The launch of Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker's wonderful Fire & Fortune at The Forge in Camden last night was one of those evenings with a little bit of magic about it. Not least for the support act, Samantha Whates, who - when she sang harmonies during the main set - had a crystalline voice that could have been Josienne's overdub.
Her own set included something that she said she'd written for Josienne's wedding a year ago. "It doesn't really have a title," she said later. "Although at the moment it's going by I Am A Tree. I always think songs are a bit like pets, in that once you've named them they are truly yours."
Since this one was written for Josienne and her mystery man - who until last night, despite having been to lots, I'd never seen at one of their gigs - I guess that makes sense. Name the song and it will be Samantha's rather than theirs.
"Yes. I am the mystery man, " the mystery man agreed. "I stay in the background and am mysterious. But this suits me in some ways because I can't bear to come to the gigs. I get too emotional listening to Josienne sing. I wish I didn't but unfortunately I do."
On the bright side, when he's overcome by emotion, it might not be immediately apparent to onlookers...
* You can listen toFire & Fortune here and then - bearing in mind that these early CDs may be worth a bit one day - buy your own copy.
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Ben Walker and Josienne Clark have a new album out soon and this makes me wish I could write more eloquently. I'll elaborate...
I think that folk is process, not a genre. Every traditional folk song worth its salt was once a pop song: a pop song that people liked enough to sing over and over again. I was thinking this while listening to the Rolling Stones at Glastonbury the other night and noticing that the audience, predominantly of teenagers, already knew the words to most of their songs.
Covering a song is applause writ larger. It is an expression of the folk process, in that it keeps a song alive, introducing it to a new audience or reinforcing its value to an existing one.
In opposition to this, the idea of "perfect pop" - often held up in the media as something to which one should aspire - makes me very impatient, as there is an assumption that for a pop song to be any good there should be something transient about, that it is a bubble that will burst and that therein lies its value.
In fact, what is "perfect pop" but a marketing construct that takes music and makes it a commodity for capitalist use: something to be consumed, discarded and replaced as if there were a finite amount of it? You could argue that life is transient and we should therefore embrace transience. But there is another way of viewing it.
If a pop song is any good people remember it and recycle it. Music has the power to transport you to the time and place in which you last heard it and so it endures. This 80s revival that I've found so depressing - they've repackaged my childhood while I'm still enjoying large chunks of it - is an expression of the opposite: a need to fall back on the reassuringly familiar in times of economic woe, a passive process of comforting by the mass media that involves transporting the eighties to you. Music is the other language we all know - even if we don't speak it fluently - and it is a language all about emotion. Understanding this will make you freer and it is one of the reasons certain regimes ban certain kinds of music. The Talibans of this world fear music's power to move people because every action is provoked at some level by an emotional need and once you go stirring people up who knows what will happen?
Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker's music speaks to me because, in their precision and discernment, they seem to understand all of this. I'm projecting, I know, but the thoughtfulness of their sound has led me to develop these thoughts. They're inspiring.
Their new album, Fire & Fortune is a thing of great beauty, something exquisite that it would be anathema to throw away. Whether they're covering traditional songs - My Love is like a Red, Red Rose, Green Grow the Laurels - or introducing something of their own - Fire & Fortune - they apply the same sky-high standards of musicality and production. They are deliberate, distinctive and outrageously talented.
The album's title track is embedded at the top of this post with a memorable video and here is another version of it, remixed by Pete Flood.
"Yes. I'd told Glenn ages ago that I was interested in remixing," said Flood. "To be honest it's the song that's good. The remix just builds a fairly obvious Portishead-y treatment around it. I'd sooner not deflect any credit from what should be Ben and Josienne's moment of glory."
Is this the first remix you've done?
"No. I did a remix of a track by Massukos from Mozambique, under the Sesutbun Bean Unit name. And way back in the mists I used to remix dance tracks by friends. This is the first remix I've done in which I was consciously aiming for a radio-friendly sound. Maybe not Radio Two, but certainly Late Junction or similar."
Flood says that he hasn't yet seen Josienne and Ben play live, which is quite thought-provoking. I've sometimes wondered how strong their sound would be if they had percussion.
"There may be something in that. In the opinion of an expert they're rubbish at stamping on floors," he joked.
It sounds as if Navigator may already be offering serious added value to their new recruits.
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I grew up listening to you and number you among my hearth goddesses.
For some reason or other, as well as having music from the folk revival in their collection, my mum and dad are very fond of country and bluegrass. It's probably to do with it being acoustic and preoccupied with love and loss - the staples. My mum and dad are both sentimental old things.
As a result you became part of my musical hinterland, irretrievably embedded in my life, and I love you both for it.
Dolly, I remember when I was barely big enough to see out of the windows, sliding around on the leather back seat of my uncle's Jaguar with my sister and cousin as he went round corners at speed to amuse us, while playingJolene at enormous volume on his stereo. Not something I'd ever do at the wheel myself these days (they've changed the law on seat belts over here for a start) but it was great fun and we were in a part of the world - Norfolk, UK - where there wasn't much traffic.
And Emmylou, I remember seeing your beautiful face on Bob Harris'sOld Grey Whistle Test and thinking, childishly, that you looked like the Queen of America. I later went on to study politics at college, so now realise what was wrong with that particular construction. But if there were any justice I still maintain that you would be.
This post is my tribute to you. More impressively, it contains Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker's tribute to you - Homemade Heartache. This summer in the UK has been a bit of a washout, which is British understatement. But before the skies opened there was a brief blaze of brilliance on Clerkenwell Green in central London, when these two played in the sunshine on an early May evening and said that they'd written this delicately wrought thing for you.
I thought I'd pass it along, in the hope that you'd like it, and also because Josienne and Ben are among the best and hardest working musicians I know and could, frankly, do with some luck. It's a country song made in London, which is probably not unique but does make it at least a little bit special.
I hope you like it as much as I do.
All my love
Emma
* If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy this, which is an interview with The Civil Wars.
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Bob Meyer is not a professional DJ and I say this in the knowledge that this will, in all probability, only enhance his standing among the provisional wing of the folk movement.
He's a bloke who drives a van for a living, had a heart attack five years ago, takes 15 pills a day to prevent it happening again and when he gets emotional about stuff - which seems to happen a lot - he says things that he regrets later. At least I assume he regrets them later... I would. But being a blokey bloke he doesn't let on and I suppose that embarrassing his interviewees with claims of undying love, respect and an intimate knowledge of their sexual habits could be his idea of fun. (I'm not sure he would have got away with it before Ricky Gervais threw our sense of irony out of whack.)
Anyhow. Hehas a radio show, for two hours on a Tuesday starting at 9pm on Radio Wey, which is a hospital station based at St Peter's in Chertsey.
But it's no good zooming off to search for it on the internet in the hope that you'll be able to listen again, or some other technologically complicated thing, because you can't. If you don't listen online at 9pm on Tuesday evening then you've missed your chance. Ner.
However, judging by the number of followers he has on Facebook and the number of comments he gets on that page, after two years the show is nothing less than an underground hit. I say "judging by his Facebook page" because I asked him how many listeners he has and he didn't know. Let's just say that he hasn't got much further to go before Facebook forces him to stop being "friends" with everyone and turns his page into one of those ones you can only *like* and in the democratising way that social media has, this puts him in roughly the same position as Mike Harding.
My favourites on there are Josienne Clarke, Keston Cobblers Club andJack Day (below). But then I'm not a great one for one-man-and-his-guitar Americana. Unless it's Richard Shindell, obviously. I wonder if you count as Americana if you're actually American?
Bob, however, is a big fan of one man and his guitar. Sometimes he stretches a point and one woman and her guitar get a look in. But mainly it's the fellas.
I think this could be because Bob himself is one man who has a guitar. He's released two albums - called All This is That and Three-fold Return on the Malicious Damage label, both of which are available on Amazon and one of which bears a picture of a bloke wearing a baseball cap very much like the one Bob was sporting the other night (see the top for badly snapped evidence). "They're still waiting for the third album," he said gruffly, before adding that neither of the CDs were successful.
So he's turned his hand to promoting other people's music. In the spirit of this I met him not once but twice at The Betsey Trotwood pub in Farringdon - the first time for the album launch and the second at an evening called The Lantern Society, which was great, so I'll tell you about that.
The Lantern Society has been going for about four years and has been run for the last two by two young musicians called Jack Day and Benjamin Folke Thomas, who play guitar and sing, separately and sometimes together. It happens twice a month, there are lanterns and it's a magnet for singer-songwriters and other musicians hoping to make a name for themselves, or at least to make a start by getting invited back again. And thus the quality is much higher than at your average open mic night.
The night I was there, there was lots of good and interesting stuff: Pepper & Shepherd and Gabriel Moreno in particular (he's from Barcelona, had very expressive eyebrows and sang "We are little frightened angels who smoke and laugh/ Singing for someone to love" which made the audience smile). But the guys who most impressed me - I use the term "guys" advisedly, as they were women - were an interestingly witchy a capella trio called Long Stride Lizzy. There is some stuff by a previous incarnation of the band on YouTube and MySpace but the line-up has changed since 2009, when it was posted, and I'm hoping that when they put something new up they'll let me know.
Anyway, the point is that the future belongs to the Bobs of this world, people who get off their arses and do the thing they believe in. And if you tune in on a Tuesday at 9pm it might turn out to be your thing too.
Also, while I don't want to give the impression that it's really all about the pies for me, for the sheer joy of it I wanted to let you know that the Betsey Trotwood has one of those old fashioned pie warming machines...
... though Benjamin Folke Thomas - who is Swedish and looks like a friendly Viking - had brought his own home-made samosas, which he shared, and they had cheese in them. I'm thinking of getting a T-shirt made that says: "Will write for pastried goods."
* Bob's Folk Show is on Radio Wey at 9pm on Tuesdays. You can find ithere. And The Lantern Society happens every first and third Thursday of the month at The Betsey Trotwood pub on Farringdon Road, Clerkenwell, which is much bigger on the inside than it looks.
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Wednesday night at The Slaughtered Lamb in Clerkenwell felt like folk central.
I went to see The Urban Folk Quartet play their new album and, while standing at the bar trying to order a plate of the fantastic fish and chips they do there - what do they put in that batter? - saw that Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker were the support. At least I assumed Ben would be there - he always is. But for some reason or other, probably connected with someone's modesty, they're always just billed as Josienne Clarke.
There was this poster up behind the bar, you see.
That wasn't it. That's just the best pic I could find of the two of them.
Anyhow, this was great news and rather unexpected. I have loved The UFQ long time, and am coming to love Josienne and Ben too, although in a more piquant and understated fashion. Whereas The UFQ demands jumping up and down and undignified whooping, Ben and Josienne are a delicate, winding and unwinding proposition that requires close attention. Both bands are brilliant and brilliantly musical, but they're very different and I momentarily loved that they knew each other.
"Actually, we don't," said Joe Broughton . "They were asked at the last minute by Pull up the Roots because Dave Delarre dropped out. But they sound good... we heard them at the sound check."
I hung around a bit upstairs, marvelling at the way a couple of pints can go to your head if you drink them before dinner, and heard stories about The UFQ's recent trip to Estonia. Apparently it was minus 20 degrees and their luggage went missing as they passed through Schipol airport, so Joe and Paloma didn't have any warm clothes to wear. Tom did. He'd evidently been to Schipol before and had worn all his.
"We should have known really. We had to run for the connection. Still, we had this Seat Alhambra fertility wagon to drive around in." So if any of them gets pregnant we'll know they've been sitting on the bonnet.
Apart from the loss of the all-important clothing, which was returned in time to make the journey home with them, the trip was also memorable, they swore, for an evening of vodka that involved a Mahavishnu Orchestra tribute band. I nodded as if I believed them and decided that exposure can play tricks on the mind.
Downstairs in the magnificent venue with the red pentangle on the wall - American Werewolf in London stylee - Josienne was singing a song about being awkward. "I'm a strange girl, An adorable fool, Full to the brim with nothing you need. I'm just too much, But somehow not enough," she sang. And I believed her.
She has this voice that's like a precision tool for making golden, ringing shapes in the air and, in my humble opinion, Ben and Josie deserve huge success. Huge. It's as if they pull in all the energy in the room, concentrate it in some kind of musical alchemy and then spin it into shimmering cathedrals of sound. How's this for original songwriting?
I can imagine Emmylou Harris or Nanci Griffiths singing that. Perhaps they will?
Anyhow, shortly afterwards The Urban Folk Quartet rocked as usual and just before they played their final encore - Cajun Bean Curd, for what it's worth - Frank Moon made a rather good and understated joke. "This song has a subtext about arts funding," he said. "Take it away..."
Ta da! :-)
As an aside, I got in touch with Dave Delarre on Twitter when I got home and asked whether he was OK? "Yes thanks. Just got held up at a guitar workshop in Cambridge and couldn't get to London in time," he tweeted back. "They're much better than me anyway!"
Everyone's so modest. It's just as well I'm here to be nice about them really...
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Happy belated new year! Apologies for the slight gap in the service but I've been trying to start some new projects while simultaneously fighting the urge to hibernate. However, today is the 365th day of the Glamour Cave blog and - 50,000 hits in - I've decided to mark the occasion by drawing attention to some music I really like.
First up is an album called Northern Cross by Albireo, which contains two people associated with Pilgrim's Way: fiddle player Tom Kitching and Peter Crowther, who plays bass with them occasionally. Albireo has been around for a decade and is a superior kind of dance band - though Northern Cross appears to be their first album. You can have a listen to some of it here.
Things I like about this album include the names of it and the band, partly because they enhance a theory I'm incubating about geekiness. Originally they met to rehearse at a pub called The Swan with Two Necks, in Stockport, and there is a constellation called Cygnus, or "the swan" - also known as the Northern Cross - which has a bright binary star called Albireo on its beak. This pleases me. (I'm also pretty sure from goings-on on Twitter that there's another band called Albireo in Japan, although Japanese isn't my best language.)
Pure geekery aside, the music is described on the website as being "from three continents and four centuries". It has a gemütlich quality that conjures a better future and specifically one in which I would be playing the album in an environment that has more and better homely qualities than The Glamour Cave. Perhaps it just produces optimism. (I should explain, as well as being the name of this blog, "The Glamour Cave" is also the partly ironic name of my home in Bethnal Green, where I've been since 1997. So although I like to moan about it occasionally I really have no one to blame but myself if it's not up to scratch. In its defence the place has some structural limitations and I rent it. A lot of people love it. My mother, however, really doesn't and wishes I lived somewhere with central heating.)
Northern Cross has a sense of urgency throughout that's to do with the band's ceilidh background and blends traditional instrumentation with a freshness of arrangement that makes me think of one of those houses on Grand Designs with thatch on the roof but a knocked-through interior and modern furniture. Best of both worlds. I can imagine playing it in the car, or in the background eating dinner with friends. It just calms the brainwaves and produces cheerfulness and although I've only been listening to it for a couple of months it feels like I've known Albireo for longer.
It was produced at Talking Cat by Jon Loomes and Forbes Legato. Nuff said :-)
The EP's cover is black and white and looks, rather archly, like something from the 1970s folk revival.
It kicks off with a flourish that belongs in a spaghetti western, followed up by an opening line that goes Twas in the year of 1620 that the first Earl of Berk-shire... Which is to say that it manages in an admirably short span to produce the exposition: we're a folk outfit, mainly. And we've got a sense of humour.
They go on to prove it by doing four tracks that are all quite different from each other, including a stunning version of Teardrop by Massive Attack and a pounding Dashing White Sergeant that suggests serious crowd-pleasing potential at festivals. Greg McDonald has an enjoyably distinctive voice that seems geared for story-telling, Phil Beer and Steve Knightley will be producing their forthcoming album and I hope to see them live in 2012.
The third outfit to which I would like to draw your attention is Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker, who I saw for the first time at the first Bethnal Green folk day last summer. Here's a taste.
Ben had been in touch on Twitter about several other, unrelated things, so it was with a slight sense of disorientation that I realised how flipping good these two are - as well as how young. I took away a copy of their album, which is called One Light is Gone, only to have it swiped by a friend, which tells you everything you need to know about it really.
Josienne has a faithful and growing band of online admirers already. There's a clarity to her voice that might be connected to the fact that she apparently doesn't touch alcohol. But whether it is or not, the two of them have an immense store of talent which is mainly devoted at the moment to reflective original songs and cover versions. Here they are doing a Gillian Welch cover in someone's front room.
I hope that convinces you that they deserve a wider audience.
Anyway... to change the subject slightly. The other thing I've been paying a lot of attention to since the new year is not folk. I now have my own copy of the documentary Some Kind of Monster by Metallica, which has made a big impression on me. OK. It's about a hard rock band and therefore will not be completely to the taste of everyone who reads this blog. But it's also a brilliant documentary about a band attempting to resolve some internal difficulties.
Hands up. I've got a thing for Lars Ulrich: drummer, bi-lingual viking and metal warlord. But if you haven't seen it and you get a chance to, you should. Despite having serious Spinal Tap potential - because superficially what's not funny about the biggest heavy metal band on the planet collectively submitting to psychotherapy - it somehow ends up being the Anti Spinal Tap and you don't even have to like their music for it to work its astonishing charm.
I hate this word when it's not used right. But it's genuinely awesome.
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