Best of 2014

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There’s a lot or pros and cons when it comes to listing end of year best ofs or favourites. Two years ago Blabber’n’Smoke eventually plumbed for the pros outweighing the cons so this is the third time we’ve presented what, when it comes down to it, is an arbitrary choice of remembered listen. Albums that have stood the test of (a relatively short) time, the ones we’ve returned to or recommended to others in the pub. Above all it’s been fun to look back, read the reviews and see if they still stand. So with this in mind the following are the official Blabber’n’Smoke 2014 picks, in alphabetical order.

Blue Rose Code. Ballads Of Peckham Rye
Birds Of Chicago. Live From Space
Fire Mountain. All Dies Down
Bradford lee Folk and The Bluegrass Playboys. Somewhere Far Away
Cahalen Morrison & Eli West. I’ll Swing My Hammer With Both My Hands
Jim Keaveny. Out Of Time
Parker Millsap. Parker Millsap
Michael Rank & Stag. Deadstock
Sturgill Simpson. Metamodern Sounds In Country Music
John Southworth. Niagara

Random honourable mentions go to

Lucinda Williams Down Where the Spirit Meets The Bone,
The Johnny Cash Native American album reboot, Look Again To The Wind,
Danny and The Champions Of The World’s Live Champs!
Dan Michealson & The Coastguards Distance
Cale Tyson’s EP, High On Lonesome,
Luke Tuchsherer’s debut You Get So Alone at Times It makes Sense,
Petunia’s Inside Of You,
Ags Connolly How about Now,
Chris Cacavas & Edward Abbiati. Me And The Devil along with Abbiati’s band Lowlands who delivered the excellent Love Etc.,
Zoe Muth. World Of Strangers,
Hank Wangford & The Lost Cowboys. Save Me The Waltz .
Grant Peeples and the Peeples Rebublic. Punishing The Myth.
Simone Felice. Strangers.
Bronwynne Brent. Stardust.
Sylvie Simmons. Sylvie (allowing an honorary mention here for Howe Gelb who produced).
The War On Drugs. Lost In The Dream.
Lynne Hanson. River Of Sand.
Gal Holiday & The Honky Tonk Revue. Last To Leave.
And finally John Murry’s EP, Califorlonia which is brilliant and hopefully just an appetiser for his follow up to the majestic Graceless Age.

Digging through the archives it’s been noticeable that there’s been a fine contribution this year from Scottish acts who dip into or draw from an Americana well to a greater or lesser extent. While Blue Rose Code’s Ballads Of Peckam Rye features above the following are all stellar contributions to the local scene.

Dropkick. Homeward
Dumb Instrument. The Silent Beard (with the Scottish song of the year, Suffering from Scottishness).
John Hinshelwood. Lowering The Tone.
The David Latto Band. Here Today, Ghost Tomorrow EP
Norrie McCulloch. Old Lovers Junkyard
The New Madrids. Through the Heart of Town.
Red Pine Timber Company. Different Lonesome
The Rulers Of The Root. Porky Dreams
Ten Gallon Bratz. Tales From The Long Shadows

Although his album, Little Glass Box came out in 2012, Fraser Anderson is a major find of the year while another local lad, Daniel Meade unleashes his Nashville recorded Keep Right Away in January. Hopefully folk will have long enough memories to recall this when it comes to compiling the 2015 lists. In the meantime it can be first on the New Year shopping list.

Red Pine Timber Company. Different Lonesome

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We mentioned Perth band Southpaw a few reviews back and almost as if by happenstance what should pop through the post but this album featuring Southpaw singer Gavin JD Munro fronting a big band with a big sound that straddles classic folk rock and fat back horn fuelled grooves, a weird coupling indeed but one that definitely works for the most part. This nine piece crew lilt magnificently on countrified waves with mandolin rippling while pedal steel weaves in and out as the brass adds a Southern soul or gospel feel, the end result coming across almost as if one were being treated to a revue as opposed to a single band. The imagery, particularly on the striking video for their song Hurricanes, is American Gothic summoning up a rustic backwoods sentiment which is reflected in the music. They eschew any sense of parched desert rock. Instead the landscape they inhabit is the enervating green lushness of the swamps and bayous , thick blooded, slow to react but dangerous when aroused. One could imagine them playing in a shack in Walter Hill’s movie Southern Comfort, dripping sweat as they offer up some swamp and mountain music. They don’t play Cajun but the fiddles and airs cut through to American folk music’s antecedents in misty Scottish Highlands and Irish glens giving the album an attractive Transatlantic connection.
Aside from the closing song, the traditional Oh Sinnerman, all of the songs are written by Munro and he proves to be a fine wordsmith summing up predicaments and dilemmas in classic style, spare but telling all you need to know such as on Different Lonesome

“She pours out the coffee, and we start the day, everything is faultless, we designed it that way. How can I rewrite the words I should have said, It’s a different kind of lonesome when the love’s not dead.”

Munro sings as if he’s inhabiting the souls of the luckless characters here, tired, worn out, resigned to their fate. His melancholic voice (along with some of the melodies) are reminiscent of Gene Clark in his prime and he’s ably assisted on harmonies by Kate Burgoyne who provides a fine foil to his hurt. The band meanwhile offer an empathetic backdrop with electric guitars by Aaron Brake and Stewart Methven curling and occasionally snarling over the strummed acoustics and sympathetic rhythm section. Lonesome harmonica tops several of the songs. The title song, Sweet Seville, Save My Soul, Hurricanes and No Direction are all superior wearied ballads that glow with a Tupelo honeyed light while the brass section adds a tumescence that is quite daring. While Munro’s melancholic side is given full rein on these the band show that they can kick the proverbial shit with some up-tempo numbers that gives the album some variety. The opening song, Lonely Days are Gone is a sparkling jangled riposte to The Boxtops song The Letter while Sermon On The Street has a mid sixties Dylan kick especially in the harmonica playing. They also get down and dirty with The Way It Was which has a Stones’ like swagger and strut.

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