Just over a year ago, Siv Jakobsen kicked off 2023 with one of my favourite albums of the year, her third album, Gardening. It's properly beautiful stuff. If you haven't listened yet: sort it out. It turns out there was a song missing, kind of. One that had been intended to be the opener for the album, but that Siv wasn't quite ready to put out at the time. A year on, America is out in the world and is, unsurprisingly, a stunner. Over to Siv...
I moved to America in 2009, shortly after my 20th birthday. Fueled by endless episodes of Gilmore Girls and Friends, I wanted to live out my version of the The American Dream. The song “America” is about the substantial grief I felt when I packed up my life and left the US again only 5 years later. After having been convinced for most of that time that I would make it my forever home, giving up that dream felt like a massive defeat.
In most ways I had an incredible experience in the US. I made friends for life and wouldn’t ever take back the time spent there. But when I realised that I wanted - needed - to go home to Norway, it felt like a real defeat. I felt like I had failed; at my life in the US, at my then crumbling relationship, and at my music-career that I was trying to get off the ground at that point. I went home, tail between my legs, realising that 20 year old me had been wrong.
America was the very first song recorded for Gardening. For a long time it was set to be the opening track, a subtle intro to the album ahead, with it’s Disney-esque intro and soft arrangement. However, as the recording process developed it became increasingly clear that although it is part of the Gardening universe for me on a personal level, it didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the record. A bit of an odd one out thematically, and yet right at the heart of it all.
Ah, the glorious feeling of a new year with so much exciting new music ahead of us! As if my list of upcoming releases didn't already look completely beautiful, Cosmo Sheldrake just announced that he's releasing the first two tracks from his new album this week. Novo Amor seems to be teasing new music too... and albums from The Staves, Everything Everything, Sam Lee and MGMT are on my radar.
Two weeks into the year and already so much new music to wrap our ears around! I can't wait to give the new records from Marika Hackman and Emma Gatrill a listen. For now, though, I've been a little caught up with Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations from long-time favourites of mine, The Vaccines. Way to start the year with an album of the year contender. Their sixth studio album and arriving three years after Back In Love City, it is 31 minutes and 34 seconds of pure joy. I love those guys.
Whetting your appetites here with the current single, Discount De Kooning (Last One Standing). Superb!
So. Festive songs. How do we feel? To be completely honest, when I'm delving through a full inbox of submissions, the festive tracks are usually the first to go. The overly joyful ones aren't really for me. Sadder festive songs however - sign me up. Recent favourites include Fenne Lily's Christmas Alone, Sunflower Thieves' It's Not Like The Christmas Films and a version of O Holy Night from Stornoway (I mean really, how could I possibly resist that?!)
Thankfully, this one slipped through the net, and didn't make a direct line for the bin - I'm reaaaally liking Keep My Shit Together from Brisbane based Asha Jefferies. With a string of festival slots, support tours (Stella Donnelly - big yes) and awards under her belt, Asha's debut album looks set for release next year, and I can't wait to hear more.
Keep My Shit Together was produced and mixed by Sam Cromack of Brisbane band Ball Park Music in his studio Prawn Records. Asha's music is at once euphoric and vulnerable, coming from a place of a young woman learning to express her queerness. On this one, she's testing her bravery in the face of 'milestone-induced anxiety' (celebrating Christmas with a new partner) and like I said, I'm very much here for it.
On the track, Asha explains: "Keep My Shit Together was written one hot and sweaty day around my piano in December. While feeling stuck and existential, this song is an ode to bringing lightness to hot and heavy feelings around Christmas time. We recorded this in mid-December, air-con cranking and all in organised matching white tank tops."
The Staves are back! Album announcement time! Isn't it exciting????!!!
It feels like time has been a little bit wobbly for the past few years - somehow, their last album came out in early 2021, meaning there will have been just over three years between albums. We are ever so deserving of this new album. That 2021 record, the excellent Good Woman, was my album of the year. My most listened to album of that year, the first show that I got to after the various lockdowns - a record that really unlocked a deeper love of this band for me. A little bit exciting that they're back with a new one then.
Produced by John Congleton and their first release via Communion Records (I mean - a perfect fit if ever I saw one?!) All Now arrives on 22nd March 2024, and features recent single You Held It All (again - excellent) and this new single, the glorious title track.
On the track, Jess and Camilla say "it's a stream of consciousness about frustration and feeling overwhelmed with modernity. Kind of a rejection of the performative way we have to express ourselves now in order for it to be deemed valid."
Discussing the video, which was directed by James Arden, the pair add "We were in love with the old footage of singer songwriters performing in shows like 'The Old Grey Whistle Test', and the way the audience hung on the singer's every word. We wanted to play with the idea of 'All Now' being an ideology and a message. Something that came from artists and creatives, but is then hijacked and commodified by corporate creeps, preaching the message to gain power."
December - goodness. Many of you will know that I work in a bookstore, and can probably imagine just how busy and stressful that is right now. Carrying stacks of books (and everything else) from section to section, fielding queries, recommending books. It is at once the best and worst time to work in a bookstore. Helping people to choose gifts can be kind of magical, but retail definitely presents you with the worst of people - sadly not even bookshops are immune to that.
As ever, music is a big salvation, and beyond my headphones and the blog inbox, it has been a delight to find time to escape to a bunch of gigs over the past couple of months. A quick scan of my gig list tells me I’ve been to fourteen shows so far this year, in various forms… including an album launch on a nature reserve, in-stores at Rough Trade and Banquet Records, and even a night at the British Library. Varied and always brilliant. For the majority of those I was on the guestlist/given tickets by the artists and their teams. Getting invited along to shows was always one of the best blog perks, and I feel really lucky to still get asked, despite blogging a little less frequently.
Aren’t gigs great?
I’ve been going through some stuff lately… I’ve talked a little about this online, but the long and short is that I’ve come to realise that I might be autistic. I’m in the very early stages of looking into getting an assessment. The more I read about autism, about it in general, about other people’s experiences, the more I feel that I am coming to understand myself better, how my brain works, and how I form (or more accurately, struggle to form) connections with others. I've come to realise that it probably isn't "normal" that I've always just felt a bit odd, a bit of an outsider, quiet, and that there might be a reason that I sometimes struggle to communicate, to make connections that others seem to do so easily.
Music, though, has always been one of the few ways that I could connect with others. With artists, their teams, with fans who share my love of a particular artist. The blog you’re on now is in a way the centre of a community of sorts that I have formed around myself, rooted in a love of music and of the people making music.
I love live music but gigs aren’t always the easiest experience - they can be loud and overwhelming. I look around at groups of people from my spot in the corner, where I'm probably alone reading a book in between sets. But gigs can be, and often are, pure magic. Transcendent. A couple of shows I’ve been to recently were exactly that - Johnny Flynn and Rob Macfarlane at Rough Trade East and Bear’s Den at Union Chapel.
Johnny and Rob’s show was one of a couple of album launch in-stores for The Moon Also Rises and it was stunning. Far from the scripted, rehearsed and polished world of the Lost In the Cedar Wood show I went to at The Globe last year (and wrote about here) this was endearingly chaotic. A bunch of friends having fun and reliving the experiences of recording the album together through conversation and song. Even for a relatively small and short in-store like this, Johnny roped in three vocalists who sang on the record to perform with him, which was breathtaking.
Rob came on stage to chat with Johnny for a short while about the process of making the record (at Cosmo Sheldrake’s studio, with a bunch of their pals) and he mentioned something which really resonated with me - about Johnny creating community around his music. A record like this and a performance like that doesn’t come around by accident… Johnny has forged a close community of creatives around him over the years, and it comes across so beautifully in the recordings and the performance. In fact, Johnny talked about this being his favourite way to make music on a recent radio interview.
I wanted to write about this, and about how great the show and album were, but work (and life) got in the way, and I haven’t found the time. Then I went to see Bear’s Den at Union Chapel and I felt the exact same sensation that was so tangible while watching Johnny, and I wanted to write about that show - and the two posts have merged themselves, to become this stream of thoughts you're stumbling across now.
The magic of the Den playing four nights in such a special venue is no accident, nor are the gorgeously talented musicians joining them on stage (brass AND strings… aaaaagh.) They’ve helped to create this through Kev's label Communion and through their music, through years of touring, of making connections. They’ve surrounded themselves with so many brilliant artists and to see them seemingly still so humbled to work alongside them all is genuinely beautiful as an audience member.
I'm rambling... but I guess this is all to say that I sometimes struggle to find exactly where I fit in, to find my 'tribe' as it were. I often feel that I’m on the outside looking in, admiring these musical communities and not feeling like I could ever be part of them. Through the blog, and through gigs like these two, I feel like I’m able to dip my toes in, to venture into these communities, even if just for a night, and that is magic enough for me. (Though I would also very much like to be a fly on the wall for a recording session at Cosmo's place...)
We might be nearing the end of the year and album of the year round-ups can't be far off (yikes) but there are still some exciting new releases on the horizon. One of the things I'm particularly excited for is Come Swim, the new record from Brighton based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and all-round musical good egg Emma Gatrill, which arrives on November 24th via Willkommen Records.
I've shared a couple of the singles here already as I think they're brill (I particularly love Adonis Blue- especially as I heard it around the time I saw one!) and I'm not stopping yet, here's Emma's latest gorgeous single Out Of The Dark. Harp, strings, synths, harmonies - there's a little bit of everything, and I'm all over it.
Talking about the new track, Emma explains that it is "a song about searching for the light in the darkness, trying to discover the best in ourselves and those around us. We have to be the first to change to bring about change. It pays homage to the fabulous Kristin McClement whose song 'Pursue the Blues' was inspirational to this tune. For this album I asked lots of different drummers to record me beats to write to. This song was crafted to a beat written by Jamie Whitby-Coles but then took its own direction. The drum machine ended up replacing the original drums as it added the grit and drive that the song needed."
For those of you lucky enough to have a ticket, Emma opens up for Bear's Den at the second of their four-night run at Union Chapel on Monday 27th November. Enjoy!
As I sit and start to write this, it’s 24 hours since I was watching
Stornoway play for the fifth time this year, at Nottingham’s
Rescue Rooms. Weather permitting, I’m tempted to go and see them again
this week. (Spoiler: I went, of course I did.) I’ve not been to many gigs
since covid, for various reasons, and at the moment it feels that there aren’t
many bands that could keep getting me out of the house. Stornoway,
however, are so very special to me and I have had the best time following them
around over the past few months. It’s been a genuinely really inspiring ride,
and I feel motivated to write a little self-indulgent ramble, so here goes.
This has been a generally shitty year for me, and like it so often does, music
helps. In recent years, I’ve found a deeper love for nature and wildlife,
especially birds. For a while, it felt that I’d replaced loud, busy, crowded
gigs for open green spaces, swapped music for birdsong. It doesn’t have to be
either or, though. Like a couple of other artists I love (hello
Cosmo Sheldrake and Johnny Flynn) Stornoway bring
together these joint loves in a truly beautiful way. A love of nature, a
passion for environmentalism and brilliant music - an irresistible
combination. Getting to see Stornoway perform a few times recently has
been a real highlight of a miserable year. One of the gigs was even at a
wetland centre: the absolute dream.
Now let’s rewind. I can’t claim to have been around from the start (their
gorgeous debut album came out in 2010) - in fact, I stumbled across the band a
little by accident, meeting bassist Oli at a Sofar Sounds show in
Oxford in 2014. I’d only been living in Oxford for a couple of months, and
while I’d been to a few gigs, joining the Sofar crew was the best introduction
to the local scene that I could’ve had. I had been an admirer of the Sofar
videos on Youtube for a while at this point, and was really excited to get the
opportunity to volunteer as a photographer for the Oxford shows.
I had a camera and plenty of enthusiasm, but not much experience of taking
photos at gigs, and I was certainly learning ‘on the job’, but I loved my time
at Sofar - I met so many cool people (volunteers, gig-goers and artists alike)
and got to attend gigs and take photos in some interesting places, many of
which I’d likely never have visited otherwise. The first of these shows was at
the Worcester College Common Room. Classic Oxford. Oli set up the
Oxford branch of Sofar, so we met at the show, and I remember finding him on
Facebook afterwards, and noticing that he was in a band, a band which seemed
to have a lot of likes… I quickly realised that they were basically Oxford
music royalty and started to listen.
The first time that I got the opportunity to see Stornoway perform was
on Record Store Day at Truck Store on Oxford’s famous Cowley
Road, in the release week of their album Bonxie. An origami bird (I
still have it in the CD case) guaranteed me entry as I’d bought the album
beforehand, but I was late as I’d headed into town after an early morning RSD
shopping. It was so so busy (perhaps I’d underestimated how much Oxford loved
them) that I literally had to squeeze in to the doorway and couldn’t see a
thing as there was a wall between me and the stage. I might not have seen
much, but it sounded glorious.
A few days later, I took a train to Reading with a flatmate to see them play a
‘proper’ gig at Sub89. There was birdsong playing in the venue between
sets, which at the time I would probably have thought was a bit quirky, but
would now appreciate as a superb artistic choice. More birdsong, always. I
remember being completely transfixed by the ‘unplucked’ Josephine and
watching my recording of it over and over afterwards.
They played a few acoustic shows later in the year, promoting their new Bonxie
Unplucked EP, on which sits their now classic (thanks to the Co-op) The Only
Way Is Up cover. Oli got me a photo pass for the Oxford show, and I felt like the coolest person
wandering around the church with my camera. I remember avoiding an essay or
something similarly important to go to the gig - but it was definitely worth
it. They played a beautiful show (and Charlie Cunningham supported!) and I was
happy with my photos, and I was certainly starting to really fall for the
band.
Stornoway performing at on the Bonxie Unplucked tour
At the start of 2016, I was doing a placement module on the English Literature
side of my degree, and the opportunity to work with Oli and Tom (a member of
the extended Storno live band) came up. Probably a fairly tenuous link to
English Literature when most of my fellow students were working at publishing
houses and newspapers, but my lecturer seemed fine with it, and suddenly I was
entering the world of live music promotion. As part of the placement I put on
my first ever gig, and people actually came to it! The placement went well and I worked with them as community manager for a while (both at university and after graduating), avoiding some of the responsbilities of my degree while working the
door for multiple gigs a week across Oxford and often going to other shows in
between.
Later that year, just before the public announcement, Oli emailed me one
morning to let me know that Stornoway would soon “be no more”. Compared to
some, I hadn’t been around as a fan for long, but I loved the band and was sad
for my friends, as I knew how much they loved playing together. It wasn’t
meant to be a hiatus or a break, they were all moving on to other projects, to
other lines of work, to other countries. The finality of it made it tough
news, but a farewell tour was on the horizon, which promised to be a
celebration of the band.
The farewell tour happened in March 2017 and was a complete triumph - it
seemed that they really were bowing out at the top of their game, with adoring
fans left begging for more. Better than fading into the background, surely. I saw them play in London (and got the tea towel)
and a couple of days later in Oxford at the final date of the tour. I got to
hang around for most of the day (at Oxford’s New Theatre, no less) as we were
promoting the show: I watched the soundcheck, had a wander backstage, watched
the show, watched as fans said their hellos and goodbyes at the merch stand,
and went to the after party with the best of the best of Oxford’s music scene.
I never really made tons of friends at university, but the local scene was
really welcoming, and Stornoway were always an integral part of it. At the end
of the party, I shared a taxi with Oli & Rob’s parents as my halls of
residence were close to their house. I remember sitting in the kitchen until
the light switched off automatically and just having a cry that something so
special was over. Stor-no-more.
I was still working with Oli and Tom at the time, and I’ve kept in touch with
them beyond, and knew that the band still occasionally played together at
private events, but I had no inkling that a reunion might be on the cards.
Last year brought a couple of festival appearances that I couldn’t get to, and
it felt a little bittersweet to know that they were playing but that I
couldn’t see them. The shows were a sort of extension of the farewell tour,
promoting the live album that they’d released from the Oxford show. (Aside: if
you have this CD, my photo of the soundcheck is behind the CD in the case!)
Little did we know that they’d actually been recording a new album at this
point, in sheds around the country (where the best albums are made, of course)
and that they’d soon be back. Properly. Who could’ve dared to hope for such a
scenario?!
The band getting back together and announcing a new album was the best news to
kick off Spring this year. I missed out on tickets to their comeback London
gig (big sad) but soon the gig and festival announcements started to come
thick and fast. I was reunited, physically and musically, with Stornoway at
Cambridge Folk Festival in July. It was magnificent. I wrote about it here. The band were so so great, the crowd loved it, and I got to meet one of my
favourite authors before their set. Truly the stuff of dreams.
Reuniting with Stornoway at Cambridge Folk Festival
It’s been a bit of a whirlwind few weeks since then around the album release -
the band invited me along to see an intimate album launch celebration at WWT’s
London Wetland Centre in Barnes in September. It was definitely one of the
coolest places I’ve seen a gig, as the band performed with the backdrop of the
wetland behind them. Getting to birdwatch while listening to one of my
favourite bands was a fairly magical experience. Parakeets were determined to
feature on every song, and I saw a jay fly past at one point during the set.
Lapwings out on the water too, I think!
Stornoway performing at WWT London Wetland Centre
They brought out Yijia and Fyfe Dangerfield to sing the songs they’d
collaborated with them on, and were interviewed about the record afterwards by
another collaborator (and all round musical/environmental hero) Sam Lee. I
stuck around after the main event, and got to go out into the reeds and watch
Brian and Fyfe performing Anwen a couple more times for the video below.
Easier said than done, as we were directly under the shared flightpath of
airplanes and birds, and while the video looks gloriously sunny, the sky was
the deepest grey behind us, and the heavens opened just after this video.
After helping to load the van back up (transferrable skills from working in a
bookstore and carrying big ol’ piles of books all day every day) I caught a
lift with the band back to Hammersmith, and felt pretty sure this wasn’t the
last I’d be seeing them…
Of course I couldn’t resist going to see them at Rough Trade East
a couple of days later for an instore performance - a very different setting
(let’s just say that I’ll take a nature reserve over the rubbish lined streets
of Brick Lane any day) but they were ever so brilliant. Before I knew it, I
was going to a last minute show at Banquet Records a week or two later, on the
day of the album being released. It’s a bit of a trek down to Kingston but so
worth it to see them play in such an intimate setting, and to celebrate album
launch day with Brian and Jon.
A few weeks (and many many listens of the album) later I took my dad along to
see them (well, he drove me) at Nottingham’s Rescue Rooms. This is where I
first saw The Hoosiers back in May 2011 (my first gig in a proper music venue)
and it now holds even more special memories for me. Yijia opened the show with
a mesmerising set and then it was time for Storno… A full band, a
mind-boggling array of instruments (including: a saw, multiple trowels, a
bucket of Welsh gravel, a melodica…), a setlist travelling through each of
their albums, Low Island’s Felix playing an absolute blinder on drums,
unplugged tracks. It had all the ingredients to be one of my favourite ever
gigs (it was) and then they went and played one of my favourite songs,
dedicated to me. Fairly sure I cried.
I discovered their track Boom Went The Bittern last year through a live video
on Youtube from several years ago. There’s a chance I’ve heard it live before,
but it has become a bit of a soundtrack of my walks in the past year or so.
I’ve been slyly nudging the band to play it since Folk Fest, and on Sunday,
they conceded to my badgering - it was one of the best moments of a gig ever
for me, no lie.
If I was sensible, that should probably have been it, but I adored the Nottingham gig so much
that I had to try and get along to another show. On Wednesday, I took two
trains there and back to Cambridge, straight after a busy shift at work, and
rounded off my little season of Stornoway with another beautiful show. Complete with a little bit of crowdsurfing from Oli and one of my favourite gig photos ever.
Oli crowd-surfing during Zorbing in Cambridge
So that’s that! It’s been an absolute treat to get to see Stornoway over the
past few weeks - in various venues, with different line-ups, different songs. Following them around has given me a little of that gig-going confidence back,
and I squeezed in a few other shows in between theirs, with a few in my
calendar that I’m hoping to get to before the year is out - looking at you
Johnny Flynn, BE GOOD, Chartreuse, Bear’s Den…
At each Stornoway gig I've been to by myself lately, I've connected with people in the queue or at the barrier. They've had a little of the magic of those Sofar gigs, providing the opportunity to chat to like-minded folk who are into nature and music. Stornoway fans are a lovely bunch. The band, it goes without saying, are wonderful humans too. They're touring again in February (you should go) and I'm hoping to make it to a show or two then.
For now: I love you, Stornoway. I am so so glad that you're back, and I'm certainly not the only one. The world, my world, is better for having Stornoway in it.
Good news alert! Oxford (via Berlin, nowadays) sweethearts BE GOOD are
back with an absolute banger. In the kinda, indie bedroom-pop sense of the
word, of course. I've loved these guys an obscene amount since I lived in
Oxford and Donuts is their first new track since last April. No
pressure then... Luckily, it's a beaut. Obviously. It's late, and I'm struggling to formulate words to just tell you how much I love this band: I'll let the music speak for itself.
The good news keeps coming: if you like what you're hearing here (and why wouldn't you?!) you're in luck, as BE GOOD headline The Lexington in a few weeks, on 16th November. See you at the front? Tickets available here.
"I'm grasping the neck of all of my friends singing I deserve the same as you do."
Chartreuse never disappoint, and I'm a little in love with this one. I should probably be heading to sleep, but I feel compelled to write as I've just listened to their new single a few times in a row and then fallen into a little Chartreuse shaped rabbit hole. Love them and love this one a lot! They recently announced their debut album Morning Ritual, which is due for release via Communion Music on 10th November - Whippet is the latest single to be taken from it.
With Hattie on lead vocals on this one, she describes how the track was inspired by a conversation she had with a friend at the pub about life plans and 'settling down.' "She was asking me what my plans were, and I said I didn't know. A lot of our friends have serious careers, and we're in a band. I felt bitter about having to have the conversation, so the line "left like a whippet" is me wanting to leave and stop talking about it."
If you like what you hear - they're heading on tour across November: dates and tickets here. They've also just announced a few instore shows, tickets here.
For a bunch of reasons, I've been pretty bad at blogging lately. My head is in
a bit of a weird place at the moment and being back to full time at work is
exhausting - it's hard to find the time around everything, to be honest. I
think that I've also perhaps felt a little distant from music/the blog in
general lately... I haven't been to many gigs since lockdown, and writing
about artists I'd seen live when I was living in Oxford was how the blog
really started to take off in the first place.
Recently, however, I've had a whirlwind couple of weeks of gigs in London:
first up, three Stornoway album release shows for their record
Dig The Mountain! which came out last week, and just hit #7 in the
album sales chart. Incredible! They played beautiful sets at
Banquet Recordsand
Rough Trade Eastand the
launch event at WWT London Wetland Centrewas such a special afternoon. Next, my forever favourites
The Hoosiers playing one of the best shows I've seen them play
at London's KOKO (enough said). And earlier this week,
Christof van der Ven headlining in London for the first time in a few
years and me getting to rub shoulders with blog favourites Bear's Den and The Staves. I'm eyeing up some more gigs soon... music is
pretty great, huh?
I'm feeling a teeny bit inspired by it all, so I'm making a tentative return
to trying to ramble about music - and where better to start than the return
of one of my absolute favourite musical pairings, Johnny Flynn and
Robert Macfarlane. Separately, they're one of my favourite musicians and one of my
favourite writers, and together they make art that I adore.
Lost In The Cedar Wood is a favourite album and the accompanying
performance was stunning, and I loved getting the chance to chat to Rob about
it earlier this year at Cambridge Folk Festival,where
he told me exactly what I wanted to hear, that they'd been working on more
music, and it was imminent...
A few weeks ago, the pair officially announced that they'd made a new record.
Hallelujah! The Moon Also Rises is releasing via the beautiful label
Transgressive on 10th November, and it features the first single
Uncanny Valley:
In his announcement of the record, Rob wrote:
It’s about darkness and light, winter & spring, burial and revelation, stories, weather and seasons, ghosts and paths and love and rivers, and other bits and bobs and pots and pans.
We sort of just kept on writing songs after finishing Lost In The Cedar Wood; some of them we found by walking tracks & rainy woods & streams together, & some by noodling in notebooks, & some in poems & stories, & almost all by laughing a lot.
Working & making with Johnny is just one of the great joys of my life. He’s a quiet, gentle, generous genius with a huge gift for making collaborative, creative connections between people. He’s also very funny.
Charlie Andrew is on producing duties, and the album features much of Johnny's Sussex Wit band as well as the Sheldrakes, Cosmo and Merlin. You basically couldn't imagine a lovelier and more wholesome bunch of creatives to make music together, and the results are unsurprisingly gorgeous. Second single No Matter The Weight is out now. Almost frustratingly brilliant.
