Thistletown - Rosemarie (2008)

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Well, I only discovered this band the other day, but after doing some research for this post it seems that this album has become somewhat of a classic of romantic pastoral folk in the short time since its release.

They live on a boat in Cornwall, dig nature, and make the most beautiful pre-Raphaelite English romantic music you have ever heard. - Label

Thanks go to Graaf for introducing me to this band. The CD is available from HMV, Amazon etc as well as the label, so I suggest you grab a copy.

Label - Big Bertha

Line-up:

Tiffany Bryant
Andrew Jarvis
Lydia Tweddell
Ben Tweddell
Matthew Bennett

Tracklist:

1 Rosemarie
2 Glowworm
3 Under the Trees
4 Dance With the Sea
5 Labyrinth
6 Oak and Ash
7 Moon is a Pearl
8 The Sun is Coming Up

http://www.myspace.com/thistletown

Click here
V2

Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog (2007)

Friday, February 20, 2009

Folk Rock, Japanese version with two bonus tracks.

Singer-songwriter Sam Beam has gradually added rhythm and instruments to his gravitas across his previous records as Iron and Wine. On this third album, Beam finally brings the blood, instrumental colors and quirky but fluid arrangements that make explicit the worry and wounds running red in his Southern-gothic stories and dead-love letters. Slide guitars and buzzing sitars hang like spider's silk from "White Tooth Man." In "Carousel," Beam sings through a Leslie-organ effect, like George Harrison caught in the fog of "Blue Jay Way." "Wolves (Song of the Shepherd's Dog)" is how David Essex's "Rock On" would have sounded if the Clash covered it on Sandinista! Beam uses these sparks and hooks to draw you closer to uncomfortable truths. "Innocent Bones" is a bossa nova about the sin of piety. "House by the Sea" laments the cruelty of separation with African highlife guitars. Beam is as unsure in love and dismayed by the world as always. But he has never sounded more alive. - Rolling Stone

Label: Sub Pop Records

Tracklist:

1 Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car
2 White Tooth Man
3 Lovesong of the Buzzard
4 Carousel
5 House By the Sea
6 Innocent Bones
7 Wolves (Song of the Shepherd's Dog)
8 Resurrection Fern
9 Boy With a Coin
10 The Devil Never Sleeps
11 Peace Beneath the City
12 Flightless Bird, American Mouth
13 Carried Home
14 Kingdom of Animals

http://www.myspace.com/ironandwine

http://www.ironandwine.com/

Buy the CD - http://www.ironandwine.com/_catalog_30792/CDs

Click here
V2

Sharron Kraus - Beautiful Twisted (2002)

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

"After the big stroke realised with Goblin Market, whose last year’s album marked one of the most exciting moments of the whole musical season, C.O. reaffirm their presence in the gothic folk edge with Sharron Kraus. "Beautiful Twisted" was recorded in California with a small team of co-workers, who added violin, string bass, mandolin and few other timbres to the guitar and five-string banjo of Sharron, a very expressive instrumentalist besides being an essential yet excellent singer. It’s precisely Kraus’ vocal personality to bring "Beautiful Twisted" near the atmospheres of Goblin Market’s ‘Ghostland’, while the instrumental impact is dryer and of higher acoustic purity, close to Fairport’s more bucolic things and to an even greater extent to the Incredible String Band. As happens for the greatest storytellers of the folk tradition, a fundamental point of strength is given by the lyrics, often entering scabrous territories (the tender incestuous story of ‘Twins’, recalling the young Joni Mitchell in the soft blend of guitar and violin, is the most evident example), perfectly balancing between melancholy and bitter irony, with a deliciously destabilising effect in a light-hearted hymn to detention as ‘Song of the Unfree’, inserted on the noble poetic string of female minstrels going from Shirley Collins to Suzanne Vega, taking also advantage of the colouring seductions of a strong and persuasive bass clarinet. Exemplary murder ballads and really unorthodox cloister memoirs, dark reminiscences of Don Juan and startling funeral gigues, waver in a notebook of dramatic remembrances, only sweetened by an undefined feeling of time distance, also rendered with visual effectiveness by the sepia-tinged monochromatic appearance of the rich booklet. Tales always menaced by dense clouds invite to an intense and pleasant listening, given also the abundant melodic proficiency of Sharron’s writing. A precious disc."


Label:

Camera Obscura Records

Tracklisting:

1. The Peacock's Wing (5:06)
2. The River's Daughter (3:32)
3. Moonbathing (4:01)
4. The Family Tradition (4:30)
5. Twins (4:37)
6. Cold-Hearted Devil (4:49)
7. Death Jig (1:15)
8. The Wrong Man (4:53)
9. Godstow (2:56)
10. Beautiful Twisted (6:16)
11. Song Of The Unfree (4:11)


http://www.sharronkraus.com/

http://www.myspace.com/sharronkraus


http://www.cameraobscura.com.au/obscura.htm - Purchase the record

http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/acideagle - I'm not sure, but this should be Camera Obscura's Ebay Shop


Bitrate: V0

Click here

Nancy Elizabeth - Battle and Victory (2007)

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

"The Lancashire-born singer’s down-to-earth songs are brought to life by her warm and unaffected voice. Unpretentious but effortlessly ambitious, Nancy turns the retro, less-is-more aesthetic of the current acoustic revival on its head. Not content with writing and singing all the songs herself, the 23 year-old also plays most of the instruments, including guitar, khim, Indian harmonium, Appalachian dulcimer and bouzouki, amongst many others."

"Nancy Elizabeth with an astounding new single Hey Son on Leaf. Starting from the seed of a pure female voice and guitar, it slowly builds taking in a great choppy guitar action until finally we're in a wall of pagan intensity and tribal beats. Makes me want to strip off, paint up and dance round the campfire high on lead from cheap market paint". - Norman Records on 'Hey Son'

Label: Leaf

Tracklist:

1 I'm Like The Paper
2 I Used To Try
3 Off With Your Axe
4 The Remote Past
5 Coriander
6 8 Brown Legs
7 Electric
8 Hey Son
9 Weakened Bow
10 What Is Human
11 Lung
12 How Can I Stop?
13 Battle and Victory

http://www.nancyelizabeth.co.uk/

http://www.myspace.com/nancyelizabethcunliffe

http://leaf.greedbag.com/nancy-elizabeth/ - Purchase the record

Bitrate - V0

Click here