I can’t resist writing this small post about a band i’ve just discovered Balthrop, Alabama. They’ve just released a new EP called : God Loves My Country !
In 2006, Alabama-born songwriter-siblings Pascal (singer, songwriter, and guitarist) and LaurenBalthrop (vocalist and keyboardist) moved to New York City to start a band and ended up founding a town. “Balthrop, Alabama” (population 11 or so) is their bustling folk rock township.
Musically, the band straddles the fine line between antebellum and antifolk, reconstructing indie pop with songs of love, dead people, and dead people in love. In 2007, they released their double-album debut, “Your Big Plans and Our Little Town,” on the nascent End Up label, to be followed up by a series of EPs, of which “God Loves My Country” is the first.
Connect their website or their myspace page and buy their material or jump to their upcoming show - they’ve got few dates with Dawn Landes - damned nothing has been written here about her ? . It should be an amazing experience !
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.
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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 !
You may be wondering why i’ve been so prolific in blogging the last week or so or maybe you haven’t, maybe you have not even noticed and are too busy to care but the truth of the matter is i had a small operation last week and so therefore have had a bit of time on my hands to listen to a lot more music than i have been able to recently which is about time to be honest as there doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day recently.
Eef barzelay incase you are not aware is the lead singer of the brilliant and criminally overlooked alt/country band Clem Snide. They have been going on and off since the early 90’s (where the fuck did they go?The 90’s,not Clem snide) and Eef has released a few solo albums. His latest, lose big could be a midway contender for album of the year. Seriously not a bad track on this album, Songwriting to match anyone in this category or any other for that matter. His voice has an air of familiarity to it but can’t put my finger on it, i keep thinking Conor Oberst but not sure. Quite a diverse album is this, from the first track could be worse which is something that pehaps would sit gently on a Clem snide album. One of the stand out tracks is The girls don’t care which from the very first note with it’s heavy funky as hell bass line could be dropped into any dance club and it would get people moving, wouldn’t surprise me at all if someone does a re-mix of it, I might do one myself ! The soulful tone is maintained throughout the album but the real killer song on it for me is True freedom, a stop everything and listen track, stunning. Pick this album up asap, i have heard some superb albums so far this year and i keep saying to myself ‘album of the year so far’ but i will tell you hear and now, this one is taking some beating. It just flows effortlessly from one song to the next and when it’s finished you just want to go back and play it again and again. I have also added a track form his 2006’s Bitter honey, enjoy.
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.
Yes i know it’s summer and everyone is meant to be happy that the sun is shining and listening to happy music to represent these feelings of summer glee. Well not me, more of an Autumn/Winter man myself and perhpas this music is best suited for those seasons but what the hell. This is an album i forgot i had and it was while having my music on random blasting through the house that i came across it again. Idiot kid are from Sweden and are mainly two members, Annsofie lundin and Linus lutti and this album ‘darkness in our house‘ came out in 2007. With titles such as ‘Death will come’ and ‘last breath’ you can imagine it’s not going to have you skipping along in the sunshine but nevertheless is for me some of the best music to come out of Sweden in a while. I mean, that country in the last 5 or 6 years especially seems to have created some of the best music around, I could name 20 bands or artists in a row here but to save time and also to give swedesplease another plug then go there and you will see what i mean. Saying that i think Idiot kid stand out as they are not trying to be quirky or trying anything particularly new but with just the simplest of arrangements have created music of pure beauty. This is at times bleak and moody with whispering harmonies to keep it all finely balanced with some haunting piano, acoustic guitar and some strings to back it all up. I could listen to this whatever the season, watching the sun rise, the snow fall the rain fall or in the bath which i was doing when it came on my stereo making me get out of it earlier than i wanted to remind myself who it was playing, It would complement them all perfectly. Imagine a swedish Will Oldham and you are somewhere close to what this sounds like, i hope you enjoy and 3 cheers for Random play otherwise i may not have come across this again in a long time.
Just got hold of the new album ‘DAYS OF MY ESCAPE‘ by Travel by sea. Kyle Kersten and Brian Kraft live in seperate parts of the states, Kyle in California, Brian in Colorado. Now i’ve never been to either of these places but after looking on Google earth it looks like it’s quite a nice drive and i would imagine this album would be the perfect soundtrack for such a journey. This is at times as sparse as that landscape (I’m guessing at the the landscape here as i’ve already admitted i’ve never been) but if they are trying to portray their distance from one another and the landscape in between through their music then they have done a pretty good job. Fans of Mojave 3, iron and wine and Dolorean would enjoy. They have two gigs coming up in California at the O C Tavern on the 9th July and then The Scene bar on the 29th. Perfect music for the time of year but then it’s always hot in Cali right?
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