Harlequins

As many of you know by now, music makes my soul happy. My tastes are varied, but I have a soft spot for anything with folk-y, blues-y, rock-y tones. I also have a soft spot for male vocalists who show grit, determination and passion when they sing. 

Enter Russell Joslin.

The first time I heard Russell Joslin was when a friend of mine recommended his album 'Dream Token'. I listened, I loved - I swooned. I reviewed his second offering, 'Jet Black and White' when I volunteered at For Folks Sake and, again, was happy to witness Joslin as he transformed acoustic folk into a genre all his own.

In the years since, I'll admit, he slipped out of my regular music rotation, becoming like a rare treasure I would rediscover every six months or so. So when I got the opportunity to review to his latest offering, Harlequins, I jumped at the chance to rediscover him all over again and see what he's been up to. 

And I was not disappointed. 

The opening track, 'Up with the birds' immediately grabs your attention with strings adding a new layer and jarring you in the best way possible. When the electric guitar kicks in, it turns what could have been a steady ditty to nod your head to into what feels like a beautiful, French tragedy.  

'Our Queen' lulls you back to safety with a more upbeat tempo, laced with rock-inspired riffs before the first single from the album, 'What a waste', changes it up again with a slicker, yet more sombre feel. The saxaphone weaves itself around lines like "you threw your love around in the wrong place", quickly elevating it to stand-out-track status. 

The simplicity of 'Doves may fly' stole my heart (and if I had to pick favourites, this would be it), telling a love story the only way Joslin could, with poetic metaphor and honesty. 

The rest of the album holds steady, 'The chosen few' is a crowd pleaser I envision doing well at festivals, and 'Victory parade' tells a veteran's story and makes me want to learn all the words so I can sing along. The closing track, 'Pale Mary', featured on Joslin's previous album, but I welcomed the re-recording back into my life like an old friend who I always had a crush on.

Listening to Harlequins, what stands out most for me is that Joslin's story telling abilities are well and truly intact. His music has evolved for sure, he's added new dimensions and new moods, but the way he writes lyrics, stories and music is as beautiful as ever. 

Harlequins will be released on 23rd Feb (my birthday!) and you can pick it up here. 

Who have you been listening to recently?

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Edit: I just read through some old entries on here and came across a stream of consciousness I wrote back in 2008 that mentioned Mr. Joslin - clearly I was inspired (and a little sad)...

Thursday 12th June 2008, 01:33 AM

How can music do that? Reach into the bottom of your soul and reveal to you long forgotten emotions. God she loves it. These early hours are the best, when all are asleep but her and her new best friend - Mr Joslin. Oh how you move her, recreate tears that fell years ago. She thought they had died, gone forever - but you found them. You have decorated her sketched face with the artful little shapes. You are reminding her what her calling is, showing her it needn’t all be electrical nonsense - just passion. And her loves, (oh her loves), losses and continuing loneliness, you’ve found them too. Her mind is shooting scenes every second - various men take their turn in the role of leading man. He’s in bed with her and holds onto her naked skin for dear life. And you, good sir, are their soundtrack, and you are infuriating their imaginary passion and her real hurt. She thanks you for it, truly, nothing has moved her this far for years indeed. I think it was the push she needed to finally approach the belly of the beast... and secretly enjoy it.

songbird

Music is a huge part of my life. While I may not go to gigs as much as I would like, and my brief foray in the world of music journalism was unfruitful to say the least, I still find great happiness in the simple act of listening to music.

I've often said on here that I feel my most content when my head is happily wedged in between a set of headphones, and I have a variety of Instagram pictures to prove it. 

(after all, nothing's real unless it's captured on Instagram, right?)

The music I love so intensely doesn't make me want to leap from my seat and dance. It soothes me and, more often than not, it moves me. Every song I fall for has a specific moment I can pinpoint to the second - a key change, a rhythmic interval, whatever - that forces me to stop what I'm doing and just listen.

I close my eyes and lose myself for three minutes at a time. I think about life. I think about Joe. I wonder whether or not *this* would be the perfect song to dance to at my wedding.

The following songs are current favourites and, to paraphrase Zooey Deschanel in 'Almost Famous', 

"Listen with a candle burning, and you'll see your entire future."

Peggy Sue - Idle

Peggy Sue - February Snow

Peggy Sue - The Sea, The Sea

(Yes, I like Peggy Sue)

Bon Iver - Skinny Love

Ben Howard - Black Flies

The Civil Wars - Dance me to the end of Love

The Civil Wars - Devil's Backbone

Fleetwood Mac - Big Love & I'm so Afraid (both from the live 'The Dance' album)

James Vincent McMorrow - Wicked Game (cover)

Ludovico Einaudi - Experience

Sea of Bees - Wizbot

There are plenty more where that came from, but if I listed every song that made my heart smile, I would be here all day. Do let me know which songs move you, I love adding to my collection.

 Here's a peek into my musical world - the song I have on repeat right now:

polaroids of folk that make music

Top Left: Felix (The Maccabees)
Top Right: Emmy The Great
Bottom Left: Nathan (Flogging Molly)
Bottom Right: Rebecca (Slow Club)

Discovered this rather cool photography project from Frock-a-zine (a new favourite spot to hang out in on the internet), a project by photographer James Perou that does exactly what is says on the tin.

Polaroids of folk that make music.

Simples.

It's beginning to look a lot like.....

....Christmas! Only two working days left and then a lovely four days full of festive fun-ness! 

But first.... a quick apology for being MIA in blog-land of late. Life has been getting in the way, (in the best way possible), and finding a spare thirty minutes to blog has become increasingly difficult. My poor camera has been sitting on my desk next to my Macbook, both of whom are looking cold, neglected and generally very sorry for themselves. I have promised to use both more in the new year and have even given my camera a little clean to keep its spirits up.

Christmas and New years both look set to be all kinds of awesome as I share them with the people who mean the world to me. Who knows, I may even get the camera out early and snap a few moments for Limbo :)

In the meantime, I have to share a quick song with you. Not a particularly festive tune, but it is too beautiful not to share. I have been falling for Ben Howard ever since I was handed his EP a year or so ago to review, and now that his full length album has hit the big time I have fallen even harder. 

I hope everyone has a fabulous Christmas and an even fabulous-er New Years :) 

Song of the week.....

The Noise

Obsessed with this song at the moment. Haven't had a chance to check out the rest of Austra's album, but if this is anything to go by, I think I've met the one.

Have you discovered any new musical loves lately? Love discovering new music!

save the population

Ever have moments when you pause, look around, and think....'Damn. Life is pretty sweet.' ? I love those moments and I had a pretty wonderful one earlier. I was sitting in my garden at 7pm, under a tree, listening to this song and reading the latest Elle magazine. It was uncharacteristically warm, the sky was turning a beautiful pink and my dad was pottering around the garden planting flowers.

As sad as it sounds, its moments like this when I'm at my happiness. Give me sunshine, good music and something to read and I'm set. Of course there are other factors that contributed to my sudden 'life is good' realisation, mainly a fantastic weekend with old friends, a new job and an exciting future ahead, (more on that later), but it really is the simple things that get me smiling.

So yes, sometimes life does suck and you want to punch it in the face... but if we can hold onto these simple pleasures and captured moments, then hopefully it won't be so inclined to punch back.

Not Fade Away

Florence Welch singing Buddy Holly's 'Not Fade Away'.....

L O V E

Review: Rooftop Collective

As some of you may or may not have noticed through reading my blog- I am a bit of a music fanatic, particularly folk/rock styles. I have been writing reviews for ‘For Folk’s Sake’ for the past few years and before that I wrote for various other music sites. So when I spotted that an old classmate had started making folk/blues music of his own - I had to give it a listen.

Now I remember James from school as being the musical protégé- always one step ahead of the class. So I’m not surprised that he’s making music now and is doing so under the name of ‘Rooftop Collective’.

The Collective’s music brings together a talent for songwriting with skilful blues styling to form a modern day take on folk music. The harmonica melodies inspire images of years gone by, while the lyrics speak of modern day issues. Each song tells a tale tinged with melancholy and yet manages to present it in a wistful way. ‘Master Dreamer’ resonates with me personally, (as a fellow master dreamer), and ‘My Best Friend’ tells a sweet story of friendship and loss. The standout track for me however has to be ‘It’s Over’, where heart wrenching vocals lie over a lethargic bass line, showing off James’ writing skills beautifully.

Overall I think Rooftop Collective have the makings of a great first EP and are clearly destined for a bright future. Check out their music for yourselves here and while your at it, go 'like the facebook page here ;)

The Honey Trees

I came across the most stunning music over at 'See Me Everywhere' and simply had to share.

The band are called 'The Honey Trees' and they are so up my street it's uncanny. They are a beautiful couple making sweet music and are doing so with shed-loads of style. All of their amazing photography and videos are shot by the vocalists brother- Simon Filip.

Their EP 'Wake the Earth' is out on iTunes now and so far, I am loving it.

Here's their video for 'To Be With You'

Roll on Summer :)

The Honey Trees - To Be With You (Official Video) from Simon Filip on Vimeo.

(P.S don't forget to enter my Giveaway)

Mix it up...

These days music has become such fluid form of media- easily shared, streamed and captured, which is great...... I do worry however that with this acceleration of digital music that the art of the mix tape / mix CD will be lost. One of the first things me and my other half did when we started dating was make each other mix CD's, complete with handwritten track lists and long-winded explanations about why we picked each song.

It turns out I'm not the only one who misses this form of communication. When reading an issue of 'Oh Comely' magazine (AKA my favourite magazine in the world ever), I came across a piece about Atherton Lin, a duo of illustrators who are determined to bring the art of the mix CD back by illustrating blank CD's, primed and ready to be turned into labours of love.

Here are my favourite CD's.....

And my current mix CD of choice would go something like this...

01 Shadows of the City- Marcus Foster (favourite song right now)

02 All of Me- Angus & Julia Stone (stunning slow number)

03 Pa Pa Power- Dead Man's Bones (very funky little tune)

04 Night Terror- Laura Marling (one of my favourite songs ever)

05 Alive- Pearl Jam (just an awesome song!)

What's on your mix CD?

Song of the week.....

I have fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with this song and this band. This song gives me shivers, you know the ones you get when you've realised you've stumbled onto something incredible? Yeah those. I'm gushing, I know, I'll hush now. Oh but I do get to write a review of their new album for For Folk's Sake- how exciting, more room to gush :)

Paper Aeroplanes: 'Lost'

(no video I'm afraid, just close your eyes and enjoy)

Song of the (birth) day.....

It's my Birthday today and I shall mostly be listening to this. On repeat.....

Magnetic Man ft John Legend 'Getting Nowhere'

Off out now for a day of fun with my boy involving yummy lunch, cinema, chineese takeaway and maybe some cake if I'm lucky ;)

xx

Song of the week.....

This tune has been rolling around in my head for days. 

L O V E <3

Radiohead: Street Spirit (fade out)

(p.s I promise to write some more substantial blog posts again soon, you know ones with actual words, just been a very busy bee this week)

Song of the Week.....

This week I'm going for a band I stumbled on due to a random act of Kindness. I had written an article about discovering new music for a website and had casually mentioned that I was obsessed with a certain song I'd heard on an advert....

A week or so later I received a kindly worded email from a reader telling me who it was that sang the song and what their album was called :)

How thoroughly lovely is that? I thanked the kind stranger profusely and proceeded to buy the album and I have been in love ever since.

The band is called The Dø and their album is called 'A Mouthful' and it is BRILLIANT! so diverse.

This is the song from the advert (oxford notebooks i think?) called 'On My Shoulders'

isn't she gorgeous? Love it.

Je t'aime

I have a new style crush.

Her name is Josephine de La Baume and she is a French actress and singer (and supposedly 'hanging out' with a certain Mr. Mark Ronson).

I love her nonchalance and her effortless style....

When I grow up can I be a French actress/singer/beauty too?

And FYI, I quite like her band too- 'Singtank'

*sigh* je t'aime

Song of the Week.....

I had been getting a little sick of Florence and her musical Machine lately, purely because every song has been sooooo over played.......

But then I came across a song I hadn't heard of before.

It's called 'Heavy in your arms' and it's made me fall in love with this band all over again :)

Was I the only one to miss this incredible track first time round??

The List: 2011

(source)

I love this time of year- a truly fresh start, the time to plan / dream / wish / hope and, of course, draw up lists of what you want to achieve in the next 12 months. I don't like the word 'resolutions' feels far too restrained and almost doomed to fail. I prefer a list of goals that are realistic and do-able. So you won't be seeing any 'join the gym, quit drinking, lose a stone' shiz here.

No.... here is the place for achievable wishes written by the bossy boots within me...

1. Keep writing, writing, writing. For work, for fun, whatever. Never give up the dream.

2. Be OUT of part-time retail by Christmas. And *hopefully* be writing full time....

3. Get yourself out of your overdraft....and save up for a deposit on a flat.

4. Learn to cook real food. Pasta and cheese just ain't cutting it anymore, (start baking tasty treats for the boy too whilst you're at it, he deserves it after cooking for you all this time).

5. Get a Mini Diana camera and learn more about photography...even when your 365 project is over.

6. Get more technologically savvy, buy books, speak to friends, most importantly- learn.

7. READ more, (always on your list).... Make time for it this time.

8. Be a touch healthier. You said this last year- how about keeping it up this time? Your body and mind will thank you for it.

9. Do something you haven't done before every month, (and then blog about it!). Inspired by your friend Emily who has made the same pact. Life is made up of new experiences after all :)

10. Live in the moment. Again always on your list, and to be fair to you- you always achieve this one. Keep it up.

"Winter is for dreaming, imagining, planning - so that when spring returns you are ready"

Quote found here

Last but not least here is a pretty song I've been listening to today, gearing myself up for the New Year. I especially like the lyric 'We are not frightened anymore, we stood up'

 Hope you all have a year full of love, fun and happiness :)

Song of the Week....

 

 This song has been on repeat....pretty much all week. I am a girl obsessed.

The band is 'Animal Kingdom', yet another brilliant recomendation by Mr Luke DC.

The song is 'Mephistopheles' and it's from the album 'Signs & Wonders' Which is simply awesome. 

Sorry, no official video, just close your eyes and set your ears to stun....

Song of the Week

Another band introduced to me by my boyfriend- Kyuss. Very stoner rock, very fucking cool.

This song has been on repeat all day. Love the intro. Hopefully seeing these guys next year with the boy....

'El Rodeo' (Sorry, no official video!)

Probably quite an acquired taste for this one- anyone else enjoy a bit of gritty rock on occasion?

Song of the Week....

I heard this song on the radio earlier this week and it stopped me mid - conversation....which nearly never happens..... it was that good. Turns out it's Adele's new single, due for release early next year. All I can say is- I'm excited. If the whole album is full of songs of this quality, it's going to be effing brilliant. I've always liked a bit of Adele, just love that soulful voice.

So here it is, not sure if this is the official video, but whatever it is, it's freakin' awesome....

'Rolling in the Deep'

ADELE 'Rolling In The Deep' (Studio Footage)

- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

  

What do you think??