TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2012

Once again the year ends with the number of albums I still haven’t heard or will only get round to late into next year far outweighing those I actually did listen to. But of what I did wrap my ears around in 2012 I enjoyed albums from Allo Darlin’, Ambulances, Yusuf Azak, Andrew Bird, Blind Atlas, Boletes, Cheval Sombre, Cold Pumas, Cousins, Adrian Crowley, Devoted Friend, Eat Lights Become Lights, Fanfarlo, Goat, Ghost Carriage Phantoms, God’s Little Eskimo, Darren Hayman, Island Twins, Richard James, Jesus H Foxx, Johnny5thwheelandthecowards, Kaatskill Mountains, Lazarus and The Plane Crash, Jens Lekman, The Leg, Jack Lesser Lewis' Awkward Energy, Les Liminanas, Huw M, Moonface with Siinai, Onions, Plank!, Pulco, Race Horses, Randolph’s Leap, Sex Hands, Shearwater, Sone Institute, Standard Fare, The State Broadcasters, The Sufis, Temple Songs, The Wave Pictures and James Yorkston.

And if I allowed myself to break the self-imposed ‘Top Ten only’ straitjacket a 11-20 list would look like (alphabetically) Euros Childs, Clinic, The Douglas Firs, First Aid Kit, Golden Fable, Hooded Fang, Damien Jurado, Kiran Leonard, This Many Boyfriends and Woods.

Huge thanks for those artists and bands who shared their thoughts and reflections on 2012 namely (in order of appearance) Seamus Fogarty, Tigercats, Laura J Martin, The Douglas Firs, The Eccentronic Research Council, Mowbird, Richard James, Hooded Fang, Whistle Peak, Land Observations, Easter and Kiran Leonard.

So following that excellent wrapping up of the year, here is my Top Ten albums of the year. Yes it’s subjective. Yes it’s a rum bunch which at first glance appears wilfully random with no connection or shared stylistic approach between them. But – to my ears anyway – they are all formed by a distinctive and original voice (even when indebted to forebears) which delivers consistently – no weak links - across the full length of the album. You may disagree with this or with entries on the list. But hey that’s the fun of lists.

TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2012

10. JULIA HOLTER Ekstasis [BUY]
The second album from LA multi-instrumentalist and composer is a beguiling dream-world of layered electronically processed and natural sounds and voice; coolly arty but gorgeously accessible.

9. LAND OBSERVATIONS Roman Roads IV-XI [BUY]
Minimal motorik instrumentals about the Roman highways that criss-cross ancient Britain and Europe from ex-Appliance man James Brooks. Again (visual and musical) artiness and accessibility go hand in hand.

8. WHISTLE PEAK Half Asleep Upon Echo Falls [BUY]
A happy-sad electro-folk shuffle from Louisville, Kentucky. An excellent set of “children’s songs by grown men” to luxuriate in.

7. THE ECCENTRONIC RESEARCH COUNCIL 1612 Underture [BUY]
“Practical Electronics enthusiasts from Sheffield, make spooked out spoken word LP with Maxine Peake.” Understatement for the underture to the story of the Pendle Witches then and now and a side-swipe at contemporary society, shallow politicians and Jeremy Kyle.

6. TIGERCATS Isle Of Dogs [BUY]
A joyous, edgy and infectious declaration-of-independence that touches on Talking Heads, Hefner and Los Campesinos. Music that makes you want to be a teenager again indeed.

5. LAURA J MARTIN The Hangman Tree [BUY]
Can I use (someone else’s) phrase again? “Liverpudlian flute-wrangler” goes on magical excursions – from deserts to Morecombe Bay to Japan – switching from child-like (but never infantile) innocence to breathy sultriness. Heart wrangled.

4. COLD SPECKS I Predict A Graceful Expulsion [BUY]
Gospel-flavoured folk-noir from Al Spx and her Anglo-Canadian collective that is subtle but stirring, underplayed but over-powering. I cried when I saw them live (big softie).

3. SEAMUS FOGARTY God Damn You Mountain [BUY]
The James Yorkston-endorsed and Fence Records-signed nomad from County Mayo delivers rough, earthy ruminations with a transcendental other-worldliness. Wayward folky sounds on guitar, banjo, fiddle and cello with the added curious spaciness of analog synthesisers, laptop interventions and sea-shell percussion.

2. EASTER Innocence Man [BUY]
Crumpsall pipe-dreams, heavy US alt-rock hooks and riffs and experimental post-rock meet for an "immense, brooding and ruggedly beautiful journey, as monumental and carefully hewn as the carvings at Mount Rushmore or the implacable Victorian brickwork of Strangeways prison".

1. CATE LE BON CYRK [BUY]
"“Cyrk” is an album inspired by the Isle of Eigg, recorded in Cardiff, named after the Polish word for ‘circus’ but sounding like none of those places. It is at once grounded and otherworldly, cryptic and cool but curiously compelling and warm-hearted. Each listen pulls you deeper in, revealing more but telling you less. At the beginning of the last decade ‘New Weird America’ was coined to describe outer limits folk music looking at the world askance but rooted in heritage, myth and elemental forces. Welsh psychedelic music has been on a parallel course for many decades and hasn’t needed a short-hand description. Whatever the Welsh version is called, with this record Cate Le Bon proves she is at the forefront of the contemporary wave of that movement".

I was fairly certain when I wrote that in April that this record would be one of my top five of the year. By early November it beat Easter in my affections to secure top billing. But the SCANDALOUS omission of this record (and many others above) from record shop, magazine and website end-of-year lists shocked me.

Yes this is my list, it’s personal and wilful and random but surely by any objective standards “CYRK” should be lauded as an eerie creative triumph? How could it be overlooked?? I started this blog to record - for myself - what I liked and why; and if anyone read it and wanted to listen too that would be a bonus. All the above records from 2012 are truly important to me but also all in different ways are under-appreciated in this cruel, inattentive world. I recommend them all to you. Maybe more than just listening, together we can over-turn the under-appreciation that hangs too heavily around them? Over to you...

WRAPPING UP 2012 with Laura J Martin

January this year saw the release of Laura J Martin’s debut full-length player “The Hangman Tree”: “intricately arranged, jaunty folk-jazz excursions, mixing eastern vibes and a percussive, soulful swing, all powered by flute, mandolin, xylophone or piano with Martin’s vocals switching from child-like (but never infantile) innocence to breathy sultriness”. The tail end of the year saw a collaborative EP with Mike Linday (Tuung/Cheek Mountain Thief) released under the name Bónus Skór, both this and the album on the excellent Static Caravan. So 2012 has been bookended by family feuds, Morecombe Bay, careless ninjas and 17th century Japanese arsonists at one end, then salty tales of fish scales and apple carts at the other. And in between Ms Martin has toured relentlessly. A year of travels literal and musical.

“These spry, gnomic songs echo Slapp Happy’s downmarket Weimar bohemia or the inveterate oddness of The Raincoats “Odyshape”” reckoned Uncut on “The Hangman Tree”. I prefer The Word: “an Oliver Postgate vision of Kate Bush”. Whatever your reference points, there’s no disputing she’s an original.

Having consistently failed to see Laura J Martin prior to this year, I made sure 2012 was about catching up, seeing her in January, in May for Sounds From The Other City, in June for No Direction Home and in August for Green Man Festival (and I haven’t finished yet).

So what does the well-travelled Liverpudlian make of 2012?

What I will remember most about 2012 is...
My trip to Iceland and recording the Bónus Skór EP with Mike Lindsay. A wonderful eerie beautiful place.



What should be forgotten about 2012?
Usually things are painfully etched on my memory forever, but maybe my cover of Phil Collins’ ‘Sussudio’.

The best gig I played was...
A toss up between Ladyfest in Paris and the Union Chapel, I really hope it doesn't get closed down as a live venue.

The best gig I saw was...
Jonathan Richman at Green Man.

A record from 2012 that will be still be played in 10 years time?
’Spy’ of course!



Overlooked in 2012?
My friend and esteemed colleague Jess Swainson is an amazing artist. She should be minted by now in my humble opinion.

And what can we look forward to in 2013 from Laura J Martin?
The second album is being mixed at the moment so another album hopefully.

Hopefully? If it’s being mixed now surely that’s a certainty?

Laura J Martin may be may be sparing in her responses and social media pronouncements and may appear diminutive on stage in stockinged feet but there is no doubt that both on record and live she is a formidable force with plenty to say. She also has an impressive address book – “The Hangman Tree” features collaborations with Euros Childs and Buck 65 plus she has worked with Richard James, Sweet Baboo and The Simonsound amongst others. For her two final live shows of the year more collaborations and surprises are hinted at. Don’t miss either the Cloud Sounds Xmas Bash in Manchester on 14 December with Y Niwl or the Kings Place, London gig on 21 December to see what may come of these. A magical end to a fairy-tale year?

BÓNUS SKÓR Bónus Skór

For a record named after a city shoe shop, this EP from Laura J Martin and Mike Lindsay (Tuung/Cheek Mountain Thief) sounds strangely maritime. Salty tales with a mysterious, bobbing allure from somewhere out amid (or under) the Atlantic waves that sound very distant from a dry-land Reykjavik boutique. The recording session in Iceland, now home to the ex-Tuung man, that produced these songs was intended I think as work on the second Laura J Martin album but instead led to Bónus Skór. ‘No Soul's Treasure’ is like floating in a sealed bathysphere: a lullaby-like opening leading to dreamy murmur and hum with child-like wonder, reflective flute and unsteady violin that then decays into a solemn frazzle of fuzzy wheezes before ending with field recordings of conversing Icelandic voices (which re-appear to link each of the following tracks too).

‘Salt Hangs Heavy’ ripples and ebbs, with Laura J Martin’s voice at its most Kate Bush-like over a bubbly bass bounce whilst ‘Fish's Tail’ is a duet, with Lindsay and Martin trading alternate, short lines complicitly over a Portico Quartet-like nautical pulse. ‘Applecart’ feels closest to a companion song to this year’s “The Hangman Tree” and the most land-locked song of the EP: a halting, steady rhythm work song for orchard hands or a song about blame? Even this most lucid of numbers holds its mystery tight. If many of songs on Laura J Martin’s debut album were mini globe-trotting narratives and modern fairy-tales, this collaborative EP is not only more leisurely but also more about mood and brackish atmospheres.

I haven’t heard Mike Lindsay’s Cheek Mountain Thief project so I don’t know is this four-track EP due on Static Caravan at the end of this month (so expect it in December?) is a midpoint between the two artists. But whether a midpoint or biased towards one or the other, the duo are certainly bringing out the best in each other. This is a continually fascinating EP, both familiar and foreign, that feels like the magnetic call of the mermaid (and mer-man). No track to embed yet but as soon as one is available I’ll add it below. But if you trust my judgement, or even if you don’t, you can pre-order Bónus Skór now.

Bónus Skór Bónus Skór [BUY]

GREEN MAN FESTIVAL 2012 Day Two

There are always going to be clashes at festivals. But come on Green Man, Withered Hand and Sweet Baboo on different stages at the same time?! This was just too, too cruel. In the end I opted for the performer I’d seen least live: Withered Hand, here in full band set-up. Dan Willson said he had elaborate stage costumes planned but a late night got in the way and so they were “dressed like The Wurzels”. Self-deprecation can only be expected from the man who wrote ‘I Am Nothing’. But even with the sound in the Far Tent being far too echoey for my liking, this was a great, engaging set of pathos, humour, compassion and yes self-deprecation. Two new songs plus the “punk-rock number” ‘New Dawn’ left me very, very happy – and this even without ‘Religious Songs’ being in the set.







Withered Hand Set List:
Cornflake / I Am Nothing / Gethsemane / Providence / Jubilee / New Song (Walls?) / New Dawn / Love In The Time Of Ecstasy / No Cigarettes / Heart Heart

And for completeness, I hear the Sweet Baboo set was all-new material except for 'I’m A Dancer' and 'Twelve Carrots Of Love'.

The Perch Creek Family Jug Band had come to Green Man from the Edinburgh Fringe which figures – they added a touch of chirpy Australian showmanship to their stomping five-part harmony hillbilly music. The band – two brothers and two sisters plus boyfriend James - used banjo-ukulele, bowed saw, washboard, tap-dancing and, as the name says, jug to whip up the Walled Garden stage crowd. And then produce the longest queue I’ve seen to buy their album. You would have had to be the worst kind of curmudgeonly indie-snob not to enjoy their performance. And to be very clear, I did enjoy it.


Back to the same stage for RM Hubbert. The bearded and tattoo’d Glaswegian actually looks like a metaller but plays intricate flamenco flavoured acoustic instrumentals about his ex-wife, his dog and a dead friend “so I get to think about him each time I play it”. He sang the Aidan Moffat part from ‘Car Song’ from his recent Chemikal Underground album plus a traditional folk song taught to him by Alasdair Roberts but I found the wordless songs deeply hypnotic and moving (and his between song chat very, very funny).


Each time I see The Wave Pictures I state that repeated viewing of the band cannot dent the view of what a brilliant live band they are. Today was no exception although that cavernous Far Out tent sound wasn’t ideal and a set-list spat did occur. One of my party thought it overly favoured the new album to the detriment of older songs; I didn’t. Plus if you are as prolific and relentless in your touring as the Loughborough trio, I reckon you have earned the right to play what’s newest and freshest.



Again the curse of multi-stage festivals: I’d missed Dark Dark Dark and then only managed to catch two songs of the Bowerbirds (one was ‘In Our Talons’ though). I did however get to see Dark Dark Dark do a short acoustic set in the Rough Trade tent. “So this is piano-based music...” the Minneapolis band joked hemmed in between trestle tables, before playing four songs on just banjo, clarinet, accordion and snare drum. It left me kicking myself I’d missed both their Green Man set and their Salford gig earlier that week.



I caught a few songs from Portico Quartet’s Nick Mulvey in the sun in the Walled Garden before heading off for a drink. Now the act I had no intention of seeing at this festival, and the sore thumb in the three day event, was Van Morrison, the Saturday night ‘headliner’ but here getting on stage at 7.30pm. Which meant I did inadvertently catch the opening four numbers of his set whilst in the main stage beer tent queue. “How can he mangle his own song so badly?” was the reaction to ‘Brown Eyed Girl’. All dues to his career achievements and admittedly I was inside a crowded, canvas beer tent but it did sound like Van The Man was turning in lame jazz-lounge covers of his most well-known songs. What a bizarre booking for Green Man.

You’ve got to give everyone you’re not familiar with two songs’ worth of your attention. And Benjamin Francis Leftwich in the Far Out tent got that from me but he’s not having anymore. More familiar and interesting territory was Liverpudlian flute- wrangler Laura J Martin. Despite several live encounters this year, I still find her performances fresh and winning and tonight’s felt the most assured I’d seen her. Maybe she was upping her game for Stealing Sheep who acted as her backing band for two songs plus drummer Lucy also joining her earlier for ‘The Lesson’. Classy, classy stuff.







Laura J Martin Set List:
Fire Horse / The Lesson / It's Taking So Long / Tom / Red Flag / The Hangman Tree / At The Close Of The Day / Spy / Salamander

Much-heralded, passionate American troubadours with a good back-story are two-a-penny and most don’t live up to either the hype or the myth. Ex-carpenter Joe Pug on acoustic guitar and accompanied by Greg on electric guitar, managed to combine some Springsteen heart-on-the-sleeve moments with raspy Dylan-like story-telling as promised and neatly so for his first visit to Wales and appearance before Willy Mason on the Walled Garden stage. He was entertaining without being exceptional and warmly witty: “my father who is a teacher is nervous about calls from The Authorities when I play the next song. It’s called ‘I Do My Father's Drugs’...”. Although as one sage man observed: could he just turn the sincerity down by one?


It was two years ago at this festival that grown men wept during the afternoon set from The Tallest Man On Earth. Here he was back with a larger following (check the venues for his UK autumn tour) and a 2012 album which relies heavily on piano to headline the Far Out stage. However the approach to his performance was similar to his previous one here: using just a – large – bank of acoustic guitars and a chair as prop, the vest-wearing Swede swept to every corner of the stage in a semi-crouch whilst playing. Was my memory playing tricks or had he made it even a touch more theatrical? Teasing the crowd by pausing between familiar lines, throwing a plectrum dramatically over his shoulder to flutter beneath the vari-lights or letting the crowd sing the final line for ‘The Gardener’ before returning to repeat it himself. Either way the packed tent lapped it up. I didn’t see any tears this time but a lot of happy faces. A star performer.



Day two at Green Man done and I didn't even mention the mud and rain.

"A promoter should put the artist first..." Q&A with THE IMPLODING INEVITABLE FESTIVAL

Micro-festivals(sic) came in for a bashing in a recent article on The Quietus. The piece viciously laid into the urban weekender event as typified by Parklife with its controlling corporate sponsorship and get-off-yer-tits-and-who-cares-who’s-playing mindset. But if you want the true definition of micro-festival – and something light years away from “wave after wave of dubstep also-rans” – look no further than the Imploding Inevitable Festival in Fell Foot Wood near Ulverston, Cumbria. Not only an idyllic setting on the edge of Lake Windermere, an exceptionally shrewd line-up of independent musicians plus spoken word and performance.


With the third version of Imploding Inevitable happening at the end of this month, Festival Director Baz Wilkinson answered a few questions about how it came about and what to expect.

What are the origins of Imploding Inevitable as both promoter and as Festival?
The II Festival was previously known as Imploding Acoustic Inevitable and has for almost 7 years now, been putting on shows specializing in ‘psychedelic-folk’ but also poetry and literature. Its main base is The Tudor House Hotel in Wigan which is a hive of interesting and independent music, poetry and sometimes even plays and has the technical aspects and vision from the owners Russ and Francis to support our aims.

The idea sprang from there not being an outlet in Wigan at the time (2005) for ‘folksters’ doing more experimental type music. I began Imploding Inevitable and a friend, John Togher, (who played the festival as a spoken word performer in our first year and again last year in his band, John The Baptist & The Second Coming) began running Write Out Loud and a few other poetry/spoken word events, and each of our projects then developed considerably. The festival is the next stage of Imploding Inevitable and, whilst it will still be promoting music and poetry within the North West area, it is hoped that the festival can establish itself further afield.



So what is it you look for from the artists you work with? Simply fitting a broad church definition of ‘folk’?
Here at Imploding we are very much open to many different forms. We have promoted under the banner of psych-folk but have been VERY wide ranging. However, each musician, artist, band, spoken word performer, comedian/comedienne etc that we have and continue to promote are tied together by three main facets: integrity, originality and creativity.

We believe that a promoter should put the artist first and we have always done this. We are the opposite of the pay-to-play approach and, effectively, we have adopted a not-for-profit approach. Yes, it’s nice to make money from an event that can be put back in to making your ethos and approach stronger, but we feel this shouldn’t be done to the detriment of the artist and performer.



With two years' experience of the festival and the site under your belt, what have you got lined up this year?
We’ve got a very special line up that sees two New Yorkers in Jo Schornikow and Scott Rudd to an amazing array of musicians from the British Isles such as Laura J Martin, Colorama, Denis Jones, David A Jaycock, Jonnie Common, Jess Bryant and more. Not only that but we have some nice extras such as a Woodcraft stall where you can make your own cutlery to take home with you, a crochet circle, a vintage stall, the Circle Of Yew spoken word stage and other entertainment such Pico’s Puppetual Motion puppet show. Although we have a bring your own drinks and food policy there will also be both a Hogroast and vegetarian stall that makes all its food on site and is all locally sourced.

It’s basically how a festival should be with all the ethics of the sixties where you feel free, make a load of friends and it was certainly a highlight of summer for many people last year. Add to this the setting and you’ve got yourself a superb little event.

Well you would expect a Festival Director to say that about his own event wouldn’t you? But The Imploding Inevitable Festival really does seem to have all the right ingredients in the right mix to cater to the discerning micro-festival-goer. And all for the price of what you’d expect from a weekend camping in the Lakes - with day tickets available too. And no also-rans. And no sponsorship.

NO DIRECTION HOME 8 - 10 June 2012: Day Three

The early sunshine of the third and final day of No Direction Home may have been cruelly short-lived but to brighten up the lunchtime slot on the Lake Stage here was Trembling Bells. The psyche-folk quartet sounded particularly sharp and emphatic today with some aggressive and swirling guitar. I haven’t heard their latest record of duets with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy so don’t know if that collaboration accounts for that extra thump or not. But these unheard songs did not feel lacking at all for the absence of the gruff Louisville singer. And the set included a stunning unaccompanied rendition of ‘Seven Years A Teardrop’ from Lavinia Blackwell and Alex Neilson. Consider that day brightened up (and I don’t mean by the vivid green paisley full-length dress singer Lavinia was wearing).


In the Big Top next for my first encounter with the music of the harpist Serafina Steer: "I’m wearing a full-length dress with a print of The Spirit Of The Woods and this next song is an arrangement of a poem by William Butler Yeats. You couldn’t get any less rock and roll". The harp may not have been have been rock ‘n’ roll but its sound was beautiful, an elegant and dream-like setting for her curious songs of alien invasion and disco compilation CDs.


I had spent most of the previous week getting to know – and loving - the debut album from Cold Specks released last month. And boy was the live encounter just as special as that album. Initial songs were just singer Al Spx with sparse strummed guitar. But what a voice and what raw power: as she later proved she can make even the theme song to “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” sound soulful, grandiose and significant. The five-piece band – second guitar (and kick-drum), saxophone, cello and baby grand - provided restrained accompaniment as the songs grew more ornate, a swelling backdrop to the raw, gospel-infused vocals. I started day one of the festival looking for a quasi-spiritual experience and this set came closest to that. Another gold standard festival highlight for me. And now the sun was properly shining too.





I managed to squeeze in a few songs of the jangle-pop of Nat Johnson and The Figureheads before heading back to the main stage for The Wave Pictures. Can a band who you are a big fan of and have seen many times live still surprise you? Well not this time, but they did remind me how adept they at playing festival stages plus – I say it every time - how bloody good they are live. Fairly uncool in appearance, casual of manner between songs, they turned in super-charged, tight versions of songs today with only a more introspective slowie in ‘I Thought Of You’ to close. Good to hear 'Long Island' (as requested by the crowd) but the opening four-song salvo - 'Susan Rode The Cyclone', 'I Love You Like A Madman', 'My Head Gets Screwed On Tighter Every Year' and 'Eskimo Kiss' - was a bracing, career-spanning statement of intent.

More energy next from Sheffield boys The Crookes whose melodic pop-rock was played with gusto, big beaming smiles and a few none-too-serious (or were they?) rock postures. They provided plenty of debate in my party: were they going to be huge (“like The Vaccines” sic) or just remain local heroes. I think the latter. Fun but too obvious for me (hmmm that usually means ‘huge’ then).

Martin Carthy occupied a similar trad folkie slot to Martin Simpson the previous day but was accorded living legend status (“without him it is likely your record collection would be a very different place...”). Carthy’s approach to this billing was to play a leisurely meandering set with introductions and stories nearly as long as the songs themselves. Rather than playing the role of the “man who has been changing the face of folk for fifty years”, this was the softly-spoken grandparent who had earned the right to take his time. Songs included Napoleonic war marches, traditional airs and witty slapstick in an acappella, comic re-telling of “Hamlet”. Good to see the robes of living legend worn so lightly and with good humour.

I knew Father John Misty as the new vehicle for ex-Fleet Foxes drummer Josh Tillman but not his music as either J Tillman or under his new moniker. I was also expecting a band. Not sure how much of the set or the act was Father John Misty and how it compared to J Tillman but what we got from the solo performer with just acoustic guitar and denim shirt opened to his waist was a masterclass in having your cake and eating it. Playing the 70s singer-songwriter lothario (and looking not unlike a young Kris Kristofferson) his songs were simultaneously celebrating and mocking his role as a ladies’ man and performer. He made fun of himself, his looks, the lack of stage show but also boasted of “the greatest entertainment you will see all afternoon” and came close to delivering it. One song lambasted the environmental waste of producing a piece of vinyl (“and then there’s the shrink-wrap, and the gloss cover”) before acknowledging it is the only piece of him that will survive this death. Witty, thought-provoking, contradictory and compelling.


Sadly I missed the Slow Club set (there’s always Green Man Festival this August) but this sacrifice did lead me to one of the best chickpea curries I’ve ever eaten. Or that might just have been the embrace of anything hot and nutritious that wasn’t cider.

Next I took a chance on Alex Highton on the Floating Boat Society stage, noting with suspicion that Liverpool singer-songwriters could often wallow in sentimentalism. Now Highton did have one unashamedly sentimental song about his young daughter but he also had songs and stories about Cambridgeshire village life, swingers and escaped mental hospital patients. Not as dark as that sounds, they were humbly touching and sweetly engaging. Lovely stuff.


The Unthanks are adept at filling festival stages but here the four-vocalists-plus-grand-piano version were joined by “Champions of Britain” The Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band – 30 plus musicians in purple and gold braid uniforms. It was an impressive sight making an impressive sound too. Familiar Unthanks ground – cows, death and mining disasters - were given a richly different spin alongside some more comic moments: a “Manhattan Transfer” swing number and (predictably? Sadly?) the Brass Band’s novelty hit ‘The Floral Dance’. Many took these light-hearted moments in the right spirit. I wanted more death and Unthanks.

I only got to see Laura J Martin live for the first time this January but have been so diligent in making up on lost time it may seem as though I’m stalking her (I’m not). Such diligence is rewarded however, because as per her introduction by Howard Monk, her live show is “top drawer”. The combination of looped and layered flute and mandolin with her sweetly demure yet feisty vocals is as exotically intoxicating as the diverse locations and characters of her songs. Tonight with the sun setting by the lake a magical highlight was an intense version of ‘Salamander’ but also in the eight song set were two new songs ‘At The Close Of Day’ and to finish ‘Red Flag’ - one from a forthcoming EP, the other from a new album “probably out next year”. Not everyone is as impatient as me for those releases: after the applause died down, Laura J Martin was surrounded by a horde jostling to buy this year’s highly recommended album.





I saw Richard Hawley on the 2007 “Lady’s Bridge” tour and had given his latest album exactly 1.5 listens before his closing headline slot. So an acquaintance rather than a friend, and one I haven’t caught up with on their recent news. Hawley’s news was that following a trip to Barcelona (details were omitted) he had broken his leg. So arriving and leaving the stage by wheelchair he performed seated with four-piece band. A good mix of the older, lushly romantic numbers with the more psychedelic heaviness of the new album worked for me. Plus his sweary sentimentalism about the support he’s received from fans, family and wife (“I’m a soft fucker”) felt touchingly appropriate for closing a festival. A day of sentimentality plus a near-spiritual experience then. Or maybe in was just the sleep deprivation finally kicking in?

There were a few minor musical disappointments for me over the three days at No Direction Home but these were dwarfed by the quality and surprises elsewhere. As you would expect the festival is a mini-me version of End Of The Road – a strong focus on the music programme with a great supporting cast (and very friendly stewards and security too). There a few issues with the layout of the site – there was too much sound bleed between the two large stages and in it's first, untried year it didn’t feel as natural a fit as Larmer Tree Gardens. But these things are easily fixed. It’s good to have a festival in the North. Even better is to have one of this standard. Early bird tickets are already on sale for next year’s event (31 May – 2 June 2013).

SOUNDS FROM THE OTHER CITY Salford 6 May 2012

In its seventh year, I finally made it to multi-venue one day festival Sounds From The Other City but nearly ended up spending all of it in just one one venue. The day started – and ended - at St Philip’s Church one of the twelve stages for the one-day festival, today programmed by Hey Manchester.

I’m not sure what factors led opening act Dancing Years to change their name from Joseph and David but factual accuracy may have been one of them. Performing as a six-piece - grand piano, violin, melodica, guitar, bass and drums - this felt like an ensemble of equals rather than a duo backed with hired help. As well as their mellow, gracefully arranged folk-pop, the Leeds band also gave us burger recommendations ("only £1.50. And with onions and cheese") and a final acoustic song performed in the church’s central aisle. A lovely start.





Seeing Withered Hand live has been a long time coming but it didn't disappoint. And as Dan Willson pointed out, church is the perfect venue for these religion-infused confessional songs of failure, heart-break and holy days peppered with off-hand between song reflections on communication between people, home-schooling and self-deprecation. A new EP is due later this year (“I’ll probably self-release it... look, I’m jaded already”) containing one of the two new songs he played. Like everything else he has recorded it will be essential, especially given the evidence on show this afternoon.









Withered Hand Set List: Cornflake / Providence / No Cigarettes / Gethsemane / Take Me To The Promised Land / Religious Songs / It's A Wonderful Lie / New Dawn/ Love In The Time Of Ecstasy

I stayed on in St Philip’s Church for Stuart McCallum’s instrumental jazz ruminations, mostly down-tempo numbers performed on guitar, double bass and drums except a final acoustic guitar-and-loops song ("here's a cheery one I wrote") to finish.

Restlessness finally pulled me out of St Philips Church to Islington Mill. It was a shame to miss Stranded Horse’s twenty-four string kora playing but it was time for something a bit noisier. Brighton’s Fear Of Men were certainly noisier than earlier fare but their dark reverb dream-pop also comes with waves of melody and sweetly sung vocals – as sugary soothing as it is fuzzily loud. Other than occasional swaying the band are largely impassive as they play – the exception being for their cover of The Chills ‘Pink Frost’ which became a spooky, almost hallucinogenic trip with the band twitching and convulsing along. Haunting and majestic.





Then back to St Philip’s for Laura J Martin. Now of all the day’s performers, Laura J Martin was the one who I was nervously interested to know how her delicate flute-and-mandolin-and-loops songs would work in the cavernous setting of the church. Brilliantly was the answer. She may have been a diminutive, solitary figure upon the now darkened parapet but the songs rang out, whether the frail, pin-drop quiet of ‘Tom’, or ‘The Lesson’ performed at the grand piano (“I like to keep it light: this is about family in-fighting mixed with cock-fighting”) or the furious flute-playing of ‘Spy’, tonight dedicated to Beastie Boy Adam Yauch.





Laura J Martin Set List: Fire Horse / The Lesson / It's Taking So Long / Spy / Tom / Black Caravan / Red Flag / Salamander

It was only a few weeks ago upon seeing this video that I realised how young Paul Thomas Saunders was. From the epic, cavernous sounds and emotions of his two EPs, I’d imagined someone with more years of bitter experience, remorse and pain tucked under their belt. Backed by a similarly youthful three-piece band, live these songs were just as sonically soaring and widescreen as their recorded versions. Another perfect pairing of music with setting. And imagine what Paul Thomas Saunders will sound like with a few more years of life’s ravages thrown at him.





I didn’t think Sweden’s Emil Svanängen aka Loney Dear could surprise me. I came expecting solo acoustic versions of the songs from his now seven album back catalogue. What I wasn’t expecting was the cleverly layered and hypnotic delivery of them. As well as acoustic guitar he was travelling with organ pedals, loop station and half a drum-kit. Seated he added subtle loops of guitar, voice, handclaps or individual pieces of percussion almost without you realising he had done so. It meant that songs were slowly and surely built up – often seven minutes plus in length – topped off with his emotive falsetto, just as moving as when wordless. Again the setting was perfect and the performance meticulous but deeply affecting. For final song ‘Resonance’ he tried to get the crowd to hum a specific refrain in f sharp – we failed but he really did not need any help from us or anyone else. A worthy headliner and a fine, fine finish to my first Sounds From The Other City.





I only caught seven out of eighty-three bands and made it – just – to two out of twelve venues but even that small sampling of Sounds From The Other City was fantastic value for money. In a week when a woeful BBC article wondered whether Manchester can get over its musical past (‘it can, it’s the media that can’t’ was the best retort I saw), here was another retort from a group of independent promoters looking forward not backwards, bringing local and international, new and emerging talent to the sunny city of Salford. Oh where many BBC departments are now based. A visit to their own backyard for SFTOC should put paid to such poor 'think' pieces in future.But as this article reveals Sounds From The Other City is 'up for review' by the organisers and will probably change its format to stay one step ahead. Definitely looking forwards not backwards.