Last week Alela Diane used her first tweet in two years to announce a new song- The Way We Were.
It's comforting and familiar, yet there is a definite development and change from the album To Be Still which featured a much crisper sound on songs such as White As Diamonds.
I'm really excited to hear the new album About Farewell and experience what she's been working on these past few years.
The Barr Brothers are an emerging quartet from Montreal, Canada consisting of brothers Andrew and Brad Barr, Sarah Page and Andres Vial. Borne almost literally out of the ashes of their previous group, The Slip, who the brothers were performing with in Montreal when a fire broke out at the venue this group are garnering some well-deserved plaudits. The fire may have been a cosmic signal of some sort but a year later they moved to Montreal and formed what is now the Barr Brothers.Together they fuse folk and blues melodies with improvised, percussive jazz drums secured firmly by a belt of blues. Lyrically their intelligence and candour shows, in a world of inane lyrics its beautiful to come across a band who can sew together complex language and images. Their track “Old Mythologies” is a beautiful, lamenting poem with word-play and mind-tricks that Paul Simon would tip his cap to. The brothers have built around them an enviable soundscape; e-bow, harmonica, guitar, home-made xylophones and marimba all feature in their live sets and on their eponymous début album.
Their harpist Sarah Page is vital to their unique sound and is given room to weave absorbing melodies around the guys as well as gripping solos indicative of a band who know the sum of their parts extremely well and work within, outwith and beyond what the listener expects. Percussively they push their boundaries again without being intrusive, multi-instrumentalist Andres Vial tastefully colours the tracks with rhythm rigid enough to drive the songs along but loose enough to let everyone else breathe. For me, The Barr Brothers are a heady broth for bright early mornings, late wine-soaked nights and the rest of your life. Their album is out now and you can catch them in London, Brighton, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester on their mini-tour.
The talented Laura Veirs set this project in motion with her husband after the birth of their first son. Music specifically for children might not be a new idea, but within the competitive music industry it is fairly rare to see an album released for people with no disposable income, let alone no income at all. This album is, I would suggest, aimed at the more middle class, pedagogically conscious parent. Nonetheless, it is still good at what it does; taking traditional American folk songs, field and school tunes and rearranging them for a contemporary (yet youthful) audience. There are covers of iconic folk artists such as Woody Guthrie and various collaborations including Colin Melony of The Decemberists on the track ‘Soldiers Joy’, a particularly famous American tune.
‘Ocean Night Song’ from the album ‘Saltbreakers’ was quite like a lullaby; the lyrics “A handful of dream dust for my pirate” stirs up the image of a song being sung to a son in his bed. So, this album fits nicely with her discography. Yet, Veirs’ soft voice is sometimes vastly more American sounding than in her previous albums. The themes of Tumblebee follow nursery rhyme, folk songs stories and so a fun, magical, journey of an album is created.
Importantly Veirs’ is keeping alive a host of folk songs from various traditions and introducing a new, very young audience to fun, historically rooted music. Best of all, these songs are also still enjoyable to the discernable young adult’s ears too (regardless of your child productivity- few!)
Will my posts ever stray outside the dusty confines of the folk genre? Not yet, it seems, for I bring you news of the forthcoming album from Dartmoor fiddle-botherer Seth Lakeman. The record is titled Tales from the Barrel House and is a concept album of sorts inspired by the arduous, yet romantic, professions undetaken by labourers of old. At one point in the video below a song about miners necessitates the descending of our eternally baggy-jeaned hero into a mine shaft to lay down a banjo track. While I am always intrigued by the idea of artists seeking out ever whackier sonic environments in which to record music, and look forward to hearing the results of Lakeman's subterranean endeavour, I must admit that the fact that he has parted company with his regular backing band and played every instrument on Tales from the Barrel House himself somewhat mutes my excitement. Lakeman's music has always relied on the sort of rawness and energy which emerges out of the chemistry between band members; the absence of brother Sean Lakeman on guitar is likely to have a big impact as he has played a huge part in the crafting of Lakeman's sound, most notably on the Mercury-nominated Kitty Jay.
But then, perhaps Lakeman felt the need to change things up a bit. Perhaps he'll regain some of the darkness and edge which has arguably been absent from his recent recordings. Tales from the Barrel House is available for pre-order now, and is released on Lakeman's own Honour Oak label.
[20.03.13] | authored by 
