Site migrated to Posthaven!

Wahey! rescued it just in time.. here's my site moved to Posthaven. I may well be importing some of the other posterous blogs here. just need to find out how much I get for my $5 a month :)

One thing that has happened since I was posting here regularly is that a lot of the embed codes in the old posts are broken... at some point I'll start replacing them. Until then, you'll just have to grab the title of whatever the album is I'm talking about, stick it into the search engine of your choice and find it that way. It'll only add about 15 seconds to the music discovery process, I promise...

Anway, more fun here ASAP...

Laura Rossi - The Battle Of The Somme

Here's something you don't often see on Bandcamp - an epic orchestral soundtrack to a film.

In this case, it's a film that came out in 1916, about the first British Offensive of the 1st World War.

It's amazing, well worth turning up loud and having a proper listen to. Laura Rossi's clearly a brilliant composer. Hopefully she'll have more stuff up on bandcamp soon!

Miriam Jones - Solitary Songs

I've written a lot about Miriam Jones in the past. I even played on one of her albums. She's married to Jez Carr, with whom I made 'Conversations' in 2002. 

She's amazing - I've just started listening to a pre-release copy of her forthcoming album, which won't be out for a little while (I think), but a lot of the songs are band versions of the songs she did as her 'Solitary Songs' project last year - one song a month, writing, playing and recording it all on her own. 

These are some truly great songs. Helicopter is one of the best things I've heard in years. Most songwriters would kill to write one song that good. The rest of the album is remarkable too. 

So go and buy this now, and get to know the songs before the new one appears,  and you get to enjoy them all over again with a rocking band behind them...

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The Deep M.O / Yolanda Charles.

Forget any nonsense classification about 'women bassists', Yolanda Charles is arguably the finest funk bassist in the UK. A remarkable musician with an enviable track record, she took her time getting round to making her own music, but now with the Deep M.O. has a rockin' funk/soul band, with which she sings and plays bass, with her amazing husband Miles Bould on drums. 

Here's their lovely funky EP: 

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If that wasn't enough, here are two vids of Yo playing a couple of older tunes (from the days when the Deep M.O were caleed MamaYo) completely solo. Lovelovelove these - 

and 

Emmalee Crane - Crux

More ambient goodness found via twitter - I think, like Lowercase Noises, I found Emmalee because she was talking to Zoë Keating... Zoë's clearly become my go-to person for cool ambient stuff!

I don't know all that much about Emmalee, except that she's friendly on twitter and facebook and makes awesome music. And that's more than enough for me! I love the conciseness of her music - most ambient/drone based music seems to stretch out to 15 or 20 minutes a track, but Emmalee has a focus to her recordings that runs counter to that drawn out approach. It's the pop music of drone. Beautifully recorded, and full of interesting sounds. Enjoy: 

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Hope And Social - April

Heres' a record I've been listening to a lot of lately. I first came across Hope And Social via their guitar player Rich Huxley (AKA Cliff Huxtable/@thehuxcapacitor) who I met through UnConvention in Salford. After a while I had a listen to his band, and on first listen to that album (the one before this) thought it was nice, well made indie rock... Over time, as I revisited the album and my knowledge of the band grew, the music also grew on me. A lot. I dug it. I heard subtle things in there. I love that it's pretty anthemic without falling into any of the banality of music written for stadiums. It's more Hothouse Flowers than it is U2... 

Then this new album came out - it's even richer and more diverse than the earlier stuff and the story around what the band are up to gets more exciting and hilarious with every weird gig they organise. 

Read more about them at http://hopeandsocial.com 

And check out the album - it's 'pay what you think it's worth' - but as you can't afford that, just give 'em ten quid, and know you got a bargain ;) 

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Two fabulous bassists to listen to...

Sorry to keep wittering on about it, but Bandcamp is fast becoming THE way I buy music. I've still got my eMusic account at the moment, but if I got rid of it, I don't think I'd be any worse off for new music... 

With that in mind, here are two relatively recent releases by lovely bass players. 

The first is Julie Slick's self-titled album. Julie's one of the most amazing 24 year old bassists I've ever heard. Much could be made of her youth, except that the maturity of her writing and playing makes the focus pointless. She's just a remarkable musician. Listen, then download it if you dig it as much as I do: 

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The second recording is by Steven Guerrero - his new EP is marvellous. It's just bass + drums, 3 lovely tracks. I've been listening to Steven for a long time, and really enjoy hearing his music grow over time (his debut album, also on Bandcamp is excellent too - check that out.) 

Here's Theories Of Rocketry: 

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blogging about music when I really should be novelling...

It's November, which means it's National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. 

I did it last year, and ended up with a novel that I'm deeply proud of. I love it. I've re-read it a number of times and it makes me laugh, and reminds me why I'm a musician. That other people seem to dig it too is a marvellous thing. 

But November is also, for many, NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month. So I'm going to do that too. Here. And I'm going to blog some new amazing music every day. 

Starting with an album I bought off bandcamp today, after seeing a conversation between the artist and Zoe Keating on twitter. I don't think Zoe had actually recommended him, just said that she liked this twitter bio. I clicked through, was listening in seconds, and paid $10 for a 'pay what you think it's worth' download. Good stuff. 

Here it is - he calls himself 'Lowercase Noises' and is a fabulous ambient guitarist, from New Mexico. This is going to get a LOT of stereo-time round here. 

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Danny Barnes - live in Portland.

I am, it must be said, a massive Danny Barnes fan. A big fan of the man's music, and the man himself. 

I first heard him playing banjo with Bill Frisell on the album, 'The Willies' - I had no idea who he was, but it was my favourite banjo playing I'd ever heard. 

Then at the end of last year, someone sent me a link to his blog post 'How To Make A Living Playing Music' - it is, to this day, the finest thing I've ever read on the subject. I point people to it almost every day. 

Off the back of me spreading the word about that, I found him on twitter, and we started chatting, became facebook friends, and he bought some of my music too. Which lead to us meeting up in Cincinnati this past summer when we were both on tour and that was the town where we crossed. He's as awesome in person as he is online and on record.

I also started buying up his solo albums, and digging out a lot of (legitimate) live stuff on archive.org and youtube. 

Danny's a deep guy. Big thinker. And the blend of bluegrass, country, rock, electronica and free improv that populates his music (with any of those elements being dominant at any one time) is utterly beguiling. It's playful, at times hilarious, smart and willfully unique. No-one else sounds like Danny Barnes. 

Here's a gig of his from last week, recorded in Portland. It's awesome. I'm a fan.