Tag: Singles Bar 109

Described as a quirky indie-folk duo, the COULDN’T BE HAPPIERS are married couple Jodi Hildebran and Jordan Crosby Lee, Couple(t)s being the first half of two EPs, each consisting of six songs organised thematically into pairs: two love songs, two protest songs, and two folk story songs. On the romantic note, splashed with brass, ‘Come Back Tomorrow’ opens with a chugging New Orleans groove about young love (“We could take your mom’s car/And get far away from here/Buy a house up on the hillside /Steal boat by the low tide/And swing down by the pier”) and twins with Jordan on twangy lead with ‘When I Die’ which is a more upbeat good lived life note than it sounds (“When I die / Hope the checkout guy can say/That I gave more pennies than I ever took away…When I die/ And you think back on me/I hope I made you happy, more than I made you crazy”).

Protest leans in with the fairly self-explanatory pollution-themed walking beat Jodi-sung ‘Plastic Bag Odyssey (I’ll Never Die)’ sung from the bag’s perspective (“maybe one day I’ll get launched into space/Leave this world without a trace/Except for all the damage that I’ve done/Way back when I was young”). Then, with more brass and shouty refrain, there’s the mazurka-driving corporate protest ‘Tear it Down’ (“While we’re here we’ll cause a scene/Might as well, cause no one cares /All their things are just obscene/But in their life, there’s none to spare”). Finally, the third strand’s represented by ‘Devil’s Tramping Ground’, a tale of the devil harvesting truck drivers (“My job is so exhausting/All the begging and pleading with the ‘no, please, please’”) and, coloured by pedal steel, Jodi on lead for the obligatory traditional folk murder ballad (“you dragged me down this road/Down a deep dark hole/Now that deep dark hole/Is where I’ll rest your soul”) that is ‘Pretty Polly’. You should be of good cheer.
www.couldntbehappiers.com/

A five-piece 70s West Coast influenced Americana band from Warwickshire, WLDFLWRS line up as Katherine Abbott, Chris Quirk, Jono Wright, Jack Blackman and Wes Finch, the latter two established names in their own right. Their semi-self-titled EP, Wildflowers opening with ‘Best Company’ featuring banjo and guitar solo, about how “Not everything that breaks mend…Sometimes being alone’s the best company…If you mind yours and I mind mine, we don’t need to agree”, tinted with shades of The Band, they having recently toured their Last Waltz tribute. There’s a bluesier groove to both ‘Heavy Weather’, the steady walking-paced ‘Mixed Message’ where Tom Petty’s spirit hovers and ‘Waiting On You’ while the ghostly ‘Skyground’ reverts to acoustic picking with hints of Stevie Nicks, ending on the a cappella 23-second show intro ‘Opening’. Well worth picking.
www.wldflwrs1.bandcamp.com/album/wildflowers-ep

‘I Hate That Sweater’ is a jokey slice of Christmas rock’n’roll by Canadian singer/songwriter KC ARMSTRONG elaborating, at some length, the disappointment we’ve all felt when the Christmas present we’ve just opened is almost exactly what we didn’t want. The video is worth tracking down for the range of appalling knitwear on display.
https://kcarmstrong444.com/

Written on New Year’s Day 2024 and released for this year’s Hogmanay, BENSIDER’s ‘New Year’s Waltz’ is the first co-write by Graham MacIver and his partner Libby McGugan , a cheering leaning into the traditional sound of the Scottish Highlands complete with Ross Ainslie on bagpipes and accordionist Iain Angus MacLeod, with Roy Hunter on drums and double bass, and MacIver bringing 5-string banjo with McGugan on backing vocals, as he sings “As we gather this evening remember loved ones/Who left us with a smile and a tear/Raise a glass to the future and I’ll fill it half full/To bring in this most beautiful year”) A welcome change from Mull Of Kintyre.
www.bensider.bandcamp.com/track/new-years-waltz

Scraping fiddle leads into solid drums and all the expected country instrumentation on ‘Ain’t Enough Cowboy Songs’, the new single by ASHLEY McBRYDE. It’s a lament for a missing dimension in life summed up as “There ain’t no wild out west”. Ashley’s voice is almost strident at times but she’s a powerful singer.
https://www.ashleymcbryde.com/aintenoughcowboysongs

In July this year, a devastating tragedy took place in Southport that took the lives of three young girls. One of them was Bebe King, the granddaughter of MICHAEL WESTON KING and LOU DALGLEISH. In tribute and in memory they’ve each written a song for her, available from Bandcamp, and, with both featuring Clovis Phillips on guitar and bass they’re the most heartrending you’ll hear this year. Sung by Michael, the gently picked ‘Sally Sparkles’ draws on memories of how they’d all play Back Garden Olympics and Michael would catch her and fly her through the air as she leapt from the swing, the song title being her stage name for these performances. The same source of inspiration underpins Lou’s ‘The Empty Swing’ where, recalling the news and the outpourings of tributes, she sings “They say that you’re an Angel/They say you’re a new star/Somewhere over the rainbow now/But I know where you are…/You’re in your Mother’s pulse now/And in your Father’s everything/And you’re in your Sister’s voice now”. It is, she says “the hardest song to sing”. Listening to it is no easier and I defy anyone to hear either without dissolving into tears.
www.michaelwestonking.bandcamp.com

MORA & THE FABULOUS WONDERFULS feat GUITAR GEORGE are the father daughter band featuring George Borowski, yes the Guitar George from Sultans Of Swing, and, released in aid of the We Shall Overcome homeless charity, ‘Bring Me Fire’ (Kycker) is a new single that, written by George and starting out with a chugging guitar riff, as she sings “They’ve taken your money,/They’ve after your home/They’re leaving the fragile/To fend on their own/You’re asking me question/I’ll give you a clue/There’s only one way now/Seven billion of you” as it gradually builds to a powerful anthemic title refrain with a voice that’s been described as Janis Joplin meets Nina Simone before fading way with an unaccompanied massed voice choral coda. www.morathefabulouswonderfuls.bandcamp.com/track/bring-me-fire

Taken from his forthcoming album, Teeth Of Time, Belfast based singer-songwriter JOSHUA BURNSIDE releases a new single, ‘Up And Down’. It’s a very clever bit of songwriting that, while definitely contemporary, sounds as though it was traditional sometime in the past as Joshua works in lines and lyrical structures that we’re familiar with. He has a laid-back singing style and blends traditional instruments – banjo, fiddle and harp – with more modern sounds and his own acoustic guitar. Highly recommended.
https://www.facebook.com/Joshua.Burnside.Music/

Nodding to 60s American troubadour folk, TANGLEJACK are a twin guitars vocal harmony Welsh duo comprising John-Paul Davies and Duncan Leigh, new dobro-shaded, blues-tinged folksy single ‘The Light Of The Setting Sun’ from the Ragged Sun album, opens unaccompanied and unfolds into a circular picked guitar pattern and a cheery end of days lyric “‘Cause if we’re living on borrowed time and all our best days are behind/It’s time to look inside your soul and see what you can find” and a call to wake up because “If you’re walking in your sleep/You can’t build a future/In a world that just won’t last/And you can’t hold a memory/If you’re tearing up the past”.
http://www.tanglejack.co.uk

There’s a little of the young Joni Mitchell, with shades of ‘Urge For Going’, about ANNE-MARIE SANDERSON. Her new single, ‘Bright Air’, is built on a complex piano arrangement – beautifully recorded – that seems to span most of the eighty-eight keys. Like the Mitchell song it too heralds the coming of winter and the questions that poses.
annemariesanderson.com

Named for the London Overground route through Enfield borough, WEAVER LINE are East London folk/Americana duo Sally (American) and Benjamin (English) Way, who write songs for dreamers in danger, their winsomely sung fingerpicked debut single ‘Chainsaw Faith’ born out of a run of bad luck, with both unemployed, ill and without direction. Using a cutup approach to the lyrics, it manifested as a prayer for help; it certainly seems to have paid off.
www.weaverline.bandcamp.com/track/chainsaw-faith

It was more than thirty years ago that LEVELLERS embarked on their first tour and they celebrated with ‘The Road’ on Levelling The Land. It comes round again with the collective releasing a live version as a single taken from their forthcoming album recorded at Hackney Empire. The song rocks on as it ever did but these days the band sit down to perform.
https://www.levellers.co.uk/

A free download with a voluntary donation request to refugee support organisation, Breaking Barriers, written by guitarist Hallam Lewis, the naggingly catchy ‘Ho Ho Hum’ is the first release from Hull’s RED GUITARS since 1986, a reflective observation on the struggles of migration for refugees, the title a reflection on the apathy with which they’re greeted (“I’ve travelled so far and I’m lonely/I’m hoping there’s room at the inn/I’m hoping they’ll let me in/‘Cos everyone’s playing with guns now/They herd us like cattle or sheep”), intertwined with his own recent experience of relocating from his home in South Africa (the musical influence evident) back to the UK. It rather fades away but otherwise it’s a welcome return.
redguitarsband.bandcamp.com/track/ho-ho-hum.

TRACK DOGS release a Christmas album featuring two seasonal tracks. Everyone knows the first two lines of ‘The Night Before Christmas’ but here we have the whole thing set to a bouncy banjo-topped tune. The second track is another upbeat song, ‘Tex MeXmas’, which provides an entirely new view of the festive season. “I’d rather have burritos than a great big turkey meal” so pour yourself a shot of Jose Cuervo and get into the Christmas spirit. (Ho, ho, ho!)
https://trackdogsmusic.com/

Her first new music since 2019, JESS VINCENT heralds a new album with a literal seasonal fairytale in ‘Through The Winter’s Night’ which, with sleigh bells, rippling fingerpicked guitar and chimes, tells of a young girl taking a shortcut through the woods on Christmas Eve only to get lost in the show and dark. She’s rescued from death, however, by a flutter of fairies who “sang to her of ancient times/Of winters past and lullabies/With fairy light and spoken charms” and now “every year on Christmas Eve/She leaves a gift by the ancient trees/For those who saved her in the cold/The forest fairies, wise and old” who “With gentle hands they save the lost”.
www.jessvincentmusic.bandcamp.com/track/through-the-winters-night

‘Put Out The Lights’ is the new digital single by AMY GODDARD and it’s been a long time since we’ve heard from her although we’re promised a new album next year. It’s a classy song and if you think it’s familiar you’re right – it was written by Ian Telfer and Alan Prosser who adds his tasty guitar work to the production and was first heard on The Shouting End Of Life. Beautifully sung and played. (Thanks to Neil King for the photograph.)
www.amygoddardmusic.co.uk

Released on St Stephen’s day, LEWIS BARFOOT sees the year out with her brief but lively version of the traditional ‘The Wren’ aka (Lá an Dreoilín), an Irish folk song traditionally sung by The Wren Boys, young men lads dressed in masks and straw hats who would gather, hunt and kill a wren (folklore has various explanations as to why the bird was victimised) which they’d then hang on the holly bush branch and march around town to beg and then bury the bird with a penny to bring good luck for the new year. The track however is vegan approved.
www.lewisbarfoot.com

HOLLY LERSKI releases ‘Girl In A High Castle (LA Version)’ as a Christmas single. It’s a pretty acoustic song about loneliness and escaping from it. Lovely but far too short.
https://hollylerski.com/