Author Archives: Real Gone

THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #63

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Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual tracks that have landed in our inbox over the previous few weeks. This selection takes in a couple of pop-ish tunes, a pair of tracks from bands that are still very new, and even a singer songwriter offering that blends huge melodies with a strangely prog-like flair. As always, we hope there’s something here for everyone, and if you like what you hear, it’s worth exploring some of these artists further…

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NEIL YOUNG – Ready For The Harvest: Buried Treasure, Part II (1970-1972)

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Our second delve into the Neil Young archives is long overdue. We had planned to share this just a couple of months after the first part, but other things got in the way. This second exploration had originally been sketched out to cover the first half of the 70s – Neil’s first truly great period – but the arrival of a couple of extra bootlegs and other stuff meant that it there was just too much stuff to fit into a five or six year stretch.

Instead, this second part takes us from the ‘Goldrush’ sessions to Neil’s one off collaboration with Graham Nash in 1972. Mining the gold from this fantastic period was difficult, but hopefully you’ll not only agree with some of our choices, but it’ll also take you deeper into a world of musical treasure to discover a couple of things you might not have heard.

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BUZZARD BUZZARD BUZZARD – Skinwalker

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On their Mercury Prize winning debut album ‘Backhand Deals’, Welsh band Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard were unafraid to wear a very retro heart on their sleeve. The bulk of its tunes took a very melodic approach and fused a great set of pop and rock influences on a record that occasionally sounded like a 90s band who’d discovered a bunch of old vinyl LPs from the 70s in their parents’ loft. Instantly familiar but always entertaining, it was the kind of guitar driven, melodic pop/rock collection that seemed destined to rival The Feeling’s brilliant ‘Twelve Stops Then Home’.

Then, somewhere between the promotion for that record and the recording of their follow up ‘Skinwalker’, they had a drastic rethink.

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BOULDER FIELDS – With All The Other Ghosts

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Singer songwriter Cam Fraser has had a long career on the fringes of stardom. The cult musician first became known to some as a member of The Cataran, a band whose three albums gained the band a following in the 80s, and he latterly ventured further into the realms of jangly indie as a member of Borrowed Books, whose 2020 album presented a timeless sound where a very 90s feel was underscored with occasional folk-rock rhythms, taking influence from Lou Barlow’s Folk Implosion. Under the name Boulder Fields, Cam explores the avenues of Americana – albeit from a Scottish perspective – going deeper into the folky, but without losing his roots, and although 2024’s ‘With All The Other Ghosts’ sometimes values atmosphere over immediacy, his sense of melody and lyricism often comes through in massive waves.

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Editorial Comment: Neil Young’s ‘Archives III’ – Unaffordable, Frustrating, Elitist

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The world hasn’t had a shortage of “new” Neil Young material recently. Between the beginning of 2022 and July 2024, he’s released TWELVE different stand-alone titles, bulking up his already huge discography somewhat considerably.

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