Lots from Bandcamp lately (not least the new Kate Rusby album on a day where you could have got a signed copy) . . . but we feature Bandcamp frequently anyhoo!
I like the sound of these guys . . . . . . I love finding someone new . . . . . .
Well that was quite extraordinary! What a beautiful new album from Emily . . . but I was reflecting that how amazing that an artist currently whizzing around the world (Australia via California and now touring the venues and record shops of the UK) can pause and invite her fans to a listening party via Bandcamp and have all of us join in listening and commenting via text with the person herself
"I'm listening live with you in the chat. Come join in the fun and bring your questions about the new songs, about the recording process, anything that springs to mind as you listen to this collection, which I'm very excited to share with you.
See you over on Bandcamp!
Best wishes,
Emily x"
Grizzly Man(2005) is one of Werner Herzog’s best-known films in the U.S., though it is just as complex and brutal and transfixing as anything else in the German director’s oeuvre. A documentary nominally about the life of wild animal obsessive Timothy Treadwell, it is also in large part about humanity’s connection to nature in all of its aspects, from admiration to awe to destruction. It might have become the cult hit it did in this country because of its semi-lurid aspects—who is to say, really—but to think of it that way elides so much of its beauty and subtlety. (Herzog declines to use the audio documentation of Treadwell’s death in the film, but does show himself reacting to it. It serves as meta-commentary on the way we consume violence and how art uses and portrays it—a theme in many of the director’s works—as well as having direct emotional impact.)
Richard Thompson's score for Grizzly Man – Werner Herzog's 2005 documentary film of real life and death in the Alaskan wilderness – is one of the best-kept secrets in the British guitarist's epic canon: an instrumental masterpiece disguised as a movie soundtrack. Recorded over two days as Thompson played live in the studio to Herzog's footage – mostly alone, at times in chamber settings with cello, piano and percussion – these tenderly detailed melodies and quietly visceral improvisations are cinema in their own right, rendered with pictorial instinct and the dazzling technique forged in Thompson's lifelong passage through traditional folk, psychedelia, North African modes and intensely personal songwriting. Here is Thompson at his natural best – finger-picking dance; snake-curl twang and singing-wire harmonics – in a solo clarity that runs from jig-like joy to deep-note meditation, the "Grizzly Man" blues march with its echoes of Fairport Convention's "Sloth" to the long night of "Treadwell No More," a harrowing darkness in slicing treble and tremolo shiver. Produced by guitarist Henry Kaiser, Grizzly Man is a record of powerful solitude – as bold and majestic as the land in Herzog's film; as intimate as prayer – and essential Richard Thompson.
- David Fricke
Richard and Werner working in the studio
Richard Thompson ' Grizzlyman' Sountrack GLENCOE
Friday, July 03, 2020
Announces New Album
Bought this only this morning! Advance orders from Bandcamp where else!????
Emily says:
HelloI hope you're safe and well.Despite everything else that's going on in the world that is truly more worthy of our time and attention at the moment, it's finally time for me to be able to let you know - exclusively, ahead of the public announcement next week - that my new album is complete and will be officially released on 4th September.The album is called A Dark Murmuration of Words and I'd love to tell you a little about it.I've spent a not-insignificant amount of time over the last few years searching, reading, learning and thinking, looking into the gaps of the unspoken, the invisible, and the unacknowledged in an attempt to establish where my own sense of reality takes shape. It's a journey that has lead to the record that I'm so excited to share with you.The songs on the album are an exploration of climate change, racism, sexism, and myths of economic progress through the lens of my constant questioning of what it means - for me - to feel at “home.” I found myself searching for connections between these themes and how they shape the rapidly shifting modern world we live in. Finding meaning becomes challenging with the deafening clamour of social media in this age of fake news and algorithmically filtered conversations, but it feels important to try. When I stood back and looked at these songs altogether, patterns emerged - what had at first seemed like a disparate set of songs were all part of the same story.The American writer Emily Dickinson once said that “If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves” - like the starlings in a murmuration, where the movement of each individual bird is related to just seven of its closest neighbours, none of them aware of the mesmerising, fluctuating shapes being created by the flock.This album is my way of reaching out; to start a conversation that might form a small part of the larger pattern of a better future; a future we can all play an equal part in.
The album will be available on limited edition white vinyl, black vinyl and on CD in two different packages: a gatefold card sleeve with 12-page lyric booklet and a hardbound book case with 24-pages with lyrics, credits and my notes on each song.Plus, all pre-orders come with an exclusive signed print.
This is a treat today and please consider purchasing it.
I found it on their Facebook pages and it works . . . . .
EMILY BARKER
&
BILLY BRAGG
Shortly after lockdown began, I was contacted by Emily Barker who asked if she could record a cover of my then just released song 'Can't Be There Today' as part of the Relay Project. It's a benefit record for the Music Venue Trust helping UK grassroots music venues survive this tough time with their #SaveOurVenues campaign.
The idea behind the 'relay' was that an artist would cover a song by an artist they admired, who would then be called upon to record a song by an artist that they admired and so on. I thought it was a great project for a locked down time.
I chose to record a song by Seán McGowan, his poignant ballad 'Springhill', which seems to resonate with these challenging times. You can hear it along with the other isolation-recorded tracks at
If you can spare a donation by buying the album at a price of your choosing, that would be great - and it will give impetus to a Volume Two that carries the project on.
Emily said:
Hello everyone, I hope you're keeping well. I was honoured to be asked to contribute a cover by a UK artist I admire for a collaborative album to help raise funds for Music Venue Trust. I chose this song by Billy Bragg because it speaks about our shared experience of being separated from our loved ones during lockdown. The album features a cover by Billy himself and many other brilliant artists such as Edgelarks - Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin, The Little Unsaid, Jacob & Drinkwater and more. You can buy the entire album on Bandcamp and all monies go towards keeping our music venues going whilst we can't do shows. I hope you enjoy my version of this beautifully poignant song. Look after yourselves. Emily ❤️ #SaveOurVenues
often does scintillating playlists and reviews of collections and none more interesting than it's occasional forays into Bandcamp whom we also love to bits . . . . . . . so this: they posted these guys today and as it's hotter n hell here (I'm from the North of England so that big burny shiny round thing in the sky frightens me)
The Fossil Lickers: You could easily call The Fossil Lickers’ debut effort “old-timey” – the trio’s music definitely conjures up visions of front-porch picking sessions from days gone by. But there’s a freshness and liveliness to the 15 tracks here that take it out of the throwback realm. The players (violinist James Trimble, banjo player Cameron Knowler and guitarist Will Csorba) have an easy, joyous rapport; everything flows beautifully from moment to moment.
Matthew De Gennaro – Conversation With A Roadside Skull: Not entirely sure what to call the latest effort from Matthew De Gennaro … mystic loner folk? There are moments when I’m reminded vaguely of Vic Chesnutt or Howe Gelb, but De Gennaro has a distinct/unique vibe, accented by his gorgeous viola da gamba and easygoing guitar work. A mix of instrumentals and vocal numbers, Conversation With A Roadside Skull feels personal and deeply felt, a little universe of its own.
Duck Baker – Les Blues Du Richmond | Demos & Outtakes 1973-1979: Duck Baker put out a bunch of excellent LPs on Stefan Grossman and Eugene “ED” Denson’s Kicking Mule label in the 1970s, and these previously unheard recordings come from that halcyon era. Baker is a ragtime specialist, expertly translating the complicated syncopations of that genre to acoustic guitar — though occasionally he sounds as though he’s drawing from Ornette Coleman as much as Scott Joplin. A total pleasure from start to finish.