Filed under: feature, words in edgeways | Tags: interview, july flame, laura veirs, sacha whitmarsh
“Playing in here could turn me into a religious woman!” Laura Veirs jokes from the stage of the majestic Union Chapel in north London. It’s the last UK show of her tour to promote her seventh and, in the eyes of many critics, best album, July Flame. It’s a fine venue with, naturally, incredible acoustics and imposing architecture. And, tonight at least, it’s really cold. Lip-numbingly cold. The entire audience is clad in hats and scarves; they’re even selling hot drinks alongside the merch table in the foyer. For this entire leg of the tour Laura and her band have been travelling through a country in the grip of its biggest freeze for a hell of a long time. In stark contrast the album she’s showcasing every night on stage evokes a totally different atmosphere. Taking its name from a variety of peach, the album serves as a springboard into a sultry, sun-saturated world full of the magic of midsummer: Will o’ the Wisp, fireflies, Chinese lanterns and heady, sweltering nights. It’s joyous.
Filed under: feature, words in edgeways | Tags: indigo girls, interview, lilith fair 2010, sacha whitmarsh
words in edgeways with indigo girls
While Sarah McLachlan’s recent announcement that legendary women’s music festival Lilith Fair is to be resurrected in 2010 was greeted with elation in several quarters, certainly within these pages, it also had its critics. “Hop aboard the marginalising train,” sneered St Vincent’s Annie Clark in an interview with online magazine Spinner, claiming it doesn’t serve anyone to view music in gender terms. In its three year lifespan, from 1997 to 1999, Lilith Fair was repeatedly in the firing line; it was too folksy, too white, too mainstream. Yes, the headliners were often women who had achieved massive commercial success, but how else were McLachlan and co. to get enough people through the gates? As for being too white, if it wasn’t for Lilith Fair, we might not have heard about acts like Bic Runga, Lhasa de Sela or Yungchen Lhamo until much later, while established artists like Queen Latifah, Angélique Kidjo and Meshell Ndegeocello were no more ‘token’ than the few women you would typically find on any other festival’s playbill.
With the debate no doubt preparing to rage once more as the 2010 event gets underway, who better to add their voice to the clamour than feminist royalty and Lilith Fair veterans, Indigo Girls. Touring the UK after a two and a half year absence to promote their latest, independently released, album Poseidon & The Bitter Bug, Emily Saliers and Amy Ray sat down for a chat with Wears The Trousers in an airless, strip-lit dressing room in London’s Shepherds Bush Empire, and I waste no time in cutting to the chase. Is there still a place for a women’s music festival in 2010? “Yes!” comes Emily’s emphatic response. “It’s still a male dominated industry; it’s still a male dominated world in terms of who’s got the power in politics, power in money. Not that those are the most important things, but that’s the reality.
Filed under: album, review | Tags: 2009, brandi carlile, music, sacha whitmarsh
Brandi Carlile
Give Up The Ghost ••••
SonyBMG
Brandi Carlile’s exceptional vocal range just expanded. Third album Give Up The Ghost takes the Washington-born singer-songwriter’s greatest asset and pushes it way beyond its already wide parameters. Still present is her characteristic half-yodel, the way she can leave her voice to slide up or down a scale, knowing she will hit the note perfectly when she gets there. But this time she takes her voice further, stronger, longer, higher. Much higher, actually. Gone are the growls, gone is the angry teenage attitude, and in their place is a calmer, wiser woman, contemplative and full of acceptance, of letting be and letting go. First, though, a reminder of those early days in the form of album opener ‘Looking Out’, a song which could sit happily on either of Carlile’s first two releases. Here, her familiarly defiant delivery is augmented by the gravelly backing vocals of idol-turned-friend Amy Ray of Indigo Girls, creating an exhilarating torrent of sound. It’s a signpost for the confidence of the album as a whole, charging at full pelt with its head held way up high.
Filed under: feature, words in edgeways | Tags: interview, kate walsh, music, sacha whitmarsh
words in edgeways with kate walsh
After recording his BBC Radio Four show Loose Ends, legendary broadcaster Ned Sherrin used to treat his production team to a slap-up, boozy, lingering Saturday lunch in an old-fashioned, un-gastro’d central London pub. In tribute to Sherrin, who died in 2007, the team have kept on the tradition. This week Kate Walsh is joining them, having appeared on the show playing tracks from her excellent new album Light & Dark. Braving the clatter of glasses and the boisterous “It’s the weekend!” whooping (literally) of the merry punters, she sits down with Wears The Trousers for a chat.
Filed under: feature, video, words in edgeways | Tags: 2009, interview, music, paloma faith, sacha whitmarsh
words in edgeways with paloma faith
“Someone introduced me to someone the other day and said, ‘This is Paloma, she’s a lovely bunch of people’.”
Paloma Faith is one of those people who you meet and you just know it’s gonna happen for them. A face on the London cabaret scene for many years, it seems like it was just a question of time before she found herself where she is now. That is, sitting in the plush airy offices of the mother of all media conglomerates, Sony, whose record label Epic she signed with last year. Exhausted from a rapturously received show, and afterparty of course, the previous night, she’s lounging (well, almost) on a couch, as the media turnstile clatters round and round before her: journalist in, journalist out. Never one to let her appearance guard down, even today Paloma is dressed to the nines, sporting a floor-length spangled skirt in rainbow colours, red/orange heels and tights, and a bright yellow top with matching beret. Perfectly manicured and painted nails protrude from already long, slim fingers. Just another day at the office really.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast, video | Tags: 2009, hafdis huld, interview, music, sacha whitmarsh
interrupting yr broadcast: hafdís huld
Yet another export from Iceland’s thriving music scene, Hafdís Huld Þrastardóttir is most definitely one to watch. Sitting, or more likely skipping, somewhere between Sia and Björk on the lovably barmy scale, she released her debut album Dirty Paper Cup in 2006, though you may also know her through various collaborations with Tricky and FC Kahuna, her whimsical cover of Sam Brown’s ‘Stop’ that beamed into millions of homes across Europe as the soundtrack to a Mercedes ad, or even from fronting 4AD favourites GusGus (who also spawned Emilíana Torrini) as a teenager. A collection of pure, sweet pop, Dirty Paper Cup revealed Hafdís to be, yes, sugar and spice, but thankfully not necessarily all things nice. There’s an edge to her lyrics, an impishly wicked streak that reveals the self-proclaimed Glittery Fairy Princess of Iceland to be far more sussed than first meets the eye. She’s just finished recording her much anticipated second album in a barn in Scarborough and is currently on tour across the UK. As effervescent as a Tizer float, Hafdís loves a story and loves to talk. Wears The Trousers caught up with her at Monkey Chews, North London, where she took a break from soundchecking in the dark, sweaty upstairs room to talk to us. We even managed to squeeze in a few questions!
Filed under: feature, video, words in edgeways | Tags: 2009, interview, music, sacha whitmarsh, teddy thompson, tift merritt
words in edgeways with tift merritt
OK, so, picture the scene. You’ve been performing alone on stage for the past half hour. You’ve nearly finished your set and all is well. The crowd are warm and settled. You’ve overcome the annoyance of inconsiderate chat, the venue blowing porn smoke onto the stage and idiotic security guards oblivious to the noise of their radios. It’s time to end with the title – and best – track from your latest album and you plan a neat dovetail into the main act by inviting them sing with you on stage. You thank the audience, you thank the main act for having you along and look to the wings: “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr Teddy Thompson!”
But there’s nothing. No one. Silence. Teddy is nowhere to be seen. The silence continues, with obligatory laughter. It’s hard to ride the awkwardness. Left with no alternative, we are given the benefit of another song and then finally, finally, Teddy steps onto the stage. He doesn’t even have the decency to look sheepish. In fact, as he ends the song he gives the audience a cheeky grin. What a rascal, eh? What a loveable rogue! What a jerk. It’s not the best of finales for Tift Merritt’s latest London show, but the mood mercifully changes as, together, Tift and Teddy sing the song and it’s pretty magical: Tift on main vocals and piano, Teddy harmonising beautifully. He’s gracious with his vocals if not with his manners.
Filed under: feature, special | Tags: 2009, kristin hersh week, music, sacha whitmarsh
immune to broken: a guide to kristin hersh’s speedbath
Constructed piecemeal over the course of a year, Kristin Hersh’s new album Speedbath is a highly varied, fascinating collection of songs that, thanks to her CASH Music venture, has provided her fans with unprecedented insight into her creative process. The full album – or, rather, a version of it – has been available to download for free since December and Wears The Trousers has spent a possibly unhealthy amount of time cosying up to it, coaxing it to reveal ever more secrets. We’re insatiable like that.
Here we take a look at each of the dozen songs in the order in which they appeared between November 2007 and December 2008. As it has been handily pointed out by one of Kristin’s fans, there are over 479 million ways in which these 12 songs could be ordered, taking over 50,000 years to play all combinations, so you can forgive Kristin for taking her time in deciding on a final tracklist. Oh, and she’s re-recorded them all anyway. With the final album going to the presses at the end of this month, and a commercial release pencilled in for June, quite what form the final Speedbath will take remains a delicious mystery. We can hardly wait.
Filed under: feature, video, words in edgeways | Tags: 2008, interview, kim richey, music, sacha whitmarsh
words in edgeways with kim richey
Kim Richey is just back from Copenhagen and full of cold. A direct result, she says, of trying to keep up with the beer drinking capacity of the students she was hanging out with. Despite the exacerbating London drizzle, Kim is all smiles and wonderfully garrulous. She’s a great storyteller and is the queen of tangents, restlessly refusing to stick to any one subject before galloping off to the next. I don’t even get to finish my first question about her childhood in Ohio before she jumps in enthusiastically: “It went blue this election – it was a swing state. I was very proud of the Ohio people.” Along with the majority of the world, she’s clearly delighted with Obama’s historical victory.
Filed under: feature, words in edgeways | Tags: 2008, holly golightly, interview, lawyer dave, music, sacha whitmarsh, the brokeoffs
words in edgeways with holly golightly
For me, October is always packed with autumnal treats and it seems this year will be no different with the impending release of Dirt Don’t Hurt by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs. It’s the second album to come from Holly’s collaboration with American bass player Lawyer Dave (ostensibly both one and all of The Brokeoffs), a partnership that has steered her writing even deeper into the whiskey-soaked world of raw country music. From the gentle, melancholic ‘Black Heart’ on their debut You Can’t Buy A Gun When You’re Crying (an actual law in some parts of the US), to the whooping party atmosphere of ‘Hug You, Kiss You, Squeeze You’ on the new album, this particular manifestation of Holly’s muse is producing some of her best work to date.
Recorded rather haphazardly in the middle of a tour, Dirt Don’t Hurt is classic country fodder: a string of bantering duets nestling with tales of heartache and dysfunctional relationships. Sussex’s answer to Wanda Jackson, Holly wears the badge of country music as proudly as ever as she sings ‘Up On the Floor’, a world weary farewell to a drunken partner. She snarls her way through ‘Indeed You Do’ and bitterly curses ‘For All This’. There are moments of beauty in the laboured, inebriated pace of ‘Slow Road’ and their version of ‘Boat’s Up The River’ is glorious; the vocals complement each other perfectly, hers high in the rafters, his firmly on the ground. The album peaks with the bass-slapping, boot-stomping romp that is ‘Getting High For Jesus’, in which they brazenly celebrate “Yeah, I’m getting high for Jesus ‘cos he got so low for me!” It’s The Brokeoffs at their hillbilly best. You can just imagine Holly, in one of her trademark vintage dresses, doing the polka around the stage like kd lang circa 1989 (though not nearly as embarrassing, obviously).
I meet Holly to talk about the album in a tiny basement dressing room with a double bass taking up literally half of the space. Despite this, it’s open house at Holly’s tonight. To every knock on the door it’s “Come on in! Have a drink! Have a smoke!” A self-proclaimed bourbon connoisseur (“I’ve been to every bourbon still in Kentucky”) she manages to rough it tonight on Jack and Coke, helping the anecdotes to flow freely. Doing her make-up as she prepares for the evening’s show, she chats away enthusiastically, nineteen words to the dozen. She’s open and warm, but equally you know that everything happens on her own terms: that’s the way tonight will go and that’s the way her life will go.
