There are thousands of acoustic singer songwriters out there sharing tales of broken relationships and personal travelogues – those all important journeys of the heart, if you will. On ‘More Scared Than Me’, Australia’s Bec Stevens takes folk pop into very outspoken territory, very much as Frank Turner did on his best-selling break up record ‘Tape Deck Heart’. This is not new ground for folk music, but when delivering such familiar themes from a female perspective, Stevens’s work comes across with an unflinching honesty, resulting in a short collection of songs which should resonate with many listeners.
Tag Archives: singer songwriter
New album from Mason Summit expected in January
Mason Summit’s third album, 2016’s ‘Gunpowder Tracks’ was the dictionary definition of surprising. An album chock full of great songs and retro influences, the singer-songwriter showed off an ability to turn his hand to many styles with equal charm, ranging from pop, country, folk and jazz, resulting in one of the year’s most appealing recordings.
HECTOR AND THE LEAVES – (interiors)
At the very beginning of 2016, Hector and The Leaves released ‘Little Bee’, a self-financed EP of material drawing influence from The Beach Boys and The Beatles, redressed in singer-songwriter threads, mixing 60s pop with strains of folk from across many decades. While the EP didn’t necessarily gain country-wide recognition, it showed Tom Hector to be a songwriter more than able to take different influences and recycle them with style, while still allowing his own personality to inform the result. Eighteen months on – and after posting a selection of musical sketches and unfinished ideas online – ‘(interiors’), the first proper follow-up, takes more of a lo-fi singer-songwriter path, but the many things that made ‘Little Bee’ worthy of an ear are still very much in evidence.
Watch the new video from Leslie Mendelson
In April 2017, singer songwriter Leslie Mendelson released ‘Love and Murder’, a downbeat and thoughtful album, mixing her own compositions with covers of more familiar material by Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison.
As part of the album’s promotion, an atmospheric black and white clip has been released for ‘Chasing The Thrill’, a video that really highlights the sparseness of the track in question. ‘Chasing The Thrill’ really shows off her old style and natural voice against a sparse arrangement and is a great indicator of why you should investigate the full album.
ROGER WATERS – Is This The Life We Really Want?
Roger Waters, ex-Pink Floyd bassist, songwriter and heavy-handed social commentator, released his third solo album, the rather grand ‘Amused To Death’ in 1992. A concept piece about media propaganda and news coverage, the album was one of the best sounding records of the year. It blended a few familiar Floydian motifs with the more atmospheric elements of his own ‘Pros & Cons of Hitch-Hiking’ and resulted in a cult classic. From then on, very little was heard from Waters with regard to studio material. It was perhaps wise to take some time out, of course, for to follow such a near-perfect record (at least for the style) would have been a fools errand.