be this way.

Daddy tried to warn me that there'd be hell to pay.

If I can't find the money then I can't buy the time.

I'm stuck here making someone else's dime.

We busked in Sarasota. I made twenty-seven bucks.

I wept for Richard Manuel thinking I might have his luck.

You talked behind my back but only stabbed me in the front.

But don't think you can hurt me cause I'm desperate and depressed.

Ain't it a mess.

Please, somebody tell me how to make it stop

This world feels like a roller coaster I just can't get off

Tried rehab and probation, tried self-medication

But none of that can cure you when you're desperate and depressed

Ain't it a mess

Momma never told me that things would be this way.

Daddy tried to warn me that there'd be hell to pay.

But if I can't find the money then I can't buy the lie.

Oh, ten percent of nothing ain't a dime.

So don't you try to sell me back what's mine

I'll be desperate and depressed until I die

This song is the b-side of a vinyl 7".

You can give it a virtual spin here...

...but this track didn't make it on to the LP.*

The a-side is Hurtin' On The Bottle (a co-write with Caitlin Rose and others) and the single was released in late 2015 to promote the soon-to-be-released début LP, Midwest Farmer's Daughter, by East Nashville's Margo Price.

Midwest Farmer's Daughter - Margo Price (Third Man Records, 25 March 2016).

A point that is worthy of note is that this LP was recorded, mixed and mastered before it was presented, fait accompli, to would-be labels. Most of them simply said "no" or, if not exactly that, wished to mould it to the sensibility of their perceived market; in other words suck all the originality out it.
This is the track-listing:

Margo Price - Midwest Farmer's Daughter

1. Hands of Time
2. About to Find Out
3. Tennessee Song
4. Since You Put Me Down
5. Four Years of Chances
6. This Town Gets Around
7. How the Mighty Have Fallen
8. Weekender
9. Hurtin' On the Bottle
10. World's Greatest Loser

Taken from it is this, recorded live:

Since You Put Me Down

Note added 8 March 2016:

Margo Price was today confirmed as appearing at End The Road Festival 2016.

Writing in The New Yorker last month, this is what Sarah Larson had to say about Midwest Farmer's Daughter:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/sarah-larson/listen-to-margo-price

Note added 15 April 2016:
* Desperate and Depressed was, in the event, added to the UK release of Midwest Farmer's Daughter. At least on Spotify about five minutes after it's release there.

New Music 2016 - Part 14 - Paula Ryan - Let Me Fly

New releases and artist confirmations of festival dates are both starting to warm up now, even if the weather isn't. There are certainly exciting things on the horizon but today I've decided to go with a very recently released album.

Paula Ryan - Let Me Fly (self-released, 19 February 2016).

This is certainly an album with strong elements of folk, and Irish folk too for a couple of tracks are sung either in whole or part in Gaelic and some of the instrumentation flows from that. This includes bouzouki so file that influence under 'Planxty' but only for now; it is a subtle indication of the need to look much further than that here.

A number of songs here have distinctly African influences and instrumentation [A Thousand Smiling Faces, Lion In A Cage - in particular] and I have to say that I am drawn as much to these as the more, um, traditionally traditional songs. So what?
It is true that I have fallen for specific examples, particularly when seen and heard live, a few times before... I'm beginning to think that I might need to pay the panopoly that is 'World Music' more attention. One thing that I don't like too much, and it has nothing the do with any of the music itself, is the semantic associated with that term itself. There seems something rather dismissive, indeed disparaging, about lumping the vast proportion of all worldwide musical tradition together under a catch-all couplet.

After that serious interlude, for in large part the album is playful (not least the silliness of Honest John), here is the track listing:

• A Thousand Smiling Faces
• Let Me Fly
• Suantraí Donnacha
• Honest John
• Lion in a Cage
• Havin' the Craic!
• Black Swan
• Don't Cry
• Castaway
• The Funny One
• Song for Conor
• Donnacha's Lullaby

The modern side of English folk is here too. The title track is a song-biography of aviatrix Amy Johnson.

Donnacha's Lullaby is Suantraí Donnacha in English.

New music, Canada and forthcoming festivals...

Only yesterday I was thinking that I hadn't written about new Welsh music for sometime and so I did something about that. I used to write about music from Canada rather often too, indeed it was Arcade Fire that were in large part responsible for my conversion to festival-going, and therefore Latitude Festival, back in 2007.

Here are two Canadian acts that I have never seen live before but are appearing at festivals to which I'm going this coming summer. One thing I am confident about is that nobody could claim that both fall into a single genre. Both have new records to bring to the party, however.

Basia Bulat - Good Advice (Secret City Records, 12 February 2016).

This release is rather more pop-oriented than her earlier acoustic and folk-oriented material that regularly featured hammered dulcimer and autoharp. She is playing End Of The Road Festival, Dorset, UK, and hopefully we will get the best of both worlds.

The Besnard Lakes - A Coliseum Complex Museum (Jagjaguwar Records, 22 January 2016).

The Besnard Lakes is, more or less, the project of  husband-and-wife team Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas. One thing that that they do very well is psych-rock. I have all the earlier LPs too but this is the latest and in any case my liking for this is hardly breaking news. One accusation levelled against the band is that it sticks to the theme too much...  another is that the album is too short; earlier ones were criticised for being too long.
You just can't win!
Any which way, The Besnard Lakes play Green Man Festival 2016.  See what you think. See you there?

New Music 2016 - Part 13 - Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog IV

It's been a while since I mentioned any new music from Wales. It has been far longer since I mentioned seeing Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog play live at the only edition of No Direction Home Festival back in June 2012. That was around the time of the release of their album 'Draw Dros Y Mynydd', which I've just been listening to once again. Here is the briefest of summaries - country-inflected rock sung entirely in Welsh.

It's been a while in the making but the new LP - Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog IV - is due 25 March.

Beyond that I know almost nothing at all. I'd love to see the band live at a festival again. Maybe Green Man (away across the mountains but still in their native Wales) or End Of The Road?

Note added June 2016:
Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog is now confirmed to appear at Green Man 2016.

A virtual Sunday roots - Americana - bluegrass road trip.

This was sparked by a comment from a US friend about a band recently seen live (twice) and how good it was. Today I have listened on rotation to these three LPs whilst doing routine jobs around the house. I haven't had the good fortune to see any of these artists live, yet.

It prompted me to think about an artist whose début LP I happened across a couple months back and then never got around to mentioning.  Of the three that is the one that I shall start with and it is the only one that consists largely of traditional tunes and songs; they were both collected and arranged by the artist, Jake Xerxes Fussell. That is indeed his name from birth and splendid it most certainly is. Much of the music here is acoustic singer-with-guitar material but lap-steel and fiddle feature too. 

Released: 26 January 2015 (Paradise of Bachelors)

I could have chosen almost anything here. Not a single song showcases the diversity that is sampled from the original sources. In the end I chose 'Star Girl' as it displays more of the instruments on offer here than some other tracks.

The next that I shall mention is the one recommended to me this morning and therefore the seed from which this conceptual road trip grew. Originally hailing from a slew of places across the US the five members, none were known one to another before they found themselves in Portland, OR in 2014.  In a matter of months they became Crow and The Canyon. From that point on they toured solidly, mostly in the Pacific Northwest, writing what would become their first LP 'Leaving Soon'.

It was released 9 June 2015 (CD Baby).

To a great extent this is their own material and it covers, indeed fuses a wide variety of styles across the folk, country and bluegrass spectrum. As Crow and the Canyon had been recommended to me this was actually where I started this 'road trip' but in terms of story-telling it seems to fit best in the midst of the three. It is invidious to attempt to choose just one track to illustrate this, but I'm going to try anyway.

The final piece in this trilogy is The Lil Smokies from Montana. This is very much led by modern bluegrass.

It was released 28 June 2013 (CD Baby).

'Mending The Fence' live in Missoula, MT, 2013.

New Music 2016 - Part 12 - Sunflower Bean - Human Ceremony

I have both an ear open for and an eye on artists that are playing festivals that I'm planning on attending in 2016.
Therefore this three-piece from Brooklyn, NY comes to my attention sooner rather than later. While their neighbourhood is famous for much musically, when thinking about recent years indie-rock possibly isn't the first thing that might have come to mind.
That, however, is what Jacob Faber (drums), Julia Cumming (bass and vocals) and Nick Kivlen (guitar and vocals) do. The last mentioned (front-centre below) looks so like 'Blonde on Blonde' era Dylan that it simply can't be a coincidence.

Human Ceremony is the début LP. Fat Possum Records, 5 February 2016.

To pigeon-hole their music in place or time is tricky but it might be dreamy rock to assuage worrying thoughts and, be that as it may, their reputation for live performance is growing rapidly.  Sunflower Bean is playing End Of The Road Festival 2016.

This is the official video for 'Wallwatcher'.

New Music 2016 - Part 11 - Freakwater - Scheherazade

When an LP takes its title from a Persian queen-consort, she was also the storyteller for One Thousand and One Nights, one might conclude that things are not going to be exactly straightforward. You are right but I'll try to keep this post concise.

It is also an example of two points I feel that I often make:
The first is that trying to fit music into little 'genre-boxes' is at best a waste of time that is far better spent finding and listening to music. At worst it is misguided and distracts from the investigation of "new" music by others simply because they may perceive it to be beyond their habitual comfort-zone.
Tied in to this is the second; there is so much music available to find that keeping an open mind and setting out on a voyage simply to find whatever may be out there seems a pretty good option to me. The few useful navigation aids en route are those things the judgement of which one has learned to respect. That could be applied to a festival of which the line-up is as yet unknown when one books a ticket or, as in this case, a record label - Bloodshot Records.  This post also adheres to one of the few founding principles of this blog and it is that I don't waste my energy on writing about things that I don't like.

Scheherazade is the first new Freakwater record in over a decade.
It was released in North America 5 February 2016 and will be so in Europe 12 February 2016 on LP, CD and d/l.

The LP cover screams 1970s to me - the interlocked and curvy typeface, the colors and optical-illusory carpet of the motel room both - but that is not what it sounds like.
Not. At. All. The vocals are handled, as they always have been for this is Freakwater album #8, by Janet Bean and Caroline Irwin who both hail from Louisville, Kentucky.

This is the track list:

Freakwater - Scheherazade

• What the People Want
• The Asp and the Albatross
• Bolshevik and Bollweevil
• Down Will Come Baby
• Falls of Sleep
• Take Me With You
• Velveteen Matador
• Skinny Knee Bone
• Number One With a Bullet
• Memory Vendor
• Missionfield
• Ghost Song

I reckon that you best go figure what else, if anything, it reminds you of. I haven't decided that myself but I like the whatever-that-it-is and I that's quite good enough for me, at least for now.

What's next?

With this season's festival attendances now more-or-less decided there are a few months in which to consider things other than, as well as, the waves of new and not-so-new music that wash over us.
Maybe a few clues can be found in the side bar of this blog and I'm thinking that it is perhaps time to have a look at songs that have been covered...
That might be the original version (quite impossible in the case of many traditional songs), the most well known version and maybe others too.
I know that there are several songs that I thought were 'original' to a certain artist (if not necessarily composed by that artist, which is another issue) but that I have since discovered most certainly were not.
Quite how I might actually achieve this is something of a mystery right now but I like the idea of attempting it.

New Music 2016 - Part 10 - Erin Rae and The Meanwhiles - Soon Enough

More music from across the Atlantic...

The good people at Clubhouse Records here in the UK have announced that their latest signing is Erin Rae and The Meanwhiles and that the début LP 'Soon Enough' will be released in the UK on 3 June.
Having been told this I felt it incumbent on me to see what I could find out about the artist, band and music. One of the first reviews that I read opined that it was perfect listening for a Sunday afternoon. I also discovered that as it was self-released as a download, as well as vinyl and CD, in the US in September 2015 I was able to listen to it.
I am inclined to agree with that review, which is why I am writing this one grey and windy Sunday afternoon here in southern England.
The first thing that struck me is that Erin Rae has a soothing voice; she doesn't push its boundaries or resort to the histrionic, but that is not to say that it lacks weight or purpose. The songs talk of a variety of themes both dark and light and, while instrumentation associated with "country" such as pedal-steel loom large, it is hard to categorize the music.

The whole LP was recorded live over two days in West Tennessee and it maintains that essence of existing in its own three-dimensional space --- where modern folk, roots and country mingle and in so-doing may become beyond place and time.
That is possibly the greatest achievement of all, and some of the songs do just this.

From that LP this is 'Clean Slate', live in Nashville, August 2015.

New Music 2016 - Part 9 - Lucinda Williams - The Ghosts Of Highway 20

Here's another little sneaky listen. I have been waiting upon this LP for some time if I'm to be quite honest.

I'm writing whilst listening but I can share the prospect with you. This live stream is likely time-limited and may not be available in all countries.

I'll be back with you about my thoughts on this, but not until later.

Thoughts on 2016 festivals...

The snowdrops are out and therefore spring is only a month, or maybe two, away!
It is that time of year once again - time to think about festivals this coming summer. That is not to say that the weather will play nice but what's not to like?

Three pictures from Green Man Festival 2015 and not a programme artist performing!

I've pretty much finalised my festival-going ideas for 2016 but confirmation of the detail remains, as does the vast majority of the artists appearing at all of them. That is something I can take on trust; the ambience is also an important consideration too.
One thing that is already decided is that, despite having a wonderful time at Cambridge Folk Festival 2015, I shall not be returning in 2016.

Aside from the music that I write about, what else am I listening to?

Inspired by a number of inquiries over time, this is a start on answering that question and perhaps it will also provide an insight (for I am not entirely sure about this myself) into the means by which this comes about. One thing that I am sure about is that I have no science, and certainly no formula, for this. The vagaries of each individual human mind are at least for now still way beyond that level of analysis - and indeed I hope they long remain so.

Curiosity, serendipity and sometimes (possibly skewed) memories are the watchwords here. Of course a modest physical music collection allied to the vast resources now available via streaming help with this.
Many of the artists below I have mentioned before; what lead me to choose them for this list and in this order is not remotely clear to me except to say that "it seemed to make sense". There is one thing that I do know and it is that the search for music, new or simply new to me, is addictive:



It is likely nothing other than the advantage of the perspective provided by middle-age, as applied to the teenage-pastime of compiling cassette mix-tapes, combined with the advances in technology that have made the creation and sharing such things possible in a way that at the former time we would never have believed would be possible in our own lifetime.

If you don't like my choices then that is just fine by me and I am always open to comment and criticism. If anyone finds something hereby that leads them into pastures new then that is everything that I could hope for. This is quite simply music I like at the moment and, starting point and a couple of others aside, of fairly recent vintage. I'm minded that 'An anthology of songs #3' will be a retrospective affair by comparison.

Playlists are like blogging in many ways in that they are is widely available (if you are in a 'free' country and that is a proviso that I much regret that I need to mention). If "shared" social media that has no trace of of that individual's user-generated content, or even their comments on material by others, riles (or roils) then you should do something about it.

Write, publish, use the Oxford comma, and be damned!

New Music 2016 - Part 8 - Sierra Hull - Weighted Mind

I just snagged my ears on this courtesy of NPR. It's getting towards bedtime but I couldn't resist listening and posting. It is not entirely like the music that, as a teen-aged performer, she became known for. See what you think.

It is released (Rounder Records) on 29 January 2016.

New Music 2016 - Part 7 - Aurora - All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend

Well, now that I'm thinking about festivals in 2016, this memory from Green Man 2015 is worth all the rain and more.
I wandered away from the Mountain stage during a lull in proceedings and took this image of folk making the best of a soggy day whilst on my way...

When you see something live, that you are previously at best only slightly aware of, and it wildly exceeds all expectations you don't need to do anything except be there; you can't do anything about it because it just happens. This was one such occasion for me.

Aurora, Walled Garden stage, Green Man Festival, 23 August 2015.

Running With The Wolves EP started the ball rolling and the title track is on the forthcoming LP. Aurora Aksnes is quite something to behold live.

All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend (Decca-UMO, 11 March 2016).

She is also good for a cover song from time to time, and I'm not talking Oasis and the John Lewis Christmas 2015 one here, although that certainly garnered much publicity and attention for her. This, although she could not have known it at the time of performance in June 2015, is now far more topical. It is not much short of acapella.

Is There Life on Mars?

New Music 2016 - Part 6 - Clay Parker and Jodi James

I had no plans to post today but then again, lists aside, I rarely plan posts to a schedule even when writing about festivals and such. Things just happen for a reason. This was actually released at the very end of last year. Both protagonists have worthy releases individually, which I intend to explore further in due course. This however demanded my attention right now.

This short self-titled album is their calling-card as a duo and it is self released.

Clay Parker and Jodi James

1. Come Back
2. What It Knows
3. Moonshiner
4. Showboatin'
5. Meditation Blues
6. After the Smoke Clears

This live performance of Jodi's own song Kiss Lonely Goodbye goes right back to the start of the collaboration.

It was recorded in Memphis, TN. 1 August 2014.

New Music 2016 - Part 5 - Applewood Road

One day in 2014 three songwriters met in a coffee shop in East Nashville. They had not met before but they wrote a song called Applewood Road.
Shortly afterwards the three - Amber Rubarth, Amy Speace and Emily Barker - recorded it and decided to expand the project to a whole LP. In 2015 they had written the whole set and returned to the same place where they recorded that first song. This is that record and what you get is three part harmony and sparse acoustic accompaniment.

It was recorded at Welcome To 1979 Studio in Nashville around a single microphone to two-track tape using all analogue equipment.  The tapes were edited together and mastered at Gearbox Records, again using all analogue process and the acetate masters lathe-cut there too.

Applewood Road:

1. Applewood Road
2. To the Stars
3. Old Time Country Song
4. Home Fires
5. Honey Won't You
6. Give Me Love
7. Sad Little Tune
8. Lovin' Eyes
9. Josephine
10. I'm Not Afraid Anymore
11. Bring the Car Round
12. Row Boat
13. My Love Grows

It is released by Gearbox Records on 12 February 2016 (vinyl, digital). Here is a little preview:


Note added 10 February 2016: You can currently listen to a legal stream of the full album courtesy of For Folk's Sake, ahead of its release this coming Friday, here. Or indeed, courtesy of The Bluegrass Situation, here.

New Music 2016 - Part 4 - Clara Engel - Visitors Are Allowed One Kiss

It is the end of the first full working week of 2016 and for that I am thankful. I opened my mailbox on my return home and behind the weekly Domino Pizza flyer, that went straight into the recycling box as always, lurked a small padded envelope. Today had just taken another turn for the better!
Dispatched from the interesting independent label Paradigms Recordings, based in Kent, UK was this.

Clara Engel - Visitors Are Allowed One Kiss.

My first purchase from the above-label this may be but it is certainly not the first of music from Clara Engel, who hails from Toronto, Canada. Her releases, which might be (indeed often are) described as gothic folk, or possibly folk-noir from time to time, are always interesting and their supposed genre merely a distraction in many ways. They always demand attention - the vocal is sometimes almost spoken-word and the instrumentation apparently sparse yet, at the same time both deeply dimensioned.
I mentioned the Madagascar EP as long ago as May 2011 and the A Little Slander, A Little Lace EP (2015) as recently as last month as part of my reviews of 2015. There is plenty more to find, for she has released eleven albums (I think) but finding physical copies of much of the body of work is at best difficult.

That is indeed a potential issue with Visitors Are Allowed One Kiss - it is limited to just 200 copies on CD - but is still available here. The screen-printed fold-out packaging is a great complement to the recording and a lyric sheet is also included. The track listing is as follows (taken from the back cover of said CD):

There are only five tracks but each of them takes its time to unfold. Neither the individual songs nor the LP, which is a fraction over thirty minutes in duration, ever threaten to overstay their welcome. It is another triumph of the maxim that sometimes less is more.

Ian Tyson - Carnero Vaquero

There is so much 'new music' to be discovered and it is easy to make comparisons that are unwarranted. Then there is the deadly 'genre' debate.
It is not something that I'm inclined to visit anyway but this is one album that tempts me towards that trap even less than most. The best thing is to keep your ears, and your mind, open to all possibilities and see what comes along.

It is a newish release, by Stony Plain Records on 16 June 2015.

Not new at all is the style of music or indeed the artist for that matter. Ian Tyson was 81 years-young when this album was recorded and as well as being an active, touring musician he still runs his stock ranch in a remote part of Alberta, Canada, that is far removed from the bright city lights of Calgary.
You might be interested in his previous recording history too, for it is a long one, but that is not in any way a prerequisite to listening to this. It might actually be better to listen to this first and then, should you be so inclined, follow the trail back through time. Carnero Vaquero comprises ten original vignettes of a life well lived:

• Doney Gal
• Colorado Horses
• Will James
• Jughound Ronnie
• Darcy Farrow
• The Flood
• Shawnie
• Chantell
• Wolves No Longer Sing
• Cottonwood Canyon

If I were to be snowed-in at home, which is unfortunately rather unlikely, I'd be listening to this sooner rather than later.

My Music in 2015 - Albums - Part 3

Right! Here we go again and for the last time specifically concerning 2015.
This is not a list of odds-and-ends, far from it. Two of the LPs in this list have appeared near the top of many lists, proffered by major news outlets and suchlike, that are supposedly arranged in some order of merit. That consensus approach is not the way I work. All these lists are about what I liked and in particularly the impact that it had on me.

• 9 Bach - Tincian
• Emily Barker - The Toerag Sessions
• Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear
• Hannah Rose Platt - Portraits
• Jess and The Bandits - Here We Go Again
• Lanterns On The Lake - Beings
• Mandolin Orange - Such Jubilee
• Public Service Broadcasting - The Race For Space
• Robert Chaney - Cracked Picture Frames
• Samantha Fish - Wild Heart

There is so much more that I have liked and listened-to-death that isn't included yet still some say that there is a shortage of new music. This, even were it to be true, is a symptom of the malaise that has beset the industry and the majority of consumers for a long time. It was geared to prescribing to listeners what it wanted them to listen to and for the most part the consumer was compliant.
My introduction to two of the acts in this list goes back a long while - I saw them live for the first time at End Of The Road Festival 2009 and 2010 until which point I was completely unaware of both!
I could never have imagined what I suspect, for I do not count listens, would become my most listened-to music of 2015. This is a case of not being led by the nose but blind-sided, in a good way, instead.This third selection of LPs also includes one of the most harrowing songs that I have ever heard. It is not about some industrial accident or natural disaster. It is about the peculiar failings of humankind and is a rather sad place to end this post.



Robert Chaney is the author of The Ballad of Edward and Lisa.

My Music in 2015 - EPs and mini-albums - Part 2

I mentioned yesterday that I would conclude my lists of 2015 shortly. I am to do that now. While I was writing yesterday it occurred to me that perhaps there are good reasons to move such activities to the very end of the calendar year as I intended or even, as it has turned out, the very start of the new one. The rules here are exactly the same as with 'Part 1':

• Aimée - Write This Down
• The Great Western Tears - Great Western Tears
• Jimmy LaFave - The Night Tribe
• Old Hannah - Iron and Wood
• Rebecca Clements - Pure Wasted
• Wildwood Kin - Salt Of The Earth

Wildwood Kin, Frome Cheese & Grain - 24 October 2014.

Aimée - North Dorset Folk Festival - 24 October 2015.