‘I wanted to create something social that would not revolve around alcohol.’ This is what one of the organisers of a new fixture, ‘One Drop’, explained to me as we waited in the queue for the only toilet in Plough Studios in Clapham on Sunday.
The event, which fused holistic therapies, spiritual demonstrations, delicious organic food and live music, took place in the light, airy gallery space and was filled to the brim with Londoners seeking some Sunday ‘down-time’.
There’s very little about Attic Thieves that isn’t in some way perplexing. Firstly, there’s the name, which brings to mind pesky bandits making off with people’s lofts in the middle of the night. That’s nothing compared to the music, though, which sounds nothing less than a collection of American porch-front songs transplanted to a haunted fairground. You wouldn’t be unduly surprised to hear any of the album’s twelve tracks issuing from a malign speakerbox in some surrealist horror film.
Blacklands last album was called ‘Beware the Moon’. There’s not much to beware of here, unfortunately. Unless you happen to have a phobia of a hippy-zombie army, lurching across the horizon waving lentils and guitars, attempting to turn the clock back 40 years to a time when men could seriously wear flowers in their hair. I’m quite scared of that.
Johanna and Klara of Sweden’s First Aid Kit are teenage sisters who are taking the folk world by storm. Their debut EP Drunken Trees, which has been available in their home country for a year, is soon to be released in the UK. For Folk’s Sake caught up with the girls for a quick chat.
Laura Marling treated fans to a surprise performance at an instore at Rough Trade East in Brick Lane last night.
“I want you, I’m stupid. Don’t blame me, blame cupid – his aims never been all that hot. But he hit both with our hearts with his random wee darts, my love you just got what you got.”
So sings Aidan Moffat in his lovable Scottish tones on A Scenic Route to the Isle of Ewe from his new album. As Valentines Day inspired declarations of love go it doesn’t quite set the soul aflame with the aching heat of romance. But that’s not what Aidan’s here