Immediately after streaming his first full length album from his website, I went out and bought Joshua James previous two EP’s including ‘B-Sides It’s Dark Outside’ and ‘Fields & Floods’ right from his myspace page released this past February.
‘Fields & Floods‘ is a collection of traditional Christmas songs - which I have to confess are far to much for my mood. Not only because we were in February, but especially because I don’t like Xmas songs. The only one song I came to appreciated was ‘O Tannenbaum’. Tastes and colours… anyway, when sung with the proper accent ‘O Tannenbaum’ is a really great tune : what a satisfaction to watch children’s eyes full of joy - things can spoil if those afore mentioned kids decided to sing it along with you - so be careful, do not repeat the chorus too many times ! Sure you’ll pardon me with my interlude - experiences deserve the sharing…
So I’ve received an e-press release this morning from Joshua James announcing the Official release of ‘Fields & Floods’. I can’t stand those kind of marketing strategy (but who wants to listen to Xmas songs in February ?) - I have to recognize all the talent he has pushed in those intimate versions.
“This collection was recorded at my home studio from 2006 to the present. I played all of the instruments on the record including: guitar, drums, keyboards, glockenspiel, bass, banjo, mandolin, and accordion. I wanted to do the whole thing by myself to make sure that I liked all of the production on it.”
Well impressive ! More ! I have to admit that my audio player is looping regularly on a couple of these beautiful songs no matter the season - God forgives me ! One of my favorite on Fields & Floods is his version of ‘Veni Veni Emmanuel‘ which is a really old song. Couple sources dated its lyrics from the 8th century and music : 15th century French plain song melody. On Fields & Floods original release, this track is the hidden eleventh. It appears that the iTunes version contains only 7 tracks ! No better advice than to check first Joshua James website for buying this great collection including the amazing and original track : ‘Winter Storm‘ !
If you really prefer ‘O Tannenbaum’, thanks to leave this website right now !
If not, you should absolutely buy the ‘B-Sides It’s Dark Outside’ at the same time.
…and he’ll be touring with David Gray soon. Thanks for the post and the email
Really good and really interesting post. I expect (and other readers maybe :)) new useful posts from you!
Good luck and successes in blogging!
will be seeing Joshua on the 6th, can’t wait!