For Folk’s Sake’s writers are such massive Mumford fans we couldn’t limit ourselves to one review of the tour. Jo Legg covers the Bath show, while Sandy McKee caught the Cheltenham gig… and there’s more to follow!
Single Review: The Dø – A Mouthful
If ‘A Mouthful’ convinces you of one thing, and one thing only, it will be that The Dø are very, very cool. In one five-track EP French-Finnish duo Dan Levy and Olivia Merilahtin display impressive versatility, moving from easy, accessible guitar-backed melodies on opener ‘On My Shoulders’, to genius mc-ing on the final track ‘Queen Dot Kong’. Yes I did say mc-ing, and yes I did say genius. Said three minutes of brilliance rather appropriately begin with Olivia’s cry of ‘it’s a little messed up round here’, set against a backing of quasi-circus, swirling brass. The overall effect is something akin to being on a merri-go-round: giddy, and slightly surreal.
Peggy Sue and Laura Marling added to Camp Bestival bill
The organisers of Camp Bestival today announced that Laura Marling, Blue Roses and Peggy Sue would join the Dorset festival’s already stellar line-up.
One Drop Festival
‘I wanted to create something social that would not revolve around alcohol.’ This is what one of the organisers of a new fixture, ‘One Drop’, explained to me as we waited in the queue for the only toilet in Plough Studios in Clapham on Sunday.
The event, which fused holistic therapies, spiritual demonstrations, delicious organic food and live music, took place in the light, airy gallery space and was filled to the brim with Londoners seeking some Sunday ‘down-time’.
Album Review: Ralfe Band – Attic Thieves
There’s very little about Attic Thieves that isn’t in some way perplexing. Firstly, there’s the name, which brings to mind pesky bandits making off with people’s lofts in the middle of the night. That’s nothing compared to the music, though, which sounds nothing less than a collection of American porch-front songs transplanted to a haunted fairground. You wouldn’t be unduly surprised to hear any of the album’s twelve tracks issuing from a malign speakerbox in some surrealist horror film.
EP Review: Blacklands – The Wytchwood EP
Blacklands last album was called ‘Beware the Moon’. There’s not much to beware of here, unfortunately. Unless you happen to have a phobia of a hippy-zombie army, lurching across the horizon waving lentils and guitars, attempting to turn the clock back 40 years to a time when men could seriously wear flowers in their hair. I’m quite scared of that.