For Folk's Sake

Singles | Beth Jeans Houghton, The Cornshed Sisters, Allo’ Darlin and Lucy Rose

For Folk's Sake — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:09:29 +0000

Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves of Destiny – ‘Sweet Tooth Bird’

So I remember in primary school hearing a story about a father who challenged his daughters to fill a room with something to prove they loved him, which aside from the not even hidden aggressive patriarchy of the whole thing, is a pretty interesting conceit because whilst the idiot daughters tried filling it with things like grain, the clever daughter lit a candle and filled the room with light. I recall this story because ‘Sweet Tooth Bird’ sounds big, I mean spatially big, I mean it could fill a swimming pool or an Olympic stadium or a cathedral, big. It’s one of those songs that seems built around its (almost operatically big) vocals in a linear progression that can only be described as ‘up’. The album’ll probably be awesome (You can get a sense of how awesome from our review here).

The Cornshed Sisters – ‘Dance at my Wedding’

‘Dance at my Wedding’ is big in a different way in that it’s about a minute too long. I mean I’ve got a pretty good attention span, there just isn’t four minutes’ worth of ideas here. But what I like about this song is its unrelenting literalism: “Like when his dad said he’d made some good gravy / (echo) Good job on the gravy.” It makes it all very straightforward, which in turn makes its reprise of “I wish that you were still my friend” all the more sincere and beautifully understated.

Allo Darlin’ – ‘Capricornia’

Straightforwardness is also the mantra behind the new Allo Darlin’ single, a charming piece of old-fashioned acoustic-led indie pop. Some of the lyrics are pretty dark but you have to listen hard to notice because everything else about it just sounds so fun. The sort of fun you have at the kind of indie disco that tends to have a bake sale. In other words, the good kind.

Lucy Rose – ‘Red Face’

As straightforwardness seems to be the theme of the day, Lucy Rose makes an interesting comparison. ‘Red Face’ all sounds straightforward at first – Rose has one of those voices that’s totally light and undemanding so you think it’s going to be a really typical folky pop song. And in some ways it kind of is, albeit a fairly good one. And then in other ways, like the way the drums build and the way the drops work and the way the song’s delicious final phrases are mixed, it’s a real blinder. “For me this song really kicks ass here” comments someone named Olga at this point on the song’s Soundcloud page. For me too Olga, for me too.

Words: Tom Moyser

News | Mumford & Sons and Edward Sharpe train tour documentary announced

Lynn Roberts — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 10:39:49 +0000

A film about Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros and Old Crow Medicine Show’s railroad trip across America will be debuted at SXSW.

Big Easy Express documents the Railroad Revival Tour the bands embarked on in April last year. Playing sold out shows in 6 cities – from San Francisco to New Orleans – travelling on a vintage train.

The tour echoed the famous Festival Express tour, when The Band, Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead travelled Canada by train, playing gigs along the way.

Big Easy Express was directed by Emmett Malloy

Album | Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves of Destiny – Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose

For Folk's Sake — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:02:35 +0000

It’s been nearly three years since Beth Jeans Houghton burst my iPods with her jaunty, melodic folk pop EP Hot Toast Volume 1, and three years on I’m still listening to it, even though dreams of Volume Two long since galloped away. Happily, 2012 sees Houghton and her Hooves of Destiny signed to Mute Records with a brand new album full of original material, including a new, enhanced version of Hot Toast track ‘Lilliput’.

Although seemingly always a fan of layering up her voice to harmonic effect, on her debut long-player, Houghton expands these harmonies to epic, choral effect. It’s like Kirsty MacColl with a purer voice and a lot more reverb. Her jaunty, angular style of composition remains ever-present, with a staccato force that that often melts away with Houghton’s dreamy, breathless voice – skip straight to recent single ‘Dodecahedron’ for a perfect example. The Hooves of Destiny too deserve their credit, for providing the chasm of layered instrumentation, including mighty drums, thunderous male backing vocals and even an oboe.

The ten distinctly different songs stand apart from each other yet work together in a joys 35 minute journey through mythical lyrics and haunting production; this is no namby pamby acoustic fare, this is a pop record which uses retro sounding clear electric guitars, slabs of sound and reverb – but also restraint – with a folky flare. In a nutshell, if I heard ‘Atlas’ down at my local discotechque, I’d pull you up on the floor to have a boogie.

You may note from the above that former Blur producer Ben Hiller deserves his dues for laying down a collection that may have felt too traditional with the more anonymous production styles of Mumford & Son’s Sigh No More record. Without the ambitious soundscaping on show here, the collection may have become too twee for some. As it is, I defy you not to listen and smile.

Words: Frankie Ward

Beth Jeans Houghton – Dodecahedron by Mute UK

News | Fránçois & the Atlas Mountain cover Slow Club + This is the Kit cover them

Lynn Roberts — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:29:56 +0000

Fránçois & The Atlas Mountain by Lola Perstowsky

The lovely Fránçois & the Atlas Mountain have put together a gorgeous cover of the Slow Club track Gold Mountain, and Slow Club are due to repay the favour.

Listen here:

Slow Club’s Rebecca said of the cover: “I really love it, Fránçois (obviously) found funk where we didn’t even realise there was funk!”

Team Fránçois is playing London shows tonight and tomorrow, and if you didn’t get your act together for those, the band recently announced a headline show at Cargo on 18th April.

And while we’re at it, here’s FFS favourite This is the Kit with a gorgeous cover of Fránçois’ song Les Plus Beaux.

News | Soap & Skin announce new mini album

Lynn Roberts — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:11:24 +0000

Austrian Anja Plaschg has announced the release of a new mini-album on March 19th.

Self-played and produced, Narrow follows Soap & Skin’s debut album Lovetune for Vacuum, which was released in 2009.

The record features ‘Vater’, a song about her father, who died suddenly of a stroke in July 2009.

Tracklisting
1. Vater
2. Voyage Voyage
3. Deathmental
4. Cradlesong
5. Wonder
6. Lost
7. Boat Turns Toward The Port
8. Big Hand Nails Down

Soap & Skin will play a single UK show at Scala in London. Tickets are on sale now.

News | Sons of Noel and Adrian announce UK tour

Ian Parker — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:17:24 +0000

Sons of Noel and Adrian have announced a UK tour this Spring as they prepare to release their second album Knots. The band will hit the road in April with five dates, touring an album that promises to see them move on from the acoustic tone of their debut and crank up the amplifiers.

The band say the record does a far better job of recreating their live sound than their debut, so one of these five shows might be just the place to give it a listen.

News | J. Tillman returns with first song as Father John Misty

Ian Parker — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:40:27 +0000

Hot on the heels of announcing his departure from Fleet Foxes, J. Tillman has unveiled the first sounds from his new project Father John Misty, offering up a free download and a video for ‘Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings’, and talking at length about what has led to this new stage in his career.

The track is taken from debut album Fear Fun, due for release on April 30.

Father John Misty – Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings from Bella Union on Vimeo.

Tillman, who has released several solo albums in addition to his work with Fleet Foxes, has also been explaining the need for a new name and a new look to his work, starting off by quoting author Philip Roth at us: “‘It’s all of me and none of me, if you can’t see that, you won’t get it’. What I call it is totally arbitrary, but I like the name. You’ve got to have a name. I never got to choose mine,” he said.

“‘People who make records are afforded this assumption by the culture that their music is coming from an exclusively personal place, but more often than not what you hear are actually the affectations of an ‘alter-ego’ or a cartoon of an emotionally heightened persona.

“That kind of emotional quotient isn’t sustainable if your concern is portraying a human-being made up of more than just chest-beating pathos. I see a lot of rampant, sexless, male-fantasy everywhere in the music around me. I didn’t want any alter-egos, any vagaries, fantasy, escapism, any over-wrought sentimentality. I like humour and sex and mischief. So when you think about it, it’s kind of mischievous to write about yourself in a plain-spoken, kind of explicitly obvious way and call it something like ‘Misty’. I mean, I may as well have called it ‘Steve’”.

Speaking about the new record, Tillman admits it was born from an “immobilizing period of depression”, but believes the results are the most worthwhile music he has made to date.

“Songwriting for me had always only been interesting and necessary because I saw it as this vehicle for truth, but I had this realization that all I had really done with it was lick my wounds for years and years, and become more and more isolated from people and experiences,” he said. “I don’t even like wound-licking music, I want to listen to someone rip their arm off and beat themselves with it. I don’t believe that until now I’ve ever put anything at risk in my music. I was hell-bent on putting my preciousness at stake in order to find something worth singing about.

“I lost all interest in writing music, or identifying as a ‘songwriter’. I got into my van with enough mushrooms to choke a horse and started driving down the coast with nowhere to go. After a few weeks, I was writing a novel, which is where I finally found my narrative voice. The voice that is actually useful.

“It was a while before that voice started manifesting in a musical way, but once I settled in the Laurel Canyon spider-shack where I’m living now, I spent months demoing all these weird-ass songs about weird-ass experiences almost in real-time, and kind of had this musical ‘Oh-there-I-am’ moment, identical to how I felt when I was writing the book. It was unbelievably liberating. I knew there was never any going back to the place I was writing from before, which was a huge relief. The monkey got banished off my back.”

The album was recorded with producer and songwriter Jonathan Wilson, starting in February of last year, and features any number of different musicians who were invited in to take part.

“Initially, the idea was to just kind of recreate the demos with me playing everything, since they were pretty fleshed out and sounded cool, but a place like LA affords you a different wealth of talent, potential, etc than just about anywhere else,” Tillman said. “I realised what was possible between Jonathan’s abilities, and the calibre of musicians that are just hanging around LA, pretty quickly. People were coming in and out of the studio all day sometimes, and other days, it would just be Jonathan and I holed up, getting stoned, and doing everything.

“I was honest with myself about what music actually excites my joy-glands when I was considering the arrangements and instrumentation. As opposed to what’s been enjoyable to me in the past – namely, alienating people or making choices based what I think people won’t like or understand. Pretty narcissistic stuff.”

You can snare a download of the new track below.

News | Bella Union to release debut album from Hannah Cohen

Ian Parker — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:37:32 +0000

We at FFS are starting to get very excited about Bella Union’s latest signing, New York-based singer Hannah Cohen. She’s given us a teaser of debut album Child Bride, due in April, in the form of the beautiful ‘The Crying Game’. Cohen’s haunting vocals will grab you straight away, while the delicate guitar work works its way into your head in the background.

After wowing her friends with late night performances of the songs she had been working, Cohen went into the studio with producer Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, who has worked with The National and Anthony & The Johnsons to deliver the album.

You can hear The Crying Game below, while awaiting the release of the album on April 23.

Album | Foxes! – Foxes!

For Folk's Sake — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:42:46 +0000

There’s something glorious about indie-pop. I dunno. Possibly it’s the images of chunky, patterned, jumpers that it conjures. The thought of skinny jean clad, Morrissey quiff sporting, men throwing flowers in the air and catching tears in their eyes. Perhaps it’s the memories of gender shared romantic ineptitude, bending towards each others knees as you see yourself reflected in the shyness of each others eyes. Or maybe it’s because the music sits so happily inside your head, errecting fluffy walls and carpets that let you fall backwards into them and be kept safe. Who needs someone to catch your fall when you have indie-pop?

I don’t like indie-pop, I LOVE indie-pop. A head start then for young upstarts Foxes! (such temerity to add an exclamation mark, yes we know you’re here!). An excellent synth laden piece, ‘Aisle No. 3’ misleads the listener into the sense that the albums remainder will be a collection of bittersweet harmonies, like the work of Danny Elfman. Yes there is a little of this, but its shot through with such energetic pop mastery that the bittersweet quickly becomes beautiful. My favourite song is the excellent ‘The Panda Bear Song’, but the whole record is full of brilliance. ‘6 O’ Clock’, ‘Alex Badamchi’, ‘Descartes’ and ‘Oh Rosie’ are all superb songs and there seems to be no filler. As these songs escape a smile spreads across your face which stays there until the album reaches its conclusion.

What I find most charming about this self titled debut is the bands choices of influences. There are nods made to Beat Happening, All Girl Summer Fun Band, Apples in Stereo (without the consistent duvet of distortion) and The New Pornographer, meaning the band sound as though they’ve jumped straight from a K Records compilation. Every year seems to herald the revival of indie-pop. Let’s just face it, indie pop never died and bands like Foxes! will make sure it lives forever.

Words: Damo Girling

Album | Django Django – Django Django

For Folk's Sake — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:52:49 +0000

Django Django opens like a tribal video game, revs up to the happy dancing of ‘Hail Bop’ then launches into the near-irresistible beat of ‘Default’. It’s a great start and reminds me heavily of The Beta Band, but this is no bad thing. We need more spaceship noises and kindly psychedelica in the world since that band packed its bags, and while The Beta Band mixed happy, sad, and hypnotically-insistent songs (such as ‘Push it Out’, surely made for giving birth), Django Django are much more about making you dance. I first played this album while cooking, and it was the most energetic meal I’d made in a while.

The lyrics can get a bit obvious (e.g. “If you go round in circles, you’ll find yourself back at the start” – yup, that makes sense), but the music makes up for this by being so satisfying and seamless, and by moving your feet. ‘Skies Over Cairo’ is close to being cheesy, but in a loveable way; ‘Wor’ is a stand-out for its whoops, rollicking guitar and hand-clapping. The overall sound gets pretty trippy without hitting the outer-space bonelessness of, say, The Flaming Lips, but they’ve also got the nerdiness of Hot Chip, which is good if, like me, you’re too painfully well-behaved for actual drugs. Just climb on for a safe trip (but don’t forget your helmet!!!!@1!!). Django Django make me happy. They might make you happy too.

Words by Becky Varley–Winter

For Folk's Sake

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