Americana
Liz Thomson
It’s almost 40 years, but I still vividly remember the excitement of hearing Suzanne Vega for the first time. Singer-songwriters had always mattered to me, even though I grew up in the vacuous era of glamrock and insipid teen idols such as David and Donny. Nor did much of what followed speak to me. Suddenly, a new voice was getting airplay. I still have all the old vinyl.“Queen of the bedsit blues” she was inevitably dubbed, but Vega opened the door for a new generation of young guitar-playing women, American and English, many of them now largely forgotten. She emerged, as many of her Read more ...
Liz Thomson
It all ended in great style, the 20th edition of The Transatlantic Sessions which closed out its tour at London’s Southbank Centre on Saturday. The line-up of musicians is, of course, an embarras de richesse: a house band led by Aly Bain, master fiddler and Scottish icon, and Jerry Douglas, dobro and steel guitar maestro, a Nashville legend whose mantelpiece bears the weight of 14 Grammys.They were joined by the cream of Anglo-American music-making – John Doyle, Phil Cunningham, James Mackintosh and John McCusker among others – each given their moment in the spotlight but mostly content just Read more ...
Tim Cumming
The 1997 release of Time Out of Mind was the resurrection of an artist who appeared to have wandered off the reservation some years before, lost in transit on his Never Ending Tour, trailed by an army of "Bobcats" who followed him for show after grinding show. “How can you stand it?” he once asked of a woman who told him she’d seen dozens of NET gigs.While set lists shifted like tidal sands from night to night, the performances ranged from the ragged and wildly unfamiliar to the singular and revelatory. After attending one of 1991’s woeful run of shows at Hammersmith Odeon during a bitter Read more ...
Liz Thomson
One of popular music’s greatest songwriting talents released her final album back in January. The Light at the End of the Line was Janis Ian’s first album of all-new material in 15 years, and it was planned as a stage-setter for her swan-song tour, US dates scheduled through to the end of the year, European concerts to follow. Then Ian got hit by a particularly nasty form of laryngitis that meant she could no longer sing.I’m so glad I got to see her New York show just a couple of weeks earlier but to think I will never see her play live again makes me very sad. If you never saw her – well, Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Mary Gauthier’s first tour in more than three years landed at London’s Union Chapel on Saturday, concluding with another sold-out gig. The venue is perfect for unplugged acts – intimate, architecturally pleasing and acoustically spot on. But cold, on this windswept November night.The vibe, however, was warm and cosy. Jaimee Harris – Gauthier’s partner in life and music – opened with a half-hour set that set the tone for the evening. Relaxed, chatty – a living room concert in all but location – Harris was joined on fiddle by Michele Gazich (pictured below, far left), whose work with Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There’s been a quiet storm of critical approval building around Weyes Blood. American singer Natalie Mering has been releasing music for over a decade but, during the last two or three years a tailwind of positive verbiage has blown her faster forward. Her last album, Titanic Rising, the first of a loose trilogy, of which this is the second part, made low level inroads to commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic. And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, a fine balance of delicate singer-songwriter fare and something more baroque, has the potential to go further.Imagine the strident, indie- Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Even the jolliest number on Micah P Hinson’s new album, a banjo-pickin’, wistful campfire jig entitled “Waking on Eggshells”, has him singing, “Give me a knife, I’ll show you my vein”, alongside offers to “blow out your brain” with various firearms, and proclamations he “must be going insane”.If the listener is after jollity, best look elsewhere then, but those searching for world-weary Americana could do worse than settle down, lonely and broken, with these 10 tracks from the Texas-raised singer.Hinson has released numerous albums since he appeared 20 years ago. He has a penchant for Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Taylor Swift’s transitions have become imperious, from the woody hush of her collaborations with The National’s Aaron Dessner, Folklore and Evermore, to the remade reclamations of her early work. Working at pace, she has assembled an impregnable coalition of critical acceptance and creative range.Her contemporary country roots remain in her focus on relatable personal stories, pushed now into a hyper-realm of total fame and universally pored-over relationships, dropped like paper trails in her lyrics. She confesses with wry assertion, a female star taking everything in her messy stride. Like Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Lambchop’s 1997 breakthrough album took its title from Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Borrowing The Bible is a more purposefully brazen gambit, as Kurt Wagner tries to locate Americans’ spiritual hearts, in a shaken, besmirched and brutalised nation. It’s a record of reflection, reconciliation and quiet rebellion.Musically this is Americana in the loosest sense. Alt.country’s splicing of punk attitude with Nashville roots, which Lambchop embodied back when they were a real, unwieldy band and not simply a brand name for Wagner’s opaquely humane poetic thoughts, ceased to satisfy him several Read more ...
Barney Harsent
The word “immersive” has, of late, been hijacked. Now used with conspicuous abandon by everyone from estate agents offering piss-poor 3-D renderings of bang average houses to fancy-dress film screenings, its true meaning has been immolated to the gods of mediocre marketing.Step forward Engineers multi-instrumentalist Mark Peters, whose new solo album, Red Sunset Dreams, does much to rebalance the scales and restore order for those who like their dives deep and their sound surround. The follow-up to 2018’s critically lauded Innerland, this new collection is a largely instrumental and wide Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Just under two weeks ago, Fleet Foxes finished their US tour at the 13,000-capacity Forest Hills Stadium. Now, here they are kicking off their European dates in an auditorium attached to a North London town hall. Capacity 890. Unsurprisingly, it’s sold out. And very hot. After he comments on the heat, someone shouts at head fox Robin Pecknold to take his hat off. “Never” is his response.Although the continents and venues contrast, this leg of what’s dubbed the Shore Tour 2022 after their September 2020 fourth album cleaves to what American audiences have seen. Bar a few solo Pecknold Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Celebrating, if that is the right word, his 75th year, Loudon Wainwright III offers us his 26th studio album in 52 rollicking years, Lifetime Achievement. Though he does have one Grammy on the shelf, for 2009’s double set, Charlie Pool Project, awards made from polished metals have not littered his life path or career trajectory. Captivating songs packed with home truths, razor-sharp wit and hilarious asides, however, do litter that career, along with a family crisis or two, and Lifetime Achievement has more than enough to satisfy all long-term fans, as well as drawing in new ones who may Read more ...