Leap Year

I didn't quite have enough song titles and artists featuring the word 'leap' to make a decent sized Dubhed selection, so here's a bunch of videos instead, starting appropriately enough with Leap Year by Port O'Brien from 2009.

 

From there, it's literally 1 Giant Leap with Braided Hair from 2002 featuring Speech (Arrested Development) and Neneh Cherry. I could have picked any song from the album to be honest but (a) this one had an accompanying video and (b) it's got Neneh Cherry on it, what's not to love?

Elbow got in on the act by releasing a new single, Lovers' Leap,  earlier this month with the second video this week featuring lots of running (see PJ Harvey on Tuesday).

Bim Sherman got to Lovers Leap first though, with this classic from 1979.

Elbow and Bim maybe should have listened to Gregory Isaacs' advice back in 1971 to Look Before You Leap...

...Especially if like Sergeant Neil Howie (aka Edward Woodward), you are drawn like a Magnet to the island of Summerisle circa 1973 and encounter the Fire Leap on your way to a meeting with a seemingly bewigged Christopher Lee...

Randolph's Leap obviously tried it fully clothed in 2021 and saw their wardrobe go Up In Smoke...

Again, if only they'd listened to Billy Bragg's advice (and one of his greatest songs) in 1988 and were still Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards...

...though these Mael siblings clearly also got tired of hanging around in 1997 and took The Great Leap Forward.

Tomorrow, a 3-hour Dubhed selection of 'March' songs. No, wait, I'm joking, please come back...!

Staring Right Into The Light

Flying North by Thomas Dolby popped up on my playlist this week, a standout from his debut album The Golden Age Of Wireless. 

 

On the original album release in May 1982, Flying North was the opening song with a much different track listing from subsequent re-releases. The vinyl version I bought a few years later was the 1983 issue which placed She Blinded Me With Science at the start, added One Of Our Submarines to Side 2 at the expense of another song and relegated Flying North to Track 4 on Side 1.

Flying North was also released as a B-side to breakthrough single Windpower the same year, peaking at #31 in the UK in September 1982. As such, it enjoyed a 'High Altitude Extended Play' version on the 12" single and a Razormaid remix in the US.

 

It's always been one of my favourite Thomas Dolby songs, with crisp production from Thomas with Tim Friese-Greene that sounds very much of the 1980s but was also a cut above many of its contemporaries.

 

I've discovered a 2006 live performance, with studio intro to the song from Thomas, which provides a fascinating context to the lyrical origin. And the performance is great, too. It's #4 of 6-part podcast, Sole Inhabitant, and I'll go back to watch the rest this weekend.

 

Metal bird dip wing of fire

 Whose airlanes comb dark Earth

 The poles are tethers we were born in

 On the brink of a whole new deal

 On the floor of a Pan Am bar

 I'm staring right into the light

 And I'm drawn in like a moth

 And I'm flying north again

 

Here come the men in suits

 Papers waving in the runway glare

 Lincoln streaming in the chilly air of the morning

 At the end of a double day

 At the back of an airport lounge

 I'm staring down into the cold

 And I'm worn out like a cloth

 And I'm flying north again tonight

 

 Down with the landing gear

 Up goes the useless prayer

 The poles are tethers we were born in

 Now I'm back in the London night

 On a bench in a launderette

 I'm staring right into my face

 And I'm drawn out like a plot

 And I'm flying north again tonight

Bedraggled Girls Blethered "Girl, You Got Nothing"

 

 

PJ Harvey and The Jesus & Mary Chain both released new singles/videos yesterday.

 

Sometimes, when two songs drop on the same day, it's impossible to choose which one to post.

 

Sometimes, why should you choose?

 

First up, Seem An I's narrative has the brilliant Ruth Wilson running and running and running some more. Utterly compelling in its simplicity.

 

In stark contrast, for the entire three minutes of Girl71, Jim Reid can't be arsed to get up from his leather armchair, though in fairness he does play a bit of guitar. Brother William couldn't even be bothered to turn up though Rachel Conte is on hand (and seat) to provide harmonies with her paramour.

Sometimes, hey hey, we got what we need.

Waves Don't Die (Everything Is Waves)

Spotting the titular graffiti on a fire exit door in central Gloucester somehow reminded me of Thomas Leer's latest song, Death Of A Dream, released in late January.

 

 

It also reminded me that a year ago yesterday (25th), I suggested that I might have a go at an Imaginary Compilation Album for The Vinyl Villain, focusing on Thomas Leer's work as a solo artist, with Claudia Brücken as Act and his collaboration with Robert Rental.

I am currently working on an ICA but not this one, which has been a work-in-progress for some time. For once, I'm kind of glad as my usual rabbit hole expeditions subsequently led me to the Future HIstoric site on Bandcamp. Here for the past decade, Thomas has uploaded "Collections of previously unreleased material spanning the last three decades & up to the present.", from full-length albums to standalone tracks.

Death Of A Dream is the 13th release to date, eight minutes of sweeping synth strings collapsing into pulsing beats, Leer's cracked, vulnerable and electronically treated voice conveying a world weariness. Seven decades on this tiny planet and the acknowledgement that we are "as big as life", but "as small as nothing in the universe".

 

It's an affecting song and I've been poised to purchase more of Leer's treasure this coming Bandcamp Friday. Great though it's been to discover the wealth of material on Future Historic, it'll make a 10-song ICA all the more difficult to decide on...

 

 

 

Death Of A Dream

I live on an island,

on the top of a building,

in a town I don't recognise.

I don't fear the devil, 

coz he lives in me, 

tempered by the good that's eating at me.

Don't feel sorry, 

don't feel guilt, 

you can't burn bridges that you never built. 

I'm ready & I'm willing & able to testify, 

to what I can see, 

the world's in a breach.

I am broken 

they finally got me, 

it took a long time to get here,

but I'm broken,

cut off at the knees,

I caught the disease & I'm broken.
 

Take it to the rain, 

wash it all away.

Sometimes I wonder if the worlds worth saving, 

when I look at the way you're behaving. 

 But I knew what I was doing & I did it anyway.
You got the way to say "Hi", 

to make me feel low.

You're my vision,

dear to me,

a good decision, 

on my part,

you're my vision,

like nuclear fission,

in my soul. 

How do you feel,

how do you feel,

are you hiding or do you want to reveal.

Death of a Dream, 

here I am as big as life,

as small as nothing in the universe.

See Emily Play (At Last)

For my second gig in February - and third of 2024 - I finally (finally!) got to see Emily Breeze (the person and the band) at The Fleece in Bristol on Friday night.

 

Emily's been releasing music for the best part of two decades and I even had a song of hers on a cover mounted CD with long-gone local listings magazine, Venue. However, my Damascene moment came in early 2022, when I (re)discovered Emily's music via a Barry Adamson remix of her single Ego Death, which led me to second album, Rituals (2019). I was a fully signed up fan from that point on.

In July 2022 I wrote that "I've not yet had the experience of seeing Emily Breeze live in concert but I'm hoping to address that in the near future.". Eighteen months and several missed opportunities later, I finally got to do it and no spoilers to say that my expectations were high yet Emily and band not only surpassed them, Friday night's show was into the stratosphere.

But before the main event, there was a supporting set by fellow Bristol-based artists Mumble Tide to enjoy. And enjoy them I did.

 

Mumble Tide are a core couple of Gina Leonard and Ryan Rogers, who met via Gumtree and have gone on to release music that's described as "kinda country, kinda synthy, kinda moody". They made their debut on this blog last month as part of my marathon selection of covers of I'm On Fire by Bruce Springsteen. I liked this and the A-side Sleepy Heads so I was looking forward to seeing them live on stage.

 

For this show, Mumble Tide were fleshed out to a five-piece band, with added saxophone, bass and drums. Given how quickly this line-up was apparently pulled together and notwithstanding the occasional fluff, the group seemed incredibly relaxed and on it, making for an enriching, entrancing performance.

 

Gina's voice wonderfully alternates between delicate and powerful as the song demands, definitely one of the defining "kinda country" elements. 

 

The only downside to the half-hour set were the clusters of audience "scenesters" who were more interested in having a conversation with their mates than enjoy the experience in front of them. At one point, Ryan called them out and I ended up moving nearer the stage to escape the inane jabber behind me. FFS, if you're having to shout to make yourself heard, piss off outside and have the conversation there. I'm here for the music, not your self-important, entitled musings...!

Sadly, it happened again as Gina announced then started the final song. "Come on guys, one more song", she pleaded which she shouldn't have had to. I didn't catch any of the song titles but this was a beautiful closer, just Gina and Ryan with the latter on accordion which just elevated the vocals wonderfully.

 

I really hope that Mumble Tide got enough positive energy from the audience to realise that the majority of people were loving what they did on stage. I'll be visiting them again next Bandcamp Friday to get their back catalogue and make sure they get all of the purchase proceeds. I also hope I get to see Mumble Tide perform live again, whether as a duo or a full band, and hopefully with a longer set.

As I was entering The Fleece at 7.30pm, Emily Breeze, passed me on the way out. It's one of those moments where I spectacularly fail to be spontaneous. I should've have said something to convey my excitement at being there. That said, I likely would have ended up sounding like Nigel Tufnell in a climatic scene from This Is Spinal Tap, telling bandmate David St. Hubbins to have a good show. Besides, there was a queue of hand-stamped people behind me wanting to get in, the moment passed and I carried on into the venue.

In my mind, Emily and band are already superstars, so it was a reality check seeing them on stage setting up their own kit after Mumble Tide's warm up set. That said, Emily even managed to make fixing a mike stand look effortlessly cool.

 

The band were all on stage and ready to go for some minutes, awaiting some final technical tweaks, so there was no grand entrance as such. Not needed, to be honest. The audience erupted when the first bars of Ego Death kicked in and Emily uttered the opening line, "Every day I wake up praying that my place of work will have been burnt down" and for the next hour or so, it was a constant high.

Emily Breeze the band is Emily (vocals, guitar, glamour), Rob Norbury (lead guitar), George Caveney (bass), Helen Stanley (keyboards/synths) and Andy Sutor (drums). They look as good as they sound, distinct and individual performances without grandstanding and elevating the overall performance to a level way beyond the modest confines of The Fleece. 

And then there's Emily. I'm usually one to stand a little back and to the side at gigs, my days of jumping into the mosh long gone (though to be honest, relatively rare back in the day). However, the earlier audience chit-chat shitshow had pushed and positioned me more front and centre so I had a head on view of Emily, between two of the several supporting pillars. As a result, it honestly felt at times like Emily was staring me straight in the eyes as she sang. I like to think the lines from Cosmic Evolution, 

 

In a major breakthrough scientists have discovered
That you are fabulous
You are a fabulous pain in the arse 

were meant just for me on Friday night.

The 13-song set drew heavily on last year's spectacular third album, Rapture, unsurprisingly one of my musical highlights of 2023.

There are a couple of songs from Rituals early on, the aforementioned Ego Death and Limousines. We're then treated to current single The Beatniks and the other two songs from the upcoming Second Rodeo EP, namely 1997 and We Were Lovers. All three continue to raise the bar from what has gone before and show an artist and band truly at the top of their game. 

In a live environment, it felt like a greatest hits show, the songs so embedded in my psyche though imbued with an energy and sense of scale that transcends the original studio versions. It's impossible to pick a favourite though I was especially pleased to hear Ego Death, The Bell, Confessions Of An Ageing Party Girl and the new songs.

Emily is a mesmerising performer. I've had the good fortune to see Debbie Harry, Siouxsie Sioux and PJ Harvey live in concert and Emily conveys the same power and assurance on stage, whilst making you feel like you're the only person in the audience and she's singing just for you. No cartwheeling histrionics here, though she does end up on her back playing guitar at one point, thankfully without the Spinal Tap-esque issues of getting back up again. Yet her understated stage movements are wonderfully poised and photogenic and prove that less is more, the performance speaking for itself.

The show is over all too soon, though following blistering Ordinary World, the band 'encore' (they don't leave the stage) to close the set is an unexpected and utterly brilliant version of Paul Simon's Graceland which needs to be heard to be believed.

And then it was all over, the lights came up and I left before the night continued with One More Time, the "90's + 00's party" starting afterwards. I checked my phone. It was 9.45pm! Emily and entourage were decamping to the Seven Stars pub next door, with an open invitation to the audience to come along. I didn't, but I'd already had pretty much a perfect night.

Today's selection, as yesterday, doesn't match the setlist song for song. For one thing, the Second Rodeo EP isn't out until April and only The Beatniks is currently available to purchase. The cover of Graceland also exists only as a live version. Luckily, not that many songs are duplicated from the Dubhed selection, Confessions, that I posted in June 2023 though I was tickled to find that the set also opened and closed with Ego Death and Ordinary World. So, what you've got here is 10 of the 13 songs, coming in at under 40 minutes.

If you're quick, you may still be able to get tickets for Emily's upcoming dates in Cardiff, Leeds, Brighton, Bedford and Cambridge. If you make it, you are in for a real treat, albeit the start of a lifelong commitment to a fabulous artist and band. Embrace the obsession.

 

1) Ego Death (Album Version) (2019)

2) Oh, Anna Nicole (2023)

3) Limousines (2019)

4) The Beatniks (2024)

5) Hey Kidz (2020)

6) The Bell (2023)

7) Confessions Of An Ageing Party Girl (Daddy G vs Robot Club Remix By Grant Marshall & Stew Jackson) (2023)

8) Cosmic Evolution (2023)

9) Part Of Me (2023)

10) Ordinary Life (Radio Edit) (2022)

 

2019: Rituals: 1, 3

2022: Ordinary Life EP: 10

2023: Confessions Of An Ageing Party Girl EP: 7

2023: Rapture: 2, 5, 6, 8, 9

2024: Second Rodeo EP: 4 

 

See Emily Play (39:37) (KF) (Mega) 

You can find Confessions, the previous Emily Breeze selection, here.

 

 

A final nod to the photographs from Friday night that I've used for this post. The headline photo of the full Emily Breeze band is courtesy of Gavin McNamara, the lovely photo of Gina and Ryan from Mumble Tide (my crop) is by Chris Jones. The grainy, amateurishly framed pictures of Emily are all the work of my ageing (party) phone.

You Came To My Show And I Saw You In The Crowd

Last Sunday (19th), I went to my second gig of 2024, Ladyhawke at Komedia in Bath. 

 

Originally planned for last summer, the tour was postponed and rescheduled and therefore anticipation was high. I am a huge fan of Ladyhawke's self-titled debut but of the further three that have followed, I'm only familiar with her third album, Wild Things. So, much to look forward to.

Komedia's a nice venue, a former cinema where, circa 1988, my friend and I experienced an all-night fright fest marathon comprising Evil Dead I & II and A Nightmare On Elm Street 1-3. These days, the theatre is subject to less horror as a prime location for comedy and music events in the city centre. Look up and you can still see the ornate ceiling that hints at its history; otherwise, it's a sleek, modern venue. 

 

I got there a little ahead of the support act showtime and it was looking a little sparse to begin with, though a few had already secured their position at the front of the stage. At 7.30pm promptly, Flavia took to the stage. 

To be honest, I'd never heard of Flavia before this night and, in the interest of keeping an open mind to all of my gig-going experiences, I didn't look her up on t'internet and listen to any of her music before the gig. 

 

The thing that immediately struck me as she set up her laptop and positioned herself at the mike is that Flavia had undergone quite a radical style makeover, as visually the person on stage bore little resemblance to the Flavia adorning the cover of the CD on the merch stand that I passed on my way in. What I'd loosely describe as retro punk chic, with chains, leather, a feathery mullet and the words 'Suck My Fem' (a nod to Flavia's debut album) painted on the back of her jacket.

 

It was slick, precision-tooled pop with song titles like Damn Life Is Good, Call Your Friends, Wide Awake, Ripe and BDE (BIg Dyke Energy) and performed with consummate professionalism. I enjoyed the half-hour set, though not as much as small clusters of the audience, admittedly much younger than me, who whooped at the between song messages of love and empowerment and leapt like bridesmaids to grab the roses that Flavia flung into the air at a couple of points. 

 

I particularly enjoyed the bit when Flavia stepped down from the stage, headed to an empty pocket in the crowd and performed 'in the round' for the rest of the song. Standing about three feet away from her, you could really see that this is no affected show piece, she means every word she sings. I won't be rushing out to buy her album, but Flavia did a great job with the time she had on (and off) stage.

In typical fashion, the crowds really started pouring in aferwards. From the start of going to gigs, I could never understand why people wouldn't turn up to see the support act(s) as well as the headliner. The logistics of getting to a venue I understand: the number of times I've missed part or all of an opening act thanks to public transport or parking woes. But I could never understand my mates who would rather spend another hour in the pub up the road than experience more music. The band made the effort to turn up, why can't you?

Anyway, rant aside, the excitement was palpable when the lights dimmed, leaving only the neon-lit rig and spotlights to focus on. A deep synth bassline came in and three shadowy figures took to the stage. Ladyhawke had arrived. 

As Pip Brown bashed away at a trio of drum pads, guitar to her right, keyboard to her left, it soon became apparent that this wasn't an extended intro to the first song but a sneaky run through to check sound levels. Still sounded great, though.

The set properly opened with the double whammy of Magic and Manipulating Woman, Pip moving to guitar and delivering a rousing start to proceedings. We loved it.

Pip introduced the next song, My Delirium. "By now, you've probably guessed," she said with a smile, "that we're playing the debut album in full." 

In my efforts to have a spoiler-free experience, I didn't have a look at Setlist beforehand, otherwise I would have known this. I know it's a thing these days but this is the first gig I've been to where an artist plays an album in its entirety, in sequential order. I can understand the appeal, particularly if you really love the album and also get to hear songs that had rarely or never been performed live previously. I've mixed feelings about it, to be honest.

 

I loved Ladyhawke's first album, I've played it loads and loads of times and I'm very familiar with the order of songs. And therein lay the slight challenge - I won't say disappointment - for me. Given my previous comments, what I love about gigs is not knowing what's coming next, fascinated by what the artist has decided to sequence together, how songs that on a playlist may sound diametrically opposed complement one another in a live setting. 

So, knowing from the third song what the next nine would be was, well, a different experience. Not that it detracted in any way from the performance of each song, the trio were on fire, Pip in great form vocally and the audience clearly thrilled. Hard to pick a favourite, but the 'side 2' quartet of Back Of The Van, Paris Is Burning, Professional Suicide and Dusk Till Dawn was as unbeatable on stage as it is on record.

Things inevitably came to an end with the album's 12th and final song, Morning Dreams, which Pip shared was being performed live for the first time on this tour. It was a euphoric, uplifting end to a set that seemed over all too soon.

Ladyhawke returned to the stage for three more encores, although I begrudgingly note that a couple of other gigs on the UK tour managed to squeeze in a fourth.

Skipping the second and third album altogether, the band performed My Love and Guilty Love from 2021's Time Flies album and then closed with a contemporary of her debut. Embrace was a 2008 single by PNAU aka Nick Littlemore (perhaps better known for his later work with Empire Of The Sun) and featuring a then-lesser known Ladyhawke. "It's a real banger," Pip smiled during the introduction and she wasn't wrong. 

As the trio left the stage for the final time, the lights came up and I wandered out into the street and the realisation that it was 10pm on Sunday night, with another working week beckoning, I held onto the blazing memory of a fantastic gig that was worth waiting an extra six months for. I experienced a little bit of magic, that cold February evening in Bath.

In keeping with my usual gig reviews, I like to recreate the setlist as a Dubhed selection for your listening pleasure. Given that this concert was essentially a straight run through of the debut album, this presented something of a challenge, especially with the DMCA takedown bots poised over every key stroke.

 

So, today's 15-track, 62-minute selection features just four original album versions. The rest are made of live sessions and remixes. In the absence of alternative versions in many cases, I also took the liberty of doing minor edits to Manipulating Woman, Better Than Sunday and Professional Suicide. The first two are little more that extending the intro slightly; I took the outro of Professional Suicide and tacked it onto the beginning in lazy 12"/80s style. I did all of these on the fly this morning whilst creating the selection so I make no apologies for the slipshod editing if the 'joins' are more noticeable than they should be!

 

1) Magic (Live @ JBTV, Chicago) (2016) 

2) Manipulating Woman (Lil' Intro Edit By Khayem) (2024)

3) My Delirium (RNZ Music Live Session, Wellington, New Zealand) (2021)

4) Better Than Sunday (Lil' Intro Edit By Khayem) (2024)

5) Another Runaway (Album Version) (2008)

6) Love Don’t Live Here (Album Version) (2008)

7) Back Of The Van (Fred Falke Ultimate Beverly Mix) (2009)

8) Paris Is Burning (Dimitri From Paris Back To 84 Remix) (2009)

9) Professional Suicide (Extended Edit By Khayem) (2024)

10) Dusk Till Dawn (Canyons Remix By Leo Thomson & Ryan Grieve) (2008)

11) Crazy World (Album Version) (2008)

12) Morning Dreams (Album Version) (2008)

13) My Love (Slow Fade Intro Version) (2021) 

14) Guilty Love (RNZ Music Live Session, Wellington, New Zealand) (2021)

15) Embrace (Fredrick Carlsson Epic Remix): PNAU ft. Ladyhawke (2009)

 

In The Crowd (1:02:00) (KF) (Mega) 

My mission in 2024 was to experience considerably more live music than I've managed in the past few years. Stick around then for tomorrow's second gig review in a row, another artist that I finally got to see last night after missing them in 2023.

 

In the meantime, here are some more pics from Sunday night. The above photo of Ladyhawke is courtesy of Howard Trigg via a YouTube upload (thank you!), the rest of the grainy, non-flash shots are courtesy of my bashed and battered phone.

 

What Could’ve Been If I Stood Up Tall And Tried

Thrilled though I am that a new single from Bat For Lashes has just dropped, Friday screams The Lemon Twigs louder. Sorry, Natasha.

 

A Dream Is All We Know is The Lemon Twigs' fifth album, sixth if you count 2015's limited edition cassette debut - and referenced here? - What We Know. A video for opening song The Golden Hour was released in the New Year followed by track 2, They Don't Know How To Fall In Place, at the beginning of February.

 

Pastiche or piss take? I wondered about the former when I first heard the brothers Brian and Michael D'Addario. And those hairstyles! And their wardrobe! However, further listens made it clear that they really mean it, man, and they won me over with their sheer commitment to a genre that I frankly wasn't all that much of a fan of first time around (especially Supertramp).

 

You'll spend the rest of the day trying to work out which songs are ripped off paid homage to and that's all part of the fun, isn't it? The videos are great fun, too.

A Dream Is All We Know is out on 3rd May. You can pre-order the album here and/or check out The Lemon Twigs' back catalogue on Bandcamp.

What You Need Is To Be Free

Next Thursday is 29th February, Leap Year's Day, and Dan Wainwright marks the occasion with the release of a self-titled (or untitled, if you prefer) album.

 

I first featured Dan's music here very early on, not even 50 posts in and just getting into gear with daily uploads. Swiss Adam at Bagging Area had switched me onto Dan's music and I was immediately hooked. Broadly speaking, electronic music but with elements of dub, psychedelia, deep-down vocals and equally at home on a pair of headphones or booming from club-or-pub speakers.

 

In the past three years, I've regularly featured Dan's music in Dubhed selections and end of year round ups, not least the excellent Psychedelic Science, a deep, dubby collaboration with Rude Audio and a highlight of 2023.

 

Dan's new album is a different proposition altogether, eight songs of Dan singing, accompanied only by his ukelele. Is there a need for ukelele-playing singer songwriters in the 21st century? Abso-bloody-lutely.

I pre-ordered the album and Dan very kindly posted the CD to me in advance of the official release day, so I've had an opportunity to listen to the album a fair bit in the past couple of weeks.That in itself has proved to be a unique personal experience.

My usual go-to is a plug-in CD/DVD player and I generally listen to (and rip) CDs via the Clan K computer. It's a bit temperamental though and randomly refuses to play certain CDs, despite various attempts at cleaning, coaxing and cursing. Dan's album drew the short straw on this occasion.

My car doesn't have a CD facility so the only other option to hand was a CD & radio that we bought for Lady K when she was little, mainly to play audio books on CD, and which has been long-abandoned. It kind of works, but needs a bit of effort. It requires an absolutely stable surface otherwise the CD skips. The lid no longer stays closed, so you either need to place a weight on it or lift the carry handle to an upright position to (mostly) keep it shut, otherwise the CD stops playing. The back- and forward-skip functions are unreliable. The radio aerial snapped off many years ago.  The once pink-and-white body now looks more mouldy-peach-and-piss-yellow. But it did the job.

 

Logistically, this has also meant that I've inevitably played to the album either late at night or very early in the morning through headphones, which has provided an even more intensely intimate listening experience.

I've been on Dan's mailing list since 2021 so what, from a casual glance at his Bandcamp catalogue, may seem like an abrupt change of direction has been many years in the making. The last couple in particular focused on practicing and finding a voice with the ukelele, with regular YouTube uploads (unavailable now) of Dan's works-in-progress. Even so, the album shows how much further Dan has come in that time.

I can't confess to owning a vast amount of ukelele-led music, yet it feels absolutely right for the songs and album as a whole. These are deeply personal reflections and narratives that benefit from the musical setting. At times, the ukelele stylings reminded me of Spanish guitar generally and the stripped-back sounds of, say, Rodrigo y Gabriela.

Dan's 'practice' YouTube uploads also included covers of John Prine, Neil Young and Willie Nelson, which are also useful pointers to the sound and the feel of the album.

Is it folk? I guess so, the narratives appear to inspired and informed by Dan's lived experience and presented with accessible lyrics that you can imagine being sung around a campfire or in a pub, with others joining in as the occasion demands. The other 'folky' aspect that I really like is that Dan's singing voice retains his regional accent. It's something that I am personally drawn to when listening to music, but feels even more important given Dan's journey to this album and finding his own voice.

You don't need to know about Dan to enjoy the album, the songs welcome you in and enrich you in their own right. However, Dan's openness about his struggle with continuing down the 'easier' and more established path of electronic music, the impact on his health and well being, and the desire to give life to the lyrics and music that he'd been crafting in the background for the past decade or so lends the album a different, affecting quality. 

I was rooting for Dan to believe in himself and take the bold step of saying "this is me" with this album and he's done it. I really, really like this album.

1) I'll Come Running

I came across the Devil 

And he looked into my eyes

2) She Knew What She Knew 

Fresh air of the spring

And the sun is shining down 

 

3) Liberty 

Sadly I didn't bring my kite

So I cannot fly tonight

 

4) Plain To See 

You know I love you, you know I do

You said you don't need it

I said I don't need it too

 

5) Time Are Hard

When I woke up this morning

I didn't think you'd be here with me

  

6) Until There's Peace 

Why don't you talk to me my darling?

 

7) Big Boss Man 

Give me my money, Big Boss Man

I worked so hard

Just to earn my hand

 

8) Like A Bird

Don't be alone

Take what you need

And walk along until you're free

 

 

Three of the songs are available to preview on Bandcamp, though I would encourage you to pre-order ahead of next Thursday's official release as the other five songs are every bit as beautiful.