Bandcamp discovery of the week

 Continuing the thread of artists who should be far more famous than they are...

A browse round other people's blogs brought up The Men I Trust, a Canadian 3 piece who despite being new to me have enough of a following to be able to tour in China, as well as North America.  They describe themselves as "Dream Pop" which puts me in mind of The Cocteau Twins, and there is certainly a touch of that band about them. Their current album release 'Oncle Jazz' is available at a pay what you want price on Bandcamp (although I'm trusting you to put in a decent amount). Touches of Downtempo, house as well as guitars drenched in the chorus pedal and some excellent bass playing. Oddly their breakthough song 'Lauren' is the main absence from the album, but you can buy it on its own so that's ok.

The relaxed vibe is great for a work soundtrack, as it has been in the shed this morning, but it never slides into aural wallpaper land. As well as the indie pop, occasional flashes of Cowboy Junkies style Americana and 80s funky synths drift past to keep things inetresting. There is also a French feel to much of what is going on here Perhaps that should be Canadian-ness, singer Emma's voice does have a vague resemblance to compatriot Béatrice Martin, 'Cœur de pirate', although the music is quite different. Top songs are the two videos below, 'Show Me How' and 'Seven' which features the album's sole guitar solo moment. 24 songs may seem like a lot but at around 3 minutes each they never outstay their welcome. Men I Trust should certainly be enjoying the success of current top Dream Pop faves London Granmmar, assuming that is what they want. Count me a fan.

The good news is that they are coming to the UK next February (Covid permitting) and are at St Lukes, Glasgow on the 12th. You can expect to find me in the audience...

 

Further down the rabbit hole...

 It's funny how some things strike a chord (so to speak). My last post about music that was off the radar prompted more interest than posts about many far better known people. So...

I talked recently to Damien Mahoney who is Caulbearers. Both his offerings on Bandcamp are worth having, I just bought them in fact, and they will be on the iPod for the drive home from Scotland on Sunday. The single 'Hollow Bones' would be at home on Tru Thoughts Records, very Quantic Soul Orchestra. The 'More Lie Deep' EP is a bit more varied, bits of a variety of world musics, Jazz and Soul. If you buy the CD version you get a unique hand stamped card case. May have to buy that as well. Highly recommended. Much like the Power Pop we talked about last time not massively fashionable, but good tunes well played and produced are always a good calling card and Caulbearers have them in spades.

I'll talk more about Antarma when his new music starts appearing. In the meantime his last single 'Chill for a Minute' is still available on Bandcamp. The music is a clash of all sorts of Funky, Jazzy, Hip Hop styles, and the words don't take themselves too seriously, always a good thing in this corner of the musical forest. 

Something that has changed over the last few months in my posts is that Bandcamp has featured more often. From the John McLaughlin album in April to Pennan Brae last week, artists are starting to take control back from the corporations. Another example of this to round off a fairly funky feature is The Sultan's Swing. On heavy rotation on Jazz FM with 'Dune' featuring flautist Chip Wickham and a Fender Rhodes powered groove straight out of 1975, you can get their 2 album 2 single discography for around £10, which is stupidly cheap. Nothing quite equals 'Dune' but they have a neat line in atmospheric piano Jazz as well as the more Jazz Funk material. With the continuation of Bandcamp Fridays at the start of every month for the rest of this year, when they hand back their revenue share to the artists, this is the portal to support. We'll cover CD Baby's abandonement of the independent artist by way of contrast soon.

Speaking of Jazz Funk, if you haven't seen Rodney P's documentary for BBC on the origins and rise of that genre. He makes a compelling case for the London Soul Boys as begetters of the New Romantics in the early 80s. Worth a watch on iPlayer while you can.

Keep looking under the radar

Out in business land I belong to an organisation called 4Networking who've done a great job of keeping their members connected over Coronavid, including through a meeting aimed at musicians and those interested in music. Listening to the recommendations of others in the group reminds me of how much good music now flies miles under the radar.

I think I’ve mentioned before that in 33 Songs Nick Hornby decides that after listening to the US top 10 albums for a given week that his preferences aren’t part of the mainstream and perhaps shouldn’t be called “pop music” at all. I’m not sure what you call it if you don’t call it pop, so I’ll stick with that especially as my first example is…

Power Pop

Bruce Brodeen was the owner of Not Lame records back in the 90s, and now has a site called Pop Geek Heaven, which focuses on the world of jangly guitars and Power Pop. One of the best music lists books is “Shake Some Action:  The Ultimate Power Pop Guide” by John Borack which Bruce publishes. I have the 1^st edition which is a great source for new music buys. There is a new edition due out, I can’t justify £50 on a book when over half of that is postage, but I’m sure I will regret that decision soon. Anyway, much of the music being made now is high quality pop, which may be a bit “old fashioned” but the tunes! As a quick guide sign up for Bruce’s newsletter, but try anything on the Big Stir, and Ice Cream Man labels for songs that you will be singing in the shower. If you’re quick Ice Cream Man have a free sampler on Bandcamp now.

Pennan Brae

A friend introduced me to this Canadian singer/songwriter. His website is here and features his acting as well as his music. His most recent album 2 Below 0 is like most recent ones tied to a film. It would be interesting to hear what he does when the songs stand alone. It’s very much old school guitar-based indie rock. All his pictures show him with cheap Fender Mustang and Musicmaster guitars

which tells you about his attitude to simple well-structured songs. Whatever, you’ve never heard of him and you should.

In my networking group you must keep alert as there are loads of new suggestions for music being thrown out all the time. I have picked up on Parquet Courts, Endless Boogie, and following a talk about him I’m now expanding my David Bowie collection rapidly, particularly his 90s albums… but that’s another story.

Meanwhile in another part of the forest...

It may have gone a bit quiet here in the last couple of weeks, blame being able to earn a living - of sorts - again for that, but over at Americana UK I have been busy, busy. busy.

I wrote a piece on Karen Dalton for the feature AmericanA-Z. I had if I'm honest all but forgotten about her before someone suggested her as my subject. I'm not going to dwell on the

"tragic life story" thing because it doesn't relate to the music, which was a mix of early blues, country, and folk traditions imported from as many cultures as arrived at Ellis Island. The earthy, primitive sound is unlike anything else, try it.

Next up was an article on Willy DeVille/Mink DeVille. If you only know Spanish Stroll then try this 3CD set that covers his career as Mink, and afterwards. It does miss a couple of early highlights but is better than the alternative collections. Mojo have featured his album Cabretta as a lost treasure in their latest issue. So, 160gigblog first with the news again!

I wrote up a couple of top 10 features as well. One easy  - Internet radio and podcasts. There are some fab ones out there and the comments suggest at least one more that I hadn't tried. And one

harder - my top 10 ever Americana albums. Although looking back at things I've written here and at AUK the choices did end up being fairly obvious in some cases. I love exercises like this and as I'm never going to get on Desert Island Discs, especially not after this previous piece here, I take any opportunity to share my thoughts.

Lastly a shout out for my colleague Rick Bayles' obit on Judy Dyble. One of those artists who flew just under the radar her whole career. Mostly famous for being a "nearly" with Fairport Convention and the proto King Crimson of Giles, Giles and Fripp, both Trader Horn and particularly her late period solo albums are very much worth your attention. Visit Burning Shed for the best choice. Weavings of a Silver Magic gets my vote.

 

  

A Word In Your Ear

I was a long time reader of The Word. It always seemd to me to be about the most literary of the music magazines, and was disappointed when it closed. Reading Mark Ellen's "Rock Stars 'Stole My L

ife'" some of the reasons become apparent. Magazine publishing is clearly as harsh a world as music, and equally fascinating from the outside. This is a post I should have done ages ago, suggesting some books about music, musicians and all related matters that might appeal to you. And the first recommendation is Ellen's book, particularly the audio version which he narrates himself.

A Word In Your Ear is the podcast that has Ellen and his co-creator of The Word magazine David Hepworth interviewing authors about their books on music. During the current unpleasantness they have been conducting it from their attics and cupboards and the format has become looser. There is a huge archive of old shows which you should certainly sample.

Second recommendation is for anything writen by David Hepworth. His books are always thought provoking. His quiz book is fiendishly difficult, but worth persevering with. The last chapters or epilogues of many of his books are where he sums up his views on his subject, and would make a great book on their own. His next one about the British invasion is out in September. The only one I haven't read is the one that suggests 1971 as the best year in Rock. Well I was only 6 so I'm not sure I was taking much notice. Find Hepworth's books here.

Just about everyone is publishing their memoirs these days. My favourite is still Thomas Dolby's "Speed Of Sound". A fascinaiting insght into a life you would never have guessed. Chris Difford of Squeeze has written "Some Fantastic Place" which is a bit self serving in places, a frend who worked with his Squeeze partner Glenn Tillbrook paints a rather different picture, but it is another good portrait of "my" era in the early 80s. I'm looking forward to reading Will Birch's biography of Nick Lowe for the same reason. "Let the Good Times Roll" by Kenney Jones, of (Small) Faces, and Who fame is one to approach with caution. He spends as much time talking about his new life in Polo as he does on music, and seems typical of that generation of musicians who "made it" and have little clue about the real world.

Many of these and others are also on audiobooks, and that is my chosen way of consuming them. Much of the, "and then we went on tour, made an album, got divorced, got sober, and found enlightenment" type bio come alive when read by the protagonist.

And a last point. After reading and listening to many books about Miles Davis I can't find anything that truly sums up the man. Anything by Ashley Kahn on Jazz is usually great but even he fails to

capture what it was that made Miles unique. Good reason to read some more then.

One of the reasons for the lengthy gap in posts, apart from work picking up and the need to earn a living, is that Blogger has modernised itself and become nearly impossible to use. Fear not I have mastered it and will be back soon.

I Witness - "The Word" A soundtrack for the new normal

One of the best things about writing a blog is that every so often you get to talk about music that the rest of the world hasn't heard yet. I Witness are Electronic artist Martin Byrne and poet Jason N Smith. The album was written and recorded over the last two years but sounds tailor made for the current unpleasantness.

The single "I am England" is scarily current.

While "I Am England" is the headline piece there are so many songs that force us to look at ourselves and our world and how we interact with each other and our environment.

Unstoppable

I am the paradise lost and paradise found

amongst bookshelves and  life’s cordite clouds.

When She Stopped Running

When she learnt to stop running

and turned to face an intricate part of herself

with wide open welcoming arms and embraced

big letter words written within her spirit saying come

Martin Byrne's music draws on his work as The Big Boss as well as reflecting his time in 90s industrial/electronica band Thule. Martin says that the motivation for getting back into creating music was hearing Vitalic at a festival, and that French vibe from Vitalic, Fakear or Miss Kittin is all over "The Word".  Elsewhere flavours of On U Sound, early Kraftwerk, and even Tackhead add a sense of menace to some of the harder messages. 

Those of us who supporrted the IndieGogo that funded "The Word" got demos of three bonus tracks included with our download. One of these "Stop and Research" is quite the most astonishing thing you will hear this year. I believe it has now been mixed for release. Hard to believe this was written and recorded months ago. "I'm going to make my speech here at the weekend, it's going to go up like a rocket, and stay up", hopefully I've transcribed that right, but it could be a mantra for this album. It is indeed going to go up like a rocket, and stay up.

If you only buy one download album this year make it this one.

Jason N Smith  - I Witness The Word on Amazon 

BUY & STREAM - I Witness  - The Word 

Hear Jason and Martin being interviewed by Kirk Pickstone HERE