The Neat

Having become rather acutely aware that I seem to have headed off into beardy folky territory quite a bit of late ( see posts about Josh Ritter, Roky Erickson and the like) the ever reliable Steve Lamacq reminds me that there is still much fun to be had at the spiky end of the spectrum. The Neat offer quite a tonic in that department and I commend the House to review the said Mr Lamacq's post that is more eloquent than I could be, watch the Vimeo vid below and spend a little time on their Myspace site...

The Neat - In Youth Is Pleasure from Danny North on Vimeo.

Turin Brakes – Outbursts

It is just over five years since the Lad and I went to see Turin Brakes at the Academy in Bristol as the Lads first live gig. I have held a special place for TB since their first album The Optimist. Back around 2005 they were heralded as part of the then new folk/acoustic revival, but it is a burden to be tagged to any particular ‘wave’, and in some respects the indie band period took the sheen from TB’s star.

Outbursts is the fifth TB album and was paid for I believe from the royalties accrued from a Take That track that the chaps wrote. Given my allegiances I felt curiously disloyal to feel the album a disappointment. On first plays only the opening and closing tracks seemed to have the old TB magic, the whole feeling a bit downbeat, a little careworn and weary.

But it’s an album that is repaying repeated listens. Yes, Sea Change is the most immediate but tracks like Mirror and Rocket Song also give up their pleasures. There is an abundance of what the Lad calls ‘soft’ tracks, Paper Heart and The Invitation as examples but these are carefully written and crafted songs. Embryos is an odd track that I can’t yet warm to , but given a little time the whole set has opened up and is rewarding, maybe not the immediacy of some earlier TB albums, but good none the less, and the closing title track, Outbursts, is beautiful

Much is said about the second album but I wonder rather if it is not around the fourth or fifth that the difficulties rise up – how do you keep a band sounding fresh, how do you avoid falling into a musical rut? Not to say that TB are in a rut but to put out another few albums might require a jolt of some sort.... now that is sounding disloyal isn’t it? Well we are due to see them for our annual TB show at the Shepherds Bush Empire, and I am sure they will do us proud once again

Sea Change - ascent of man from Turin Brakes on Vimeo.

Miccoli - Podcast

I only became aware of Miccoli through IDS who caught them in a show at a shopping centre around Birmingham - he bought their album and had a chat with their father. Undeniably talented and professional they have self-released a first album and are writing their second. With a single Angel and Demons out now and proceeds from this and their current tour of shopping centres around the UK all going to the British Heart Foundation you can't but wish them well.

We caught up and recorded a podcast with them between tour dates to hear more about them, their music and their reason for supporting BHF.

Podcast Miccoli Podcast

Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago

This is an exceptionally and sumptuously beautiful album, a worthy successor to the previous album Rooks and the last of the very loose trilogy of Shearwater albums started with Palo Santo.

Built around island issues, the maritime theme is in balance with previous sets in pursuing the theme of nature, environment and so forth but the mawkishness that often besets such efforts. Indeed the island theme isn't just a tacked on device, these songs resulting from a series of trips to remote islands along with the limited edition 'dossiers' produced by Jonathon Meiburg that illustrate and illuminate the journey. The dossier couldn't be produced by the record label so the band invited fans to sign up for copies and fund the limited run of production ( I await my copy with anticipation!) - a mini and cut down version is included with the CD.

Opening to the strains of the disenfranchised inhabitants of Bikini Atoll singing their national anthem from their adopted home of Kili, the album moves from the lilting and lyrical such as Hidden Lakes, to the harsher and (relatively) abrasive such as Corridors. The whole affair lasts a scant forty minutes but it is a period of unfailing success, a tour de force, woven through with Meiburg's affecting falsetto vocals.

Such vocals can be tiring and despite his lyrics being hard to decipher (thanks however for the lyric sheet) the vocal results in becoming an additional instrument. The whole set is like a tone poem rather than a collection of songs, each shifting into the other, little in terms of standard song structures and hardly a singalong album. But even without understanding it all on first (or subsequent) listens, the passion and integrity bursts through raising the whole above the usual, the hallmark of a special set of music.

Pat Metheny - Orchestrion

I have been a Pat Metheny fan for some time now. I remember distinctly hearing him for the first time, odd though it seems, on an edition of the old BBC programme, Tomorrows World, where he was demonstrating the then new guitar synth, by Roland I think. This must have been around 1983 as I got his next album, First Circle when it came out in 1984, guitar synth featuring heavily.

Whilst my collection of his material is by no means complete there is still a pretty full shelf of Metheny disc, solo, ensemble and group. Most of his music carries the distinctive Metheny qualities, although some like Zero Tolerance for Silence take his ability to explore all musical and crannies too far for me, perhaps one of the only truly unlistenable albums I have.

For me the Metheny music that I return to time and time again tends to be the more introspective, intimate material like the solo One Quiet Night or Beyond the Missouri Sky with Charlie Haden. But irrespective of who he plays with Metheny is ceaselessly inventive and virtuosic. The arrival of Orchestrion had me curious with Pat listed as playing every single instrument from guitars to percussion and marimba to guitarbots - courtesy of the Ochestrion

It is pointless for me to try and explain in detail but the Orchestrion is an up to date version of the player piano idea where the musician has control of all the instruments at his disposal though a complex solenoid arrangement. The embedded video does a much better job than I could hope to do of describing this.

The technological arrangement is amazing, and hats off to all those involved in making it happen and especially Eric Singer who custom built all the orchestrion instruments used here. But what of the music? I guess the most obvious feature is the ability to have several instruments following the same complex runs simultaneously, with the same 'moves and sways' - frankly I have no idea how this really works but it clearly does.

The tracks have the unmistakeable Metheny flavour to them, and no bad thing at all. Exquisitely played of course, flowing, rippling, luxuriant tracks but you can't help but think they sound like a new Pat Metheny Group CD. I am not quite sure what I like it to sound like, but if I didn't know of the amazing technical stuff I would still be pleased to have this as the latest PMG album. Pat obviously feels that it gives him greater and more personal control, with instruments responding to how he wants them to sound, maybe its a musicians thing.

A welcome addition to the Metheny oeuvre, extra-ordinary musicianship and a technical triumph, I guess I just hoped for something extra, something musically even more outstanding in line with the mind boggling orchestrion itself.

Midlake - The Courage of Others

Its been a long time since the Trials of Van Occupanther and its good to have Midlake back. It is said that in intervening time they produced another album but discarded it and started over, The Courage of Others is the result.

Of course there is much to be recognised, the harmonies, the acoustic-ness of it all and the sense that they really must the product of some 19^th century Americana/British folk hybrid. As foretold this collection is less optimist-sounding than their last outing which itself wasn’t exactly Beach Boys feel good territory. There is an all pervading melancholia, a sense of wistfulness, loss perhaps or maybe regret, reinforced by the minor chords and the downward key changes and the use of flute throughout. Much of the subject matter revolves around loss of connection with nature, the loss of ways of life and mans ability to make a mess of things. Nor is it an immediate album, a passing listen might not have you rushing to acclaim it.

However it is a strong set and beautifully played, revealing more of itself with repeated listens- Acts of Man and Children of the Grounds, come to the fore. The use of Stephanie Dosen is a welcome addition to some tracks, Ms Dosen is an under-rated talent it seems, first encountered by me as support for Midlake on their last UK tour. The songs perhaps suffer from a certain sameness at least stylistically but there is an unquestionable beauty to the songs and theyreally grow after each listen.

It will be interesting to see how this comes across live, reports of some gigs reflect that perhaps tracks from Van Occupanther are a necessary addition to the set to help with the variety of pace. Perhaps by the time I seem them in Birmingham later this month the benefit of playing this material live for a while will have filtered through.

Obviously no vids yet for the new material, but Roscoe was a class track from the last album...

My Sad Captains – Here & Elsewhere

I have been waiting for MSC debut CD for a long time now. Having first heard them on the defunct Music Exchange between Steve Lamaq (Radio 1) and Nic Harcourt (KCRW) and then seeking out a handful of download tracks (see posts passim) I have been awaiting more in a rather impatient manner. Well at last their first full length item is here.

You know how it is sometimes that waiting in anticipation can leave you a little deflated when the product arrives? Well I am afraid that this was my first feelings on listening through Here & Elsewhere. Nothing really wrong but then again not the euphoric thrill I had been hoping for these long years. Not wanting to admit to disappointment I left writing a post for a few days and kept spinning the disc.

Now a few more plays in I feel a bit different. Initially I was going to say that the album finishes more strongly than it starts, but I am not so sure anymore. Truth is that this is a bit of a slow burner for me, gradually giving up its charms – and it is a charming set of tracks. I knew Bad Decisions, All Hat and No Plans and Ghost Song of old but now Good to Go, You Talk All night and Hello Bears have also plugged themselves in.

The things that make MSC so charming (there we go again) may well be the things that failed to hit an immediate punch. They still sound, like they did on early demos, as if they have rather haphazardly thrown it all together in their bedrooms; the Pavementesque vocals, the sense of reaching the end of songs almost by accident at times, the jingly jangly-ness of it all.

But a few listens reveals the really rather good songs, and a greater sense of purpose than is apparent at first glance. It has an odd combination of jolly summeryness and a whiff of melancholia – not at all unpleasant and I suspect it will become all quite endearing and more durable than I feared on first listen. Bless the little blighters – now how about heading somewhere westward for a show or two?

MSC Myspace

MSC website

Stolen Recordings website

Mono - Hymn to the Immortal Wind

I am somewhat taken aback that I don't seemed to have put a post before about Mono. Thanks must go out to the Peeblemeister for introducing me to them (or is it the other way around?) not long after he entered the madness that is JISCworld.

This Japanese four-some produce some of the most staggeringly beautiful music around - frequently long'ish tracks of sweeping, crashing waves of sound with the most haunting of underpinning tunes. Their earlier post-, or math-rock label seems to have been replaced by rock/experimental/classical on their Myspace and their latest work - Hymn to the Immortal Wind - merits this change of nomenclature.

Their music has always had this soaring, epic quality and previously been characterised by the quiet/loud thing - exhilarating as that was, and often very loud. This work however seems somehow more complete, more consistent and although it still has its quiet/loud moments is more abot tonal changes in the sound - more dark/light, the orchestration and variety of subtlely used instruments add the nuances and depth.

A truly fabulous set of music, I admit to being a tad worried by the story ( eerily reminiscent of Murakami type storytelling) that accompanies the CD (no vocals of course!); were they really buying into the whole concept album thing? Well to a degree they have and rather like the superb Hazards of Love album by the Decemberists, they have pulled it off with style and grace.

Mono, and this set in particular, produce the sort of music that makes the soul soar - cinematic without the sacherin, epic without too much pretention, glorious life-affirming stuff. True it's not necessarily the sort of stuff you play day in and day out, but when the time is right and you have the space and concentration to devote to it, this music cannot be bettered.




Mono Myspace
Mono Web site

Lonely Dear

I have been living with Dear John the new Lonely Dear album for a little while now. Originally I got drawn in by the opening track Airport Surroundings after Lonely Dear had been lurking on the edge of my aural world for a while. Lonely Dear is in fact Swede Emil Svanangen who does everything apart from the ocassional guest appearance (Mr Andrew Bird appears briefly for instance)

Airport Surroundings has that insistent air about it that I couldn't ignore. Somehow there is something undeniably Swedish/Scandinavian about the whole sound, apart from the obvious Scandinavian accented vocals - the stye of the mutlitracked synth work, the rather melancholic flavour on even the most upbeat sounding tracks.

Initially it was the opening few tracks that were most appealing, the most quickly involving, but as time goes by the later tracks slowly give up their pleasures, progressively more whistful, sadder, aching. There is an undeniable sense of loss, a sort of homelessness in an odd way, behind all the songs but despite this I don't find it a 'down' album at all, really rather the reverse.

Live Mr Svanangen is clearly supplemented by a few mates to reproduce the full sound which if the NPR podcast of a recent show is anything to go by (bundled with the fabulous Andrew Bird gig), they manage to do very well. In the UK in April, maybe I will manage to get to the Birmingham show…

MP3 Airport Surroundings - Lonely Dear

Myspace

Web site

NPR Podcast

Elbow in Bristol

Bit slow off the mark on this post, but last Tuesday saw us at the Colston Hall again seeing friends Elbow for the third time in 12 months. By this time of course The Seldom Seen Kid is now the stuff of legend, the Mercury prize well under their belt and Mr Garvey et al are of course everyone's favourite band from, oh heavens, years ago...

The audience was that rather unsettling mix of youngsters with a thinking brain, old gits like me who read something personal into every lyric and the those couples out for an evening in town who vaguely heard One Day Like This on Radio 2 sometime or other. Naturally it is these that get on my wick something rotten - not remotely interested in the support band, think its quite appropriate to talk through and over everything just like they would watching The Bill on TV, dressed up to the nine's in their sub Top Shop garb and frankly only there to irritate the c**p out of me.... breathe out, count to ten ...

Well the support was worthy of real attention - The Acorn delivered a great set from their Gloria Esperanza Montoya album, sounding tight, and in fact quite rocky for such a delicate set of songs. They would probably be better suited to a more intimate venue but they acquited themselves well, injected a bit of banter with the crowd and left having made some new priends, if there is any justice in the world.

The Elbow set was a pretty well established one now, but no worse for that. The four string players adding warmth and depth, the band rock solid and all clearly at the top of their game, and the staging a little more interesting than last time but nothing to distract you from the main interest.

Of course they played much of the current album but also some welcome stuff from the three previous albums including the majestic New Born. For many in the audience, and especially the male contingent it seems, found it an almost religious experience - even chaps up with us in the balcony. I hadn't really twigged before what a strong male following they encourage - with followers knowing the words, the actions and revelling in the rare occasion to connect with some male sensitivity as delivered with aplomb by Guy Garvey. I do understand the almost religious overtones but mine must be a more introspective worship - my loss I fear.

A fine show, a great band with quality music and playing - who can deny them their well earned place a the top of the heap. Lets hope the polyester couples bog off to summat else next time.

Point Juncture WA

In the same way that others seem to have a bit of an obsession with bands from Leeds (step forward Mr Dany Sloan ' Exitfare ) I have to 'fess up to something similar for bands from the NW USA - Seattle/Portland etc.

New to me is Point Juncture, WA hailing from Portland, thanks to Burn the Bowery for the trigger. Whilst I am in confessional mode I had better admit to not being a big fan of female vocals in a band setting (sorry, its just how it is, not anti-girlie or anything...). But here Alison Spring and Victor Nash share and blend their vocals in a way that fits PJ's music perfectly.

The band has apparently been around for five years or so and their latest release, Heart to Elk, is their third self released offering and re-released courtesy of Mt Fuji Records (available on iTunes, streamed off their web site and for sale via Amazon). In addition to the usual instruments you get to hear a bit of vibraphone, some brass and the like, that really add colour and depth to their sound and their melodies.

A personal favourite is Sioux Arrow with its insistent drum drive, some fab loopy distorted guitar and echoey Rhodes-type piano sound contributing to the great aural atmosphere - grand stuff. The video is a slightly mad mix of home vid footage, local shots and live footage.


SIOUX ARROW from Hart Ryan Noecker on Vimeo.

Myspace Point Juncture, WA
Web Site Point Juncture WA

Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

I have to say that Andrew Bird's Noble Beast album has really got to me. The quite winning combination of violin, vocals and whistling really can't be beaten and combined with melodies that dig under your skin and sufficient wackiness to be charming but not irritating, means that this has been on heavy rotation of late.

Some apparently find his rather beautifully constructed lyrics a tad knowing but frankly its a joy to have some lyrics that both tell stories but also employ some out-of-the-mainstream words: for goodness sake just listen to some of the unutterable rubbish on the new U2 effort, I know which I would rather listen to.

There is something oddly timeless about Birds music, despite the unusual combinations, loops and noises; perhaps it is the use of older instruments - violins, semi-acoustics, glockenspiel, cor anglais etc that give a depth and richness to the sound. Of course it is a joy to hear someone able to whistle with accomplishment - a skill sadly lost to me - and the whole builds to a wondrous combination of folk, rock, traditional soundscape.

NPR have a great, full length concert from the 9.30 club in Washington that is available both to stream and get on podcast. Bird's ability to play several instruments, whistle, sing and control numerous loops etc means that he can play with only a couple of additional musicians yet accurately produce his full sound.

I have squirrelled away my tickets to see him when he reaches the Thekla in Bristol in May this year - by all accounts it should be a show woreth seeing..

Andrew Bird with Mucca Pazza - "Fitz & The Dizzyspells”


Andrew Bird Website
Andrew Bird Myspace
NPR Concert

It Hugs Back

I am afraid that I don't know too much about these four lads who make up It Hugs Back - but the name alone makes them worth checking out. There is something rather endearing about their brand of indie/pop, the almost innocent sound they put out (that sounds a bit weird I know), the keyboards that remind me of the nasty things I mucked around with as a kid, the breathy vocals, the jangly guitars, all make it feel very 'young'.

They now seem to be getting plaudits from all around so it seems these Kentish lads (or maybe lads from Kent, who knows) from my home town of Maidstone, are on their way. They are support to Wintersleep on some upcoming UK dates which will do them no harm, and their debut album, recorded at home and titled Inside Your Guitar, is out on 4AD records on 6th April. If the album is as good as singles like Other Cars Go it'll be a jolly fine affair. A number of their previously released singles (in the flesh lovingly created with hand sewn covers and all) are available via iTunes.

Web Site 4AD
Myspace It Hugs Back

Web Site It Hugs Back

Drever, McCusker and Woomble at the Union Chapel

Before the Ruin was one of my absolute favourite albums of last year and so the chance to see Kris Drever, John McCusker and Roddy Woomble perform it was irresistible. This was my first time at the Union Chapel on Highbury Corner and its reputation of being a fine, unusual and very musical venue is well founded - a great place to hear this sort of music. Whether in the pews downstairs or up in the gallery as we were, you are never far from the stage, and the sound is great in such a high and sympathetic venue.

By the time we got in we had missed probably half of the set from openers Blue Rose Code, which was a pity. They sounded fine, in good voice, and you could hear their influences (no bad thing) , especially of the now sadly missed John Martyn for whom they performed a faithful version of his song Favourite Boy.

Heidi Talbot quickly and rather diffidently took the stage next, initially accompanied only by Boo Hewerdine. Heidi's crystal clear voice can be heard on Before the Ruin but tonight she performed some of the tracks from In Love and Light her latest album, starting with the track Cathedrals - with her great voice and some excellent guitar from Boo making an attention grabbing opener. Messrs Drever and McCusky joined them for more songs, filling out the sound with their impeccable playing of fiddle and guitar. Roddy Woomble joined for the closing number, and off they went - a fine set and Heidi's vocal sounding even stronger than she does on record.

After a short break they were all back, Woomble, McCusker and Drever accompanied by Boo Hewerdine and a double bass player ( I think Andy Seward - but I can't be sure), with the album opener Silver and Gold. Heidi came back to add some welcome back up vocals and then Andy Cutting on diatoic accordian.

We were treated to the majorityof the album, a couple of very welcome songs from Roddy Woomble's album My Secret is my Silence and some tunes from McCusker, Drever and Cutting together as well as the fabulous Blackwater from Kris Drevers album of the same name. The playing and singing was uniformly superb - Woomble and Drever with outstanding voices, Drever with exemplary guitar and John McCusker on outstanding fiddle duty. In this kind of setting you see the influences that run through Roddy Woomble's Idlewild - the more straight ahead rock band inflected with the scottish folk echoes.

I could gush on about this for pages and pages, but what a joy it is to hear musicians of great quality and ability perform wonderful music, enjoying it all ( it appeared), in brilliant surroundings. Truly one of those great gigs, I was spellbound from start to finish (well the second encore when we had to run to get the last train from Paddington). Seems my folky leanings are getting stronger - last year held some magical folk-led music, these chaps, Laura Marling, James Yorkston ...

They are all worth catching, separately or in any combination. Quality will out - a fabulous gig.


Myspace Roddy Woomble
Myspace Kris Drever
Web site John McCusker
Myspace Heidi Talbot
Myspace Boo Hewerdine
Myspace Blue Rose Code
Myspace Andy Cutting
Web Site Union Chapel

Wintersleep

Sometimes I feel a bit like a sad old junky looking for the next good hit - but in my case on the hunt for another band that does 'it' for me - you know, like when you first really heard The National and you knew it was going to be a lasting love affair?

Well maybe this is the next one - Wintersleep have sort of been on the edge of my radar for a bit but I didn't take time to look them over. These Canadians have apparently been around for a couple of albums but the newest, Welcome to the Night Sky, according to some like The Line of Best Fit, sees them 'regrouped and re-launched themselves'.

Well whatever they have done it all sounds pretty damned good to me. The album is out here now/shortly under 147 Records (although their web presence is 'enigmatic' to say the least) and they have a few UK dates which sadly I can't get to.

Tracks like Oblivion is a cracking piece and maybe many will first get a hook from Wintersleep from Weightly Ghost (although its not a personal favourite, it is immediately accessible and dare I say, catchy). The UK single is apparently Archaelogists but it is tracks like Search Party that shimmer and attact for me.

Despite the post-rock tag and the faint hint of bands like REM, U2 when they were young and good, Wintersleep produce some life-affirming, 'up' and glorious sounds that are all their own and a welcome intrusion into my recent introspective obsessions - result!


Wintersleep "Oblivion" from Joshua Rainhard on Vimeo.

Wintersleep Myspace
Wintersleep Website
Line of Best Fit blog
147 Records blog

Wooden Birds and Tigers That Talked

I was a fan of American Analogue Set (AmAnSet to their friends) and was sorry only to have caught them just prior to their desolving. But from the ashes, or rather with one of the AmAnSet founders Andrew Kenny, comes Wooden Birds. Kenny's vocals are indeed recognisable from previous days, including a stint in Broken Social Scene that I had missed, and now he has some extra mates along in the form of Chris Michaels, David Wingo, Leslie Sisson, and Michael Bell. An album, Magnolia, is due out on Morr Records in Europe early this year. I am endebted to Burn the Bowery for bringing Wooden Birds to my attention...

Once again I must give thanks to another blog, Dany Sloan's Exitfare, for mention of Tigers That Talked (how does a chap 'loafing' in the Californian sunshine get to uncover so many British artists that are just under the rader - he must indeed be an avid Anglophile). The charmingly named Tigers hail from that current swirling mass of creativity that seems to be Leeds, but sound rather different to what I normally ascribe to that fair city - this isn't so much crashing agsty youth noise, but a much more layered and interesting affair, likened to bits of Elbow and faint edges of Arcade Fire... well we'll see... But their single 23 Fears has already grabbed the ears of Steve Lamacq and Zane Lowe so presumably their star is in the ascendant. Currently in the studio recording their debut album seems the Tigers might be well worth watching out for

Myspace AmAnSet

Myspace Wooden Birds

Blog Burn the Bowery

Blog Exitfare

Kitchens of Distinction

I have long harboured a fondness for KOD and especially the 1990 album Strange New World. I really don't l know why they didn't make it much bigger than they did, but their 10 year stint ran out in 1996.

They were genuinely ahead of their time (how often do you hear that?) but the swirling wash of guitars and vocal style wasn't to see its like again until the advent of Interpol and more especially Editors, who took up the baton - whats that, almost 10 years after the demise of KOD.

A post on the blog Ryan's Smashing Life reminded me of KOD again and helpfully gave a couple of jumping off points to follow, first through Braggin Billys Music Blog and then to the site of Patrick Fitzgerald the former singer/bass player and songsmith of KOD. Mr Fitzgerald now trades under the monicker Stephenhero ( James Joyce character I think?) and has been producing more music for the theatre and stage and again largely as a solo artist. From his site you can download a free EP that contains a couple of tracks not put on his recent CD '57 Stars of the Air Almanac' (no, I have no idea what that means but it reads well)

There are also a few, now slightly bizarre, but welcome vids on YouTube that bring back those jangly days of the early 1990's including the brilliant 'Quick as Rainbows'...



Stephenhero Myspace
KOD Myspace
KOD Youtube

Goldheart Assembly

Courtesy of Steve Lamacq's blog I was alerted to the welcome and jolly sound of Goldheart Assembly. The stylee does sound very retro but there is still a fresh twang to it, and how good is to hear some great tunes and melodies. Comment has been made that they wouldn't be out of place as a Fleet Foxes support slot, but in an odd way the song structure sort of reminds me of early Squeeze - thats supposed to be a compliment! Anyhow they are just the thing to boost a grim grey and wet Friday - they are out on tour in the UK in March with a slot at the Croft in Bristol - might just slide along...

Goldheart Assembly Myspace
Web site

Vacilando Territory Blues - J Tillman

Whilst I am in an introspective and reflective mood, it seems like an ideal time to mention Vacilando Territory Blues by J Tillman. Mr Tillman does the drum thing for the Fleet Foxes but also has a (short) track record all of his own.

He more than held his own as support for the Foxes earlier this year when we saw them in Bristol, sitting alone for most of time on the stage, delivering his songs to a suitably hushed and supportive crowd. At the time he mentioned his upcoming solo album, and finally here it is

Naturally thoughts and comparisons turn to the now uber-trendy Foxes, but this is rather unfair it seems to me. Whilst there are inevitable parallels in some ways this music is his own. He has a fine voice, and one that stands up extremely well live.

The album is achingly beautiful; understated songs of real charm, delicately played, so sparsely played that they almost disappear at times. Quality playing abounds, aided and abetted with a couple of Foxes for good measure. 'New Born' stands out as does 'Steel on Steel' and 'Barter Blues'. The super-laid back mood only changes for 'New Imperial Grand Blue' which gives a glimpse of Tillman et al being capable of 'rocking out' a little more.

I know reviews have been mixed but really this is a fine album, and one which plays well for me in my current inward looking state. What a shame he only has one UK date on his short promo tour, and that of course in London

J Tillman Myspace

Web Site

The Acorn

Sometimes you hear a song or an album that you know is extraordinary, somehow obviously deeply felt, one of those pieces that come from somewhere deep in the artist.

A few listens to The Acorns ‘Glory, Hope, Mountain’ triggered those sorts of feelings without really having absorbed or understood the lyrics. An album that is a folkie-indie affair, slightly ramshackle, a plethora of picked guitars and banjos, occasional spacey blips with fragile vocals and harmonies, a mash-up of music from other cultures.

Although I didn’t get to it until 2009 this is definitely another or those ‘interior’ bands and albums that typified 2008 for me. Music that is intimate, close and personal, private and delicate.

All these sentiments are magnified when you learn that Glory Hope Mountain is dedicated to the life of Gloria Esperanza Montoya (Glory Hope Mountain) who is the mother of Rolf Klausener the lead voice and songwriter.

Gloria has lead an extraordinary life: nearly dying at birth, orphaned in Honduras, leaving at 12, ending up in Canada, nearly drowning in a flood, a husband who died with brain cancer and so on and so forth. Klausener knew none of these details until his mother talked it all out with him, resulting in this album. More details can be found in several places including at Pitchfork.

Mp3 The Acorn - Crooked Legs