The Be Good Tanyas - Blue Horse

Since I too am guilty of not updating in far too long, I am going to give everyone a "pleasant treat for the ears" as my friend Imi would say. I am also aware that I am very guilty of posting far too much folk stuff on here, but I think it is my duty (especially since it is Summer and this is very much Summer music) to share this with people.

I have been lucky enough to catch The Be Good Tanyas live about 4 times, the most recent being aproximately 40 hours ago at the Larmer Tree Festival, sitting in the scalding hot Dorset sunshine with a cider in my hand. How could anybody complain about that? The only real disappointment about their set was that they played almost entirely new material, with just three of their famous tracks tagged on at the end in some attempt to please the fans in the audience who were shouting out requests throughout their set - one track of which is a cover of the traditional folk song 'Rain And Snow'. However, it's hard to dispute the fact that the Tanyas have a hypnotic quality to their performances, however much they look like they might burst into tears at any second and quietly hum into their mics with apparent unenthusiasm. This Canadian band's more recent material seems to be even more gentle and lilting than ever, but seems to have retained that certain charm to it.

Regardless of their more recent changes in direction, it is their debut that seems to have had the most lasting power. According to their official site, this album was recorded in a window-less running-water-less wooden shack on the outskirts of Vancouver in late Summer 2000. It seems an unlikely story, or at least an unlikely place to record an album, until you actually listen to the album in full. Similarly to Gillian Welch's spine-chilling lyrics, the band occasionally dip into haunting imagery but generally they are a much softer and lighter alternative to Welch's world of swamps and coal-mines. Having said that ,amongst their very traditional covers, including the well-known Californian gold-rush anthem Oh Susannah by Stephen Foster, they also cover Lakes Of Pontchartrain which dates back almost 200 years, and talks about the notoriously deadly New Orleans swamps, alligators and all.

Yet generally this is a very relaxing and extremely Summery album. In other words: a must for this heat-wave that appears to have descended upon us.

Broken Telephone
Lakes Of Pontchartrain

Order this album from Amazon

Holy shit, it's a zombie

Back? Yeah, it looks like it. However, if you read this page with anything that resembles regularity, here are the changes. 1)I don't think Kieran posts here anymore 2)I have these amazing things known as a "job" and "social life" now and perhaps soon an "academic obligation" so I'm just going to update whenever I feel like it. None of this daily stuff, it's too much of a pain. 3) I'm not focusing on new music anymore. There's like 5,000,000 blogs out there that already do that and whilst most of them are boring as hell, the few that are worth reading are far better at that stuff than I'd ever even attempt to be.

Plan B
Plan B is a UK resident who's music is a combination of acoustic guitar and rapping. Already I can feel a strong groan coming out of you all and usually I'd be with you. But damn is this guy vicious. The acoustic does a good enough impression of a set of decks to help you overlook the fact that it's a white guy carefully illustrating to us how much of a cunt he is. Keep in mind that rapping in hip-hop was created so that people could voice how they live or at least how they want us to think they live. Usually it's dark, it's self glorifying and unless you're taking a Goodie Mob styled unification approach, rapping tells us in great detail just how isolated yet willing to fight the MC is. Acoustic guitar or none, Plan B does manage to completely depict how unpleasant the lifestyle a number of teenagers in this country have chosen is. Whether "Kidz" is supposed to be semi-biographical or a "Kids" (the movie) like look in to a child as young as fourteen's mentality is anyone's guess given how little I know about this guy. Either way, it's dark yet rather enjoyable.

Plan B - Kidz
Plan B - Sick 2 Def

Here's his site. I think there are more tracks to download there, I'm not really sure.