New music recommendations

Really like bluefield!

Bruno Ellingham is his engineer/producer, who worked on Asleep at the back

Eugene McGuinness' debut full length album is released in a couple of weeks.

You should also check out his cracking mini album, The Early Learnings of... which was released last summer. Last year Drowned in Sound had this to say about it...

Quote :

Forget all your talk of promise and potential, so often preceding muted fanfare for another breaking-through artist with songs enough to warrant praise-worthy attention. It’s so non-committal, so fence-straddling. For once, swallow the lump and take the plunge. For once, realise that what’s in front of you has exceeded the level of acts – peers generically or entirely otherwise – so usually clumped together as Ones To Watch, whatever. Forget keeping them peeled in the future and focus the peepers right now: Eugene McGuinness is the finished, fantastic article.

The Early Learnings Of… isn’t an album proper as such – running as it does to a mere eight tracks it’s more an EP, or a ‘mini-album’ if you’re the sort who likes to differentiate between the two. For the sake of this review, though, this is the debut; the blueprints from which a wonderful career is sure to blossom. McGuinness has a way with words that’s quite remarkable; an assured and almost certainly inherent ability to wrap polysyllabic tongue-twisters around skittering percussion and deftly strummed acoustic guitar lines as if the three were born together in a litter, as if they shared a common bloodline that this architect of modern singer-songwriter material has traced to an ancestral source and tapped to stunning effect. A comparison could be drawn between these sing-it-like-it-is lyrics and those of a recently Mercury-nominated south Londoner, but to do so would pitch the pair into an on-paper rivalry. There’s no contest to be had, though – this is many leagues above the current work of one Mr Treays.

The Early Learnings Of… benefits from instantaneous appeal courtesy of its approachable opener, ‘High Score’, which rolls and ripples compositionally while various misfortunes are documented vocally – misfortunes which could refer to late-night video gaming or the wandering of streets familiar on a daily basis. Black cats and ladders, bursting into flame: there’s a little lyricist license at play for sure, but the song sets a fine tone for a record that’s full of succinct vignettes relaying real-life events of love-struck wonderment and gut-crunching cursed luck. ‘Monsters Under The Bed’, McGuinness’ single of earlier this month, is one of many offerings that a high percentage of listeners will relate to: our protagonist can’t sleep, even though he’s got work in the morning, so whiles away his insomnia by surfing the net (obvious) and watering flowers out on the street (rather less so – we can only assume Eugene’s neighbourhood is nicer than ours).

While a couple of songs edge upon boisterousness (particularly the jaunty ‘A Child Lost In Tesco’) – quite an achievement given their maker’s laid-back approach to committing arrangements to tape; however layered proceedings become, there is always a heart to every song, beating away visibly – the highlights prove to be the contributions which lean with a weary sign upon a ledge of bittersweet melancholy. ‘Vampire Casino’ is a brief dalliance with such an approach, but the record’s standout – if one needs identifying – is ‘Madeline’, a song so achingly gorgeous that it’s a miracle this writer hasn’t already had a selection of its lyrics etched onto his headstone-to-be. The opening two lines are both bizarre and beautiful: “You were dancing like a dying matador / amongst an armada of four-by-fours”. Sounds surreal on paper, but as the song develops it’s clear that McGuinness is penning in a state of dumbfounded bedazzlement at a beau to be. His voice drifts in and out of the song, barely there at times and striking when the listener is at their most vulnerable, and the effect’s quite breathtaking. It might just be the most honest-hearted love song to be released in 2007, full of neat references to school-day affections and sideways glances at the bigger picture unfolding about a pair’s fledgling union.

Lump swallowed, the conclusion to this critical piece writes itself. A major new solo talent has arrived, and our suggestion is a simple one: buy now and save yourself the embarrassment a year or so down the line of not letting songs as perfect as these enrich your existence sooner.

I feel compelled to recommend Laura Marling... again I just think she's great and you should at least buy her album

Starsailor??

Imagined village for all you folky folks out there.
Thank you Sarah

Grant wrote:

I feel compelled to recommend Laura Marling... again I just think she's great and you should at least buy her album

agreed.

Starsailor are good.

bluefield wrote:

Imagined village for all you folky folks out there.
Thank you Sarah

Yeah, stellar line up there, saw them on BBC2 a few weeks ago at Cambridge Folk Festival I think, like nothing you've ever heard before, but still weirdly familiar

Blue States, Rob Dougan, Aqualung. Look 'em up and enjoy.

Mumford and Sons

BELLOWHEAD!! - new album out in the next few days!

OH I love Bellowhead and they keep winning the BBC Folk awards!

Port O'Brien
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw3Y84zXLwg

Emiliana Torrini for more Icelandic music love White Lies, Sigur Ros, Mum etc
www.myspace.com/emilianatorrini

While were on it

Danny and the Champions of the World
Check them out, one of my favourites but more importantly see them live, it's amazing!

www.thechampionsoftheworld.org

Haven't read the whole thread, but what I have read I see some great recommendations.

Here is just one for now:

Seth Lakeman - Poor Man's Heaven

Ok so this band aren't new, but they have always been one of my favourites, and sounded wonderful live. There are some excellent songs of theirs cropping up on youtube, if you like any psychedelic Prog.

check out

Magic Man

Hello Hello

The Show of Our Lives


For starters...but they've lots of albums.

MIdlake
Guy recommended them in his show a few times but the whole record is very beautiful and strangely oldfashioned
www.midlake.net

Midlake are amazing!

Re Midlake - I like "The Trials of Van Occupanther" a lot, although it does feel like going back in time when you listen to it (no bad thing).
To be honest the previous album "Bamnan and Slivercork" got on my nerves. Perhaps I should revisit it?

I completely agree, I felt fortunate listening to Trials before I put my hand in my pocket and rattled my change for Bamnan, it does grow on you though, perhaps ease your way into it with some Flaming Lips...