Artigos com o marcador folk rock
David Kilgour & Sam Hunt – Falling Debris
24/11/09
Genre: Kiwi Rock / Folk Rock / Jangle Pop
Based In…: New Zealand
Label: Arch Hill
Year: 2009
My Rate: 9/10
MySpace
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ELSEWHERE As we all know, song lyrics are rarely poetry — and conversely poems, especially contemporary poems which don’t bother with rhyme schemes, can’t often be readily adapted into the service of a song.
Singer-guitarist David Kilgour of the Clean here takes some of Sam Hunt’s poems (despite the attribution, Hunt’s distinctive sing-song voice isn’t heard here) and works them into a breezy folk-rock with a little guitar jangle. But there’s a musical and emotional restraint throughout that doesn’t always serve the lyrics — although the consistent tone could doubtless have wide appeal, especially to those who have followed Kilgour’s recent, and uniformly excellent, solo albums.
And his downbeat delivery throughout reminds me of the tone on Lloyd Cole’s solo albums, a similarly off-hand story-telling and easy way with a lyric.
But Kilgour and Hunt together will inevitably throw up real gems and they are scattered throughout the song/poems (which are book-ended by a little sonic scene setting): the strum and easy melody of Every Time It Rains Like This which uses the title as the pivot; Talking of the Winter which could have slid easily into an earlier Kilgour album; and the Dylan-style settings of They Are Clouds and the acoustic A Summertime Blues for Tom.
Kilgour tells a good story about how this project came about, (“serendipity”, he says, using a word I have always loved) and of course the attraction of Hunt’s words is entirely understandable, they can be deeply engaging — even if the musical setting Kilgour offers isn’t always so (I Throw You Flowers, the rather lightweight melody offered the aggressive words of First One Hit, Friend to Many which again opts for melody over meaning).
So, uneven as might be expected when it comes to setting poetry to pop, but peppered with highlights nonetheless.
Vídeo de “Chord”
Robyn Hitchcock – I Often Dream of Trains
11/11/09
Genre: Folk Rock / Neo-Psychedelia
Based In…: UK
Label: Rhino
Year: 1984
My Rate: 9/10
MySpace
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ALLMUSIC After the debacle that was the making of 1982′s Groovy Decay, Robyn Hitchcock briefly retired from music, and when he returned it was with an album that offered a thoroughly uncompromised vision of Hitchcock’s imagination. Released in 1984, I Often Dream of Trains was a primarily acoustic set with Hitchcock handling nearly all the instruments and vocals by himself; the tone is spare compared to the full-on rock & roll of his recordings with the Soft Boys or his solo debut, Black Snake Diamond Role, but the curious beauty of Hitchcock’s melodies is every bit as striking in these stripped-down sessions, and the surreal imagery of “Flavour of Night,” “Trams of Old London,” and the title song comes to vivid and enchanting life. Hitchcock’s off-kilter wit has rarely been as effective as it is on this album; the jaunty harmonies of “Uncorrected Personality Traits” are the ideal complement for the song’s psychobabble, “Sounds Great When You’re Dead” manages to be funny and a bit disturbing at once, and the drunken campfire singalong of “Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus” was joyously sloppy enough to inspire a cover by the Replacements.
There’s a slightly ramshackle quality to these recordings, but Hitchcock was rarely in more uniformly fine form as a songwriter, and there is a consistency of tone to the disc that makes it all the more effective, drawing listeners into a curious world of its own and allowing them to explore the surroundings and their quiet splendor. And Hitchcock has rarely recorded a song as luminously gorgeous as “Autumn Is Your Last Chance.” Hitchcock would pick up his electric guitar and reunite with his band the Egyptians in 1985, releasing two fine albums in one year, but I Often Dream of Trains was a simple and marvelously effective return to action that’s all the more winning for its subdued, tentative tone. [by Mark Deming]
Vídeo de “Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl”
Emily – Rub Al Khali
19/09/09
Rub Al Khali é um clássico! Nesse disco a sonoridade jangle é deixada de lado, dando lugar a arranjos e melodias mais elaborados e cheios de experimentalismos característicos do folk dos anos 60 e 70. Se você não conhece, deixe um pouco de lado essas bandas folk moderninhas e chatas e vá ouvir Emily. Super recomendado!
Encontrei um texto bem legal no myspace da banda, em inglês, falando sobre toda a história por trás do disco e seu lançamento:
When we started Everlasting Records we were influenced by Creation and Dreamworld and all those great 80′s indie labels who put out records in little plastic bags. I was already a big fan of Emily’s thanks to their ‘Irony’ 12″ for Creation (I loved ‘Reflect On Rye’) and their marvellous Esurient 7″, ‘Stumble’. 10″ albums were all the rage and the idea was to ask Emily to record a 6-track mini-album for Everlasting.
Two things prevented this. The cost of pressing a 10″ album was excessive and all Emily’s songs were nearly ten minutes long and that’s why ‘Rub Al Khali’ is your classic 12″ piece of plastic and this is its story…..
We asked the band to record an album and they invited us to Chester for a gig they were playing with Edsel Auctioneer to discuss it. They also offered us accomodation for the night. I still remember flying up the M6 to try and get there in time and worrying about finding the venue when we got there. But we made it and sat back to enjoy the bands set. But this was not the band who had recorded ‘Irony’ and ‘Stumble’. Ollie thrashed an electric guitar, there was no break between songs and the whole thing sounded like it would fall apart any minute! It was catastrophic but it was also very enjoyable and I had no idea what the album was going to sound like…..
Our accomodation for the night was on the floor of the studio, where Nick (the drummer) was employed as an engineer. I remember it now, it was called Dead Sound. The band set up their equipment, lit up endless spliffs and played us the same set again, acoustically. It was absolutely glorious! I still have a tape of this set somewhere and it is priceless. There was no ventilation and by the end of the session we could barely see each other through the smoke! There was no windows so, when we turned out the lights, it was pitch black. We had no idea what the time was in the boring real world outside…..
Because of the restricted budget, Emily hired some equipment and set up to record in a barn in Pandy, North Wales. These sessions offered the sublime ‘The Oceans Coming In’ and ‘Journeyman’, the backing track of opening track ‘Foxy’ and a few unreleased delights, including a version of Richie Havens’ ‘Sugarplums’. We stayed with the band for the week in a caravan on the farm. It was half way up a mountain and there was no lighting or heating. The band played a steady stream of reggae and Tim Buckley before heading in to the village for more weed and then to the barn for more recording. The band had their disagreements during this week, but everything sorted itself out and I have fond memories of that week with Oliver, Nick, James (bass) and Gian (sax, clarinet, flute, harmonica, etc.) and of visiting Llangollen for the Eistedffod and Port Meirion…..
The album was completed at a Bristol studio. The band sent us the finished album but it needed a lot of re-mastering before it could be mastered to vinyl and, because of the extraordinary length of the album, one track, ‘Merri-Go-Round’, had to be omitted (it would have been track six fact fans). Recording had come in at double the budget we had allowed but, in fairness to the band, it was still recorded incredibly cheaply. The budget restriction also meant, unfortunately, we could not release the album in the red and gold sleeve the band had intended.
Nearly all the copies we made of the album were sold, making it Everlasting’s most successful release by a long way. I am immensely proud of my involvement in the album and only wish we could have arranged for the band to record a follow up. Many people have described it as one of their favourite albums, it is one of mine too.
Only recently the news of Gian’s death reached me and left me incredibly sad. Like the rest of the band, Gian was a fine musician and a wonderful person.
Genre: Folk Rock / Experimental
Based In…: UK
Label: Everlasting
Year: 1991
My Rate: 9/10
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