Posts Tagged ‘singer songwriter’

JULIE BYRNE – ” Not Even Happiness ” Best Albums Of 2017

Posted: September 24, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The album pretty much stopped me in my tracks when i first heard it. So delicate! So beautiful! Find a quiet space and play the single follow my voice. After spending years on the road performing as part of a fiercely independent DIY music community, Julie Byrne stayed put in New York City and coalesced the thoughts and experiences of her past few transient trips around the sun into this unnervingly beautiful album.  Not Even Happiness is a stunning combination of strong lyricism and technical skill. Byrne fingerpicks a guitar she inherited from her father and pours every ounce of herself into these compositions, laying her innermost feelings completely bare in the process.

https://soundcloud.com/juliebyrne/follow-my-voice

The album has had huge support from radio already with RRR and FBI making it album of the week and Double J adding the first single. Pitchfork recently made it Best New Music!
“Here is something special” ***** The Times
“Byrne paints sublime, awestruck moments when simple things become overwhelming.” Pitchfork, Best New Music
“there’s so much to love about Not Even Happiness: the lightness of the finger-picked acoustic guitar patterns, the flute and string interludes, the plaintive timbre in Byrne’s voice recalling fellow outsider folk figures Anne Briggs and Karen Dalton.” **** MOJO
“the voice is a balm” **** The Observer
“with Not Even Happiness she’s spreading her wings musically” Album of the Week, The Line Of Best Fit
“otherworldy and other-timely… for all its dreaminess, it never seems fey or contrived… stunning.” The Guardian
“one of the albums of the year” NME

A trans-American folk singer (and former park ranger) travels far and wide, only to return to the comforts of her childhood home to record a stunning, stripped-down sophomore effort.

Given Julie Byrne’s extensive record of following wherever the wind takes her, it’s tempting to read Not Even Happiness as an acoustic travelogue of the United States, or rather, her United States. It helps that the album invokes an intoxicating sequence of visual imagery that spans the continent from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters, Byrne’s voice splashing watercolors across Big Sky country in the touring ballad “Natural Blue” before literally dissolving into the ocean on “Sea as It Glides”. But just as often this record turns inward, probing the depths of a twentysomething soul as it transitions from wary to wistful to weary. Each of the nine songs on Not Even Happiness is its own vast landscape, lurching and zig-zagging far more often than Byrne’s steady, delicate finger picking might suggest. Whether those landscapes turn inward or explode outward depends, one imagines, on what the listener brings to the table

HILLARY CAPPS – ” Last Call / Magic “

Posted: September 23, 2017 in MUSIC
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Singer/songwriter Hillary Capps combines thoughtful lyricism with clean, soaring vocals and catchy melodies – captivating audiences with her alluring alternative pop songs.
Capps “plays like the young vivacious New York City transplant she is” – M Music and Musicians
on the debut album The Wishing Forest. “Hillary Capps is a singer-songwriter with an arresting voice, and a sense of lyrical scope that injects her indie-pop songs with surprising weight” 

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VASHTI BUNYAN – ” Train Song “

Posted: September 18, 2017 in MUSIC
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English singer-songwriter Vashti Bunyan has enjoyed a unique career trajectory, Bunyan recorded her first LP in 1970, Just Another Diamond Day, filled with whimsical, twee songs, that documented her journey to Scotland by horse-drawn cart. It was produced by British folk-rock mainstay Joe Boyd.which started when she recorded a Jagger-Richards song in the mid-1960s. Here’s one of Bunyan’s early singles – it later turned up in a cover version by Feist and Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard. But her debut album only sold a few hundred copies, and Bunyan quit the music business to raise a family. But while she was absent, Just Another Diamond Day became a sought after LP that influenced a new generation of freak-folk musicians. It was issued on CD in 2000, and in 2005, Vashti Bunyan released a followup, titled Lookaftering. Produced by Max Richter, it’s sophisticated and grownup in the nicest possible ways.

In 2014, Bunyan released what she declared to be her final album. She worked to develop her musical skills so that she could realise the music in her head with less outside help, producing and playing many of the instrumental parts.

Studio albums

MARIKA HACKMAN – ” Drown “

Posted: September 14, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The unusual and subdued musical arrangement suits the hypnotic (almost lethargic) vocals, and floats around the brooding darkness of the lyrics. It’s easy to be swept away by the prevailing sense of emptiness and loss; guaranteed to send me into sad reflective mode, even if I’m high on sugar and caffeine. ‘Drown’ from Marika Hackman’s debut album, ‘We Slept At Last’.

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BILLY BRAGG – ” Why Did We Build The Wall “

Posted: September 12, 2017 in MUSIC
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Billy Bragg

So it’s probably no surprise that social activist and folk singer Billy Bragg has chosen to cover “Why We Build the Wall”, taking it out of its operatic context and turning it into something more. The cover has a brand new lyric video , The Anaïs Mitchell song “Why We Build the Wall”, despite being part of her 2010 ancient greek folk-opera Hadestown has turned out to be surprisingly prescient in today’s global political climate.

The TALLEST MAN ON EARTH – ” Same Ghost ” Ep. 2 of The Light in Demos

Posted: August 23, 2017 in MUSIC
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“Same Ghost” is the second episode of a video project I started working on . I’ve decided to produce, write, direct, record, shoot and edit a series of videos by myself and release them here as I finish them. Each video features a demo of a new song or a cover that I record live on camera (except when friends join, their parts will likely be overdubbed).

While I love playing shows, and will get back out on the road eventually, I’ve found myself wanting to record what’s right in front of me, but not just through song, and not months or years after the fact. And while making music is endlessly inspiring, so is being quiet enough to stare at the way the light hits the barn.

I want to share the light and the sound, but not without a bit of risk – I’m not used to sharing demos – and not without a bit of uncertainty.  Subscribe to my channel to see them as they happen. I hope you enjoy.  K.M

“Same Ghost” is the second episode of The Light in Demos, a video project produced, written, directed, recorded, shot and edited by The Tallest Man on Earth.

DAN MANGAN – ” Whistleblower “

Posted: August 15, 2017 in MUSIC
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Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Mangan has just released the powerful new video for his track “Whistleblower”. Taken from his 2016 EP “Unmake”, the video juxtaposes Mangan’s  understated acoustic track with intense images of anger.

“Seems there is a lot of anger in the world,” Mangan explained. “Anger can be important. Anger can topple tyrants. Anger can be a catalyst to growth. But if it becomes the default lens through which the world is seen, it can blind us from the redemption or beauty that can be found in this absurdity of errors. This video was not made with the intent to incite anger, but it does hope to advocate to work through anger and find the other side of it. To find resolution, forgiveness, and peace. Everyone involved donated their time/talent completely, and I am so grateful.”

LUCY ROSE – ” Second Chance “

Posted: August 14, 2017 in MUSIC
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So today my brand new music video for ‘Second Chance’ is out in the world. I had the idea to make this video with Elinor Barker, the amazing British Olympian cyclist and by some sort of miracle she said yes to the idea. I then found Joe Connor to direct the video, I’m a huge fan of his work and couldn’t quite believe it when he said yes too. So making the video was really special to me. I wanted it to tell the story of the song, which is inspired by my great aunt who was looking at an old photo of herself and said ‘look how lovely I was, it’s funny that I could have never thought that at the time and it’s only when I’m older looking back I can really appreciate myself for who I am.’

This is the official video for ‘Second Chance’ by Lucy Rose, taken from the new album ‘Something’s Changing’.

The TALLEST MAN ON EARTH – ” In Little Fires ” Ep. 1 of The Light in Demos

Posted: August 10, 2017 in MUSIC
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“In Little Fires” is the first episode of a video project I started working on last month. I’ve decided to produce, write, direct, record, shoot and edit a series of videos by myself and release them here as I finish them. Each video features a demo of a new song or a cover that I record live on camera (except when friends join, their parts will likely be overdubbed).

While I love playing shows, and will get back out on the road eventually, I’ve found myself wanting to record what’s right in front of me, but not just through song, and not months or years after the fact. And while making music is endlessly inspiring, so is being quiet enough to stare at the way the light hits the barn.

I want to share the light and the sound, but not without a bit of risk – I’m not used to sharing demos – and not without a bit of uncertainty – I don’t have a plan other than to post a video every other week. Subscribe to my channel to see them as they happen. I hope you enjoy.  K.M.

SIOBHAN WILSON – ” Whatever Helps “

Posted: August 8, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Brought up in Elgin, Morayshire, somehow Siobhan Wilson became intrigued by the culture of France. Having taught herself French, upon finishing high-school she upped and left for Paris. It was there Siobhan honed her songwriting skills, immersing herself in the culture and attending open mic nights. After being picked up by French label, MyMajorCompany, Siobhan successfully crowd-sourced the recording of her impressive debut album Songs.

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Now back in her native Scotland, Siobhan has teamed up with the ever-reliable label, Song, By Toad, who will put out her second album There Are No Saints later this year. This week Siobhan has shared the first taste of that record, a new single, Whatever Helps. The track builds around driving muted guitar chords and a fluttering, heart-beat like bass drum, almost all the melody carried by Siobhan’s distinctive, husky vocals. Lyrically, it’s a song that explores the process of dragging yourself up after life has driven you to your knees, as Siobhan sings, “you’re stuck in the break of a wave, you’re haunted by a line from a song, you’re beaten by the weight of a prayer, try to move on”. The whole thing is a spell-binding piece of songwriting, a track that makes you embrace the hypnotic rhythms and slide away from the world for three perfect minutes of time well spent.

There Are No Saints is out in July via Song, By Toad.

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