Archive for the 'Folk' Category

Support Declan De Barra record A Fire to Scare the Sun

Published
by
Olivier
on July 7, 2008
in Acoustic, Alternative, Folk, Indie and Singer Songwriter
. 0 Comments

Declan de Barra released last year one of the most beautiful folk songs collection : Song of a Thousand Birds. Declan main instrument is indubitably his amazing voice : full of power, wide range. His performance on the opening track : Throw your Arms Around Me is a pure masterpiece evocating Jeff Buckley or Nick Cave ! Following ‘Someday Soon‘ is another stunning track : a magnificient piano driven ballad reminding me the superb covers of Hederos and Hellberg. Then ‘Apple Tree‘, another beautiful love ballad, and ‘Three Days From Now‘… and on and on ; each piece reveals a pure talent : the Irish born artist is concentrating the art of expression in his songwriting and performance !

Please do not read this post without listening to the songs below. ‘Tá brón orm‘ (I’m sorry) is an improvised track recorded live with Mary Barnecutt on Cello in Lich, Germany.

 
 Throw Your Arms Around Me - Declan De Barra [3:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 
 Ta bron orm - Declan De Barra [2:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Judge the quality of this impro, then be sure to jump on Declan home page and support him recording his new album.

Artist : Declan de Barra
Label : Black Star Foundation
Where to buy : Cdbaby.com / Itunes

Andy Shelton - Up on Market Street

Published
by
Olivier
on July 5, 2008
in Acoustic, Folk, Jazz and Singer Songwriter
. 0 Comments

I’ve subscribed couple months ago to the great Acoustic Long Island Podcast. I have to confess that i’m not a big Jazz amateur but Andy Shelton’s performance on May 28th was an amazing listening experience ! His music is simply addictive : a powerful mix of Jazz and Folk on which Andy Shelton layered some bright lyrics.
Right after the podcast, I’ve connected my emusic.com account for buying his 2006 album : Up On Market Street.

‘Grant Daddy Knew‘ and ‘8th Avenue‘ are far to be my favorites, two superbs folk songs, I can’t stop listening.

 
 8th Avenue - Up on Market Street - Andy Shelton [4:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Artist : Andy Shelton
Label : none
Where to Buy : Emusic / Cdbaby.com

SEABEAR

Published
by
Geordie
on July 4, 2008
in Acoustic, Folk and Pop
. 0 Comments

Like Olivier, please forgive the short post, busy times y’know?

Anyway, here’s a great pop/folk band i’ve come across from Iceland, Seabear. Signed to the Morr label in Germany (who also have the Brilliant Mum) Their album The ghost that carried us away has been on repeat now for a couple of days (Available on vinyl here). No sign of any influence of Bjork or the brilliant Sigur ros here, more influenced by the likes of Iron and Wine, Sufjan Stevens and that sweet mellow dreamy folk sound. You can also download their self released EP, Singing Arc directly from their website for free. The Scandanavians are taking over !! This band apparantly started off as just one person, Sindri Mar Sigfusson but has now increased to seven but he remains at the centre of it all with his songwriting. He’s brought in some glockenspiel, piano, harmonica and of course some acoustic guitar. Whispered harmonies to keep the dreamy mood intact at times it’s so slowed down you think it’s going to stop. Whatever you do do not fall asleep while listening to it as you will miss out on a superb album. Blissful ! Here also is some youtube of them singing their latest 7″ release of a cover of teenage kicks.

Seabear - Teenage Kicks

Seabear - cat piano

Seabear - drunk song

 
 Seabear - Cat piano [3:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 
 Seaber - Drunk song [3:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Wesley Jensen - Stories EP

Published
by
Olivier
on July 3, 2008
in Alternative, Folk, Indie, Pop and Singer Songwriter
. 1 Comment

Ante Scriptum : for Trini, Laura, Susanna and all the girls reading this blog !

With a stunning debut album ‘Pirates & Cowboys‘ last year, California songwriter Wesley Jensen released this April a second high-rated collection with some of his friends : Jeremy Edwardson (The Myriad), Jonathan Berlin (Bernard), and Christie Dupree (Eisley family)… If you’re still awaiting for the summer sun, ‘Stories‘ EP will bring you the illusion of warmth, lightness, and the desire to jump in your car, all windows down ! It’s rare to have such a high-quality compositions on a 5 tracks EP - so don’t hesitate to buy his first album @ the same time !

 
 Save My Soul - Stories - Wesley Jensen [4:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Artist : Wesley Jensen
Label : none
Where to buy : cdbaby.com / itunes
You should also like : Chris Garneau, Sufjan Stevens

Kelley McRae - Highrises in Brooklyn

Published
by
Olivier
on July 2, 2008
in Acoustic, Alternative, Folk, New Album Alert and Singer Songwriter
. 0 Comments

This will be part of a short-post series, as most of my days have been filled with family, business, and wild life ! So I would like to beg my pardon to the artists for not taking time to probe my mind and writing longer posts. Be sure that I ‘ve taken time in months of listening ( with heart and soul) before suggesting any of the following artists and i’m quite sure most of you will be touched by those talented songwriters.

So the first of this series is the unqualified Kelley McRae ! First ; because, she will speak for me : both her portrait ( … )

and performance !

What else ? Kelley McRae released her first full length ‘Never Be’ - produced by J.D. Foster (Calexico, Laura Cantrell, Richard Buckner) in 2006 : a beautiful collection of honey-sweet harmonies including numerous treasures (Johnny Cash, Stone Cold Sober, Time, Never Be…).

That’s It ? No. Fasten your seatbelt : Kelley forthcoming album ‘Highrises in Brooklyn‘ will be released this August 19th and be produced by Brian Deck (Iron and Wine, Modest Mouse, Josh Ritter, Counting Crows). I didn’t get the privilege to hear more tracks than the ones already available on her myspace page but she’ll confirmed me that ‘Long Walk Home’, the song performed on the above video at the Forcastle Festival will be part of it. Forgive me for the low audio quality of this sample - audio track extracted from the video- but it’s a permanent loop for couple weeks !

 
 Long Walk Home - Kelley McRae at Forecastle Festival [3:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 
 Time - Never Be - Kelley McRae [4:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Artist : Kelley McRae - be sure to visit Kelley’s official website as Never be is fully streamable.
Label : SonaBlast
Where to Buy : The Connection, CdBaby.com, Amazon

Jolie Holland

Published
by
Josh
on June 28, 2008
in Folk and blues
. 0 Comments

Jolie Holland’s future career shows a considerable amount of promise.

She blends together a mix of folk, jazz and blues that casts a slow, woozy spell over it’s listener. The categorization of her genre may not be as easily described as it’s effects, but its all beyond infectious. A quick listen on Thursday was quickly heightened to an all-weekend binge after finding everything she’s ever publically released.

There’s a clear progression in her music that was released over the span of just a few years–from solo singer/songwriter to beautifully accompanied songs that still stay true to their more simplistic roots. It’s a bit of an up and down adventure if your more inclined to one of her styles than another, but it’s all wonderful stuff. So dust off those red-plumed adventuring caps and let her sail around your room for an hour or two.

 
 Jolie Holland - Amen: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 
 Jolie Holland - Mehitabel's Blues: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Accidental

Published
by
Geordie
on June 16, 2008
in Acoustic, Folk, Indie, New Album Alert, News and On iTunes
. 0 Comments

The Accidental are a band made up of various members of other bands. We have Stephen Cracknell from The memory band, Tunngs lead singer Sam Genders, Hanna Coughlin from The bicycle Thieves and a superb singer that is new to me by the name of Liam Bailey. Together they have created and just released their debut album There were wolves. It’s basically a mixture of all those above bands sounds, whispered harmonies, couple of acoustic guitars, bit of piano,harp, bass and some accordian. This has fence collective sound all over it, not surprising giving that The bicycle thieves are on that label. Free download ‘Illuminated red’ wouldn’t sound odd on a James Yorkston album but as I say it’s a collection of sounds you would find in any of their other bands. Don’t get me wrong this is no bad thing, it’s superb from begining to end. I read in an interview they were trying to intergrate into it something similar to Panda Bear which you can hear at times. Often it sounds to me like it’s improvised in parts or at least the final cut is something that has been created from sitting down and just playing and see what they come up and then giving it a good polish. See what you think.

The Accidental -Time and space

 
 The accidental - Time and space [3:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download