Monday 11 June 2012

May and June Recommendations, 2012


RAE MORRIS

I first saw this girl opening for Noah and the Whale back in March, and though all I’d seen of her was a few Youtube videos and hadn’t known she was the support act, I recognised her straight away because, with her wild brown ringlets and easy-to-lag-around keyboard she plays, Rae Morris is sort of iconic. She has an impressively ginormous voice and powerful set of lungs but when she stopped to express her awe at the size of her audience, a full to the brim Manchester Apollo, she spoke softly and shyly.
This song, “Don’t Go”, is particularly lovely.



BEN HOWARD

When I first listened to Ben Howard’s, “The Fear” I got this feeling that I’d heard it before. I don’t know if it was because I’d heard it on the radio or on a film or something, but it’s full of familiarity, springing from a minor key in the verses to an energetic, freely guitar strumming chorus, both the song’s structure and Ben Howard’s style of playing guitar remind me a lot of Mumford and Sons, which is never a bad thing. His record “Every Kingdom” is really unique, and full of references to nature, the stars, the forest and the ocean.
He’s also done this brilliant and hilarious cover of “Call Me Maybe”.



ANGUS AND JULIA STONE

Angus and Julia Stone are no brand new discovery of mine, neither are they unheard fof. Isaline, my French exchange sister, introduced me to Angus and Julia Stone last year and I recently bought their album “Down the Road”. I guess they make folk music. They’re Australian, a brother and sister, and really talented both separately and together, and their music and lyrics are the kind that sounds like home: it becomes the place that you are when you listen to it, whether that’s cycling on a spring morning, driving down the M6 late at night or just laying in bed when it seems like the whole world is quiet.
I couldn’t choose which song to post, because it’s all good, particularly “Big Jet Plane”, “Devil’s Tears” and “Santa Monica Dream” but this unique cover of “You’re The One That I Want” from Grease is really cool.


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I'm sorry for absence recently, and I should be back to writing much more frequently.
Hope all's well your end

- Lizzie x