New music

Here are some new albums that I'm looking forward to hearing:

Babel - Mumford & Sons: 'Opening with a blistering banjo intro, the title track is a statement of intent. Marcus Mumford spits, "I know my weakness, know my voice. And I believe in grace and choice'". As the chorus hits, the biblical allusions that inspired the album title kick in.' (NME)

Life Is People - Bill Fay: 'Aside from Fay's plaintive cover of Wilco's Jesus Etc, Life Is People also continues with the lyrical themes established back in 1969-70 ... "They need space to convey," he stresses, "but, in a simple way, biblical prophecy. Not in some extreme or fanatical way but fundamentally, that this world - in the hands of different leaders, competing with each other economically - it can't carry on. It's belief in a change. There's comfort in that. I'm not so sure how you could handle the world if you didn't have that. It's God's world, yet we walk around as if it's ours."' (Mojo)

Tempest - Bob Dylan: 'When Dylan convened his band at Jackson Browne's Groove Masters studios in Santa Monica, he's said it was his intention to make a 'religious' album ... The testing of belief in extreme circumstances is a recurring theme ... the charred landscape that much of Tempest occupies ... a forlorn sort of place, populated by the displaced and the lost, to who Dylan gives poignant voice.' (Uncut)

The Laughing Stalk - Woven Hand: 'The myths of our country are in the songs. The untold stories and gaps in history books are in the songs – our recollection is preserved in this music. Those songs as well as the stories that my parents told me, the bible and the books I read, all this is the foundation of my imagination of America. But I do not see myself as a keeper of tradition. I rather am a craftsman who on a daily basis does what he does best: singing and playing guitar. That’s the only thing I've learned. I am following the music.' (David Eugene Edwards)

The Hipsters - Deacon Blue: 'Judging by the content of this album, which contains such portions of well-bred pop as Stars and the harmony-laden Turn, there's enough creativity left to ensure that few hearing these songs for the first time on the band's 25th Anniversary Tour will be disappointed.' (Mojo)

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Bill Fay - Time Of The Last Persecution.

Leonard Cohen: self-deprecating and humorous

One of the things I love most about the work of Leonard Cohen is his self-deprecating humour. Lines, which sound like personal credos although sung by the characters he creates, like, "I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that Time cannot decay/I'm junk, but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet" from 'Democracy', every line in 'Tower of Song' where Hank Williams coughs a hundred floors above him, or this, from 'Going Home':

"I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit ...

He will speak these words of wisdom
Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he’s really nothing
But the brief elaboration of a tune."

There is real self awareness and humility here combined with the distance and irony of setting these lines ostensibly about himself in the third person. Victoria Segal notes Cohen's self-deprecation in an excellent review for Mojo of Cohen's new album Old Ideas.

Also included in Mojo's Cohen feature is a personal piece by Will Oldman describing Cohen's influence on his inspiration and work. In this piece he writes about being introduced to Cohen's music via The Best Of ... and Death Of A Ladies Man, the controversial 1977 Phil Spector-produced album. Oldham writes that he feels privileged to have been introduced to Cohen through the latter album "because to love something through its flaws provides a richer love."

Death Of A Ladies Man breaks the mould of the Cohen stereotype as sombre, introspective folk-poet by taking the vibe of Dylan's 'Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35' and giving free rein to the carnal, humorous aspects of Cohen's work. If you haven't heard it or have filed it away on a shelf somewhere, then get it out and allow your expectations of Cohen's sound to be shattered.

Oldman perceptively writes that there is something about Cohen's lyrics "that pullls you in without revealing itself entirely but it holds you there on each listen":

"It's a combination of of humour, modesty, nihilism, despair, joy and appreciation done by someone who has the ability to put language first as a poet.

Somehow he has the ability to shine a light on our finer qualities as people in a way that you feel that you have an ally: even if you're looking at the beautiful and the ugly in the world, you can value it. I can look around at the good and the bad and say, Well, this is humanity and I'm going to keep on dealing with it because I have this man who is doing that too."

For more perceptive words on Cohen listen to Malcolm Guite's On The Edge talk by clicking here.

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Leonard Cohen - Iodine.

Bath and Malmesbury

I've had a few days away in Bath and the surrounding area driving to a soundtrack of Mojo's latest cover CD, a complitation of Communion artists.
Communion was born in the Summer of 2006 at London’s Notting Hill Arts Club. Founded by Ben Lovett (Mumford and Sons), former Cherbourg bassist Kevin Jones, and acclaimed producer Ian Grimble, it quickly grew into a flourishing community of musicians and fans alike, providing a first independent platform for the freshest young artists on London’s circuit and beyond. The monthly night has now seen the likes of Noah and the Whale, Laura Marling, Mumford and Sons, JJ Pistolet and Peggy Sue all grace the stage from the very start of their fledgling careers. Communion Records was founded in September 2009 priding itself on creating a close working family in which to allow artists to develop at their own pace.

Bath's Fringe Festival added additional interest to our visit with several of the photos above taken in the FAB at the Officer's Club exhibitions. I also enjoyed seeing paintings by Cecil Collins and Graham Sutherland at the Victoria Art Gallery and the new extension to the Holburne Gallery (see photo above) but the exhibition highlight was definitely Helpless Angels at the bo.lee gallery which saw paintings by Fran Williams supplemented by the angel sculptures of other gallery artists. Williams' paintings deal in primal light-dark contrasts to suggest an emergent sense of the angelic in her distressed characters. Look out for the gallery's Shadowside London exhibition from 13th - 18th June at Blackall Studios Shoreditch.

Other forthcoming exhibitions that should be of interest include The Acts of the Apostles by Ulrich Lindow at Malmesbury Abbey from 19th June throughout the summer and Mark Angus: Flying Figures at the Victoria Art Gallery from 23 July - 2 October.

Sculptor Ulrich Lindow works in northern Germany near Malmesbury's twin town of Niebüll. His The Acts of the Apostles installation is described as "a dramatic re-enactment of the events narrated in the New Testament." Lindow has imagined a red glow from the tongues of flame reflected in the colouration of the rough hewn faces of his disciples (see photos above).

Originally from Bath, Mark Angus is one of Europe's best stained glass artists. His stunning work for churches and cathedrals in England and Germany is well known, but his freestanding glass figures - glowingly coloured diving and backlit figures exploring the theme of Eternal Youth - go on public view for the first time in the exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery.

While in Malmesbury I also saw the Photographic Exhibition in the Town Hall, which includes excellent work by Betsy Little and Fred Goudie among others, and found a secondhand copy of Messenger of Beauty: The Life and Visionary Art of Nicholas Roerich.  Roerich was a Russian-born artist whose paintings explore the mythic origins, the natural beauty, and the spiritual strivings of humanity and of the world.

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Marcus Foster - Circle in the Square.