Tree Music 9

Morning Music Trawl and Karma - The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park Live

Musical Cause and Effect

Early morning listening trawl: I started with Bella Hardy’s latest, With the Dawn, which has fine vocals and fiddle playing, but this was too calm and thus I checked into Tame Impala’s new one Currents, and I thought this [well, the beginning] a little more Indie than the psychedelic I wanted, so I moved on to Tír na nÓg’s latest The Dark Dance, just purchased, and a duo whose early work is rather special, but this one didn’t grab right away and I will need to revisit, so in actual disappointment I turned to something utterly reliable, from the past too but a recent performance: The Rolling Stones live at Hyde Park 2013, Start Me Up hooking from the off and class exuding with its history and continuance. Mick Jagger has just said Anyone who was here in 1969 - well, welcome back and whilst I wasn’t there in 2013 and am visiting through this recording, I was in ’69 and I think that’s a good morning’s musical karma – if it took a few tangents.

Into the Distance Music 4

Wtterquick - The Otherside, free download

Holding Their Own

I have always made compilation sets of music [first cassette tapes, then cds, now digital] and these are, naturally, made up of favourite tracks, whether ‘over time’ or entirely contemporary. They can also be based on genres and all kinds of other categories. Hundreds of categories. Thousands and thousands of compilations. It is an addiction.

Two reasons for mentioning this: the first, as my car cd player seems to be ill – very ill – I am currently playing old compilation cassettes instead – the few I kept because of their meaningfulness of recording at the time, and obviously the selections; the other is it just occurred to me that on one of my latest digital compilations, I have included an acoustic version of Witterquick’s single The Otherside. I also mention this because the band is a local, emerging one, all young guys though with varied musical backgrounds and journeys to this point, and they are included on a set of established artists, many of whom are significantly established. And the point is, Witterquick hold their own in this often stellar company. I think that is an important reality. It is also important in providing a context for the quality of their music, but also in exemplifying the fortuity of the music industry in terms of those who are well known and those who aren't.

Click on image to enlarge and read

You can actually download for free the main single here, though the one I have on the compilation is an acoustic version that I particularly rate [though I like and commend both]. The following lyrics to the song reflect another element of its worthy depth. It is impression rather than descriptive narrative, and I also like that.  

If I could walk a thousand miles would you believe in anything?
We move along an endless road, it takes away the sentiment.
We educate the dullest minds and break through all the elements.
So tell me if you have the time we'll figure out a compliment.

Lets take it away
This bridge won't burn out
I won't make you stay
Don't ask me where I draw the line
Just take it away
I bled my heart out
I'm fighting to sway the reaper on the otherside.

You walk upon your holy ground just to believe in anything.
The city never made a sound, you covered up the sentiment.
I couldn't break the mountain down, and you were in your element.
I'll show you what it is I found and offered up as evidence.

We're free tonight
And I wondered why the bastard lied
A lesson learned while we stand behind the city lights.

Tree Music 8

Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams - Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams, album review

Phew and Wow

Who are the greatest singing duo, ever? Jan and Dean? The Everly Brothers? Simon and Garfunkel?

We will have to narrow it down: the greatest male and female singing duo? Sonny and Cher? Dolly Parton and Porter Waggoner? Dollar?

Of course, you’d have to keep narrowing that down until you got to a highly personal classification so in the end it is a meaningless question to ask broadly. Obviously.

But I’d go for Gillian Welsh and Dave Rawlings. There is a perfection in the vocal harmonies they possess - and the guitar of Rawlings, and the songwriting of Welsh, add that extra element of distinction. In the musical genre I am thinking about, they are the template, and many have tried to follow. Forgetting the move to a gender-specific category, the Milk Carton Kids have come close – even down to the guitar style – but they are not a patch, in the end. Then there is the proliferation from that template: The Civil Wars a good example. They too possess a perfection, but that overall becomes too twee; too precise. Whilst I’ve never seen them live I have heard them live and that is where they sound more genuinely dynamic. There are other less ‘pretty’ pairings that possess spark, but this could be an endless pursuit.

Husband and wife duo Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams have just released their first joint offering and this will suffice as an example of an excellent pairing. In my fathomless musical ignorance, these two are, apparently, highly experienced and highly regarded in their respective performance and production careers, though they have never recorded like this together, until now. And it is a fine album. There is sweet harmony, and it is often pretty, but it is never cloyingly pretty. There are harder edges as well, and this comes from both the range of music, some quite rocky and/or brashly Country, but also the vocal contrasts: Larry having a rawer tone to Williams’ more refined one. They harmonise with great skill and effect, but they also just sing along together with energy and verve.

One of the truly great songs on the album is Down on My Knees, Larry starting the song sounding like Clapton singing a Clapton song, and when Teresa joins in it is a mellow, mellowing harmony. Another gem is Another One More Time, this time Teresa leading and then Larry joining [with Amy Helm] with comforting harmony, this sounding like an Emmylou Harris track.

There’s spunk and spark in the cover of Rev Davis’ Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning, Williams demonstrating the equal strength of her sass to her sweetness. Phew! The album closes on the Dead’s Attics of My Life, a gospel-esque, gorgeously harmonising rendition with Amy Helm helping again. This goes beyond ‘pretty’ because it rouses with the inherent emotion in the beauty of the singing. Wow!

Lips Music 4