Releases

You've just completed your latest masterpiece and need to get the news out to a waiting world. Here's your opportunity. Click Here to mail us the details and a photo.

Please include contact, price and availability details.

You also get up to fifty words to let everyone know what you and your release is about.

Please keep pictures below 30k

---

Album: Presenting The Dials

Label: Self Released

Website: http://www.thedials.co.uk

Presenting The Dials provides a preview for their forthcoming album. At seven tracks long it provides more than enough clues as to the direction of the band. The Dials have got a very sixties feel to them, acoustic pop rock overtones that had they been there at the time, certainly wouldn't have been lost as a support band to the Kinks. It's manages to pick up an Incredible String Band wall of instruments an vocals. The important thing is that it does it whilst retaining it's own identity. Much more homage than pastiche.

 

Album: Restless

Label: Joka Records

Website: http://www.solongangel.com

"Restless" feels like a road movie in song. It's folk blues, tinged with Americana, that switches between driving and drifting. Along the way it encounters people and places, occasionally pausing to throw in a traditional song, that they adapt to their style. Fran and Mike pull a richness into their music that belies the simplicity of it's construction. Fran has a really expressive voice that delivers enotion so well, almost like June Tabor in a blues context. "Restless" captures that sense of wanderlust.

 

Jordan Senior
EP:Bengali

Label: Self Released

Website: http://www.myspace.com/jordansenior

The harmonica is a much neglected instrument, it's like people forgot the gob iron's place in music and it's development. Fortunately that doesn't apply to Jordan Senior, singer-writer-guitarist and producer of his new EP Bengali. He incorporates the instrument into his work to provide that extra sense of reflection on music that is already poignant. "From A Seaside Town" highlights Jordan's sense of perception and event. Singer/songwriter is a tough region, it would seem Senior has the strength to have a fighting chance

 

Doghouse Roses
Mini Album:Doghouse Roses

Label: Yellowroom Music

Website: http://www.myspace.com/ukdoghouserose

Doghouse Rose are a duo consisting Iona MacDonald(vox) and Paul Tasker(gtr), who also gets to pen most of the songs. The eponymous debut is a mini album that clocks in at seven tracks. If the adage of leaving people wanting more is true, it definitely applies in this case. It's not enough I felt like had a fansatic starter, a superb main course, "Wee Instrumental" was a delightful sorbet, but it felt like skipping desert. This is folk blues as it should be, sparse and poetic, instrument lite. The guitar picking is of a high standard and in a reflective mood I could listen for hours

 

EP: Wasted Time

Label: Self Released

Website: http://www.myspace.com/garystewartband

"Wasted Times" is a massive slice of acoustic orientated pop/rock with a toping of folk thrown in. It's got oodles of raspberry jam and butter icing in the middle and a generous portion of hundreds and thousands, just to round the whole thing off. The Gary Stewart Band sound like a young Oysterband, still hungry for success. That may be because of the size of the band, up to seven members. It might be down to Gary Stewart's vocal style. It might even be the interplay of India Patel's fiddle with the vocal, or any combination of the above. It's a great record anyway you want it.

 

Scott McKeon
album: Can't Take No More

Label: self released

Website: http://www.myspace.com/scottmckeon

At just 20 Scott McKeon is turning into one of the best blues guitarists in the country. Not just on the burgeoning Poole/Bournemouth scene, but on a national level. His talent has already brought him attention from the likes of Buddy Guy and North Mississippi Allstars. "Can't Take No More" comes down on the electric side of his skills and is more of a band effort, but he's equally at home with te acoustic blues. McKeon is living evidence that the South really understands the blues, regardless of which side of the Atlantic

 

Album: Jackie Oates

Label: Hands On Music

Website: http://www.jackieoates.com

Despite what the papers would have you believe, illicite affairs and underage sex are nothing new, as Jackie Oates self titled album shows. The media of history is song and Jackie has put together a really salacious selection, for her and her band to get into. It's not all sex and drinking, the album covers the highs and tradgedy of the human condition. Accompanied by the likes of Belinda O'Hooley and Phil Beer, who also produced the album. "Jackie Oates" is the work of a rising star. I'm convinced we will be hearing a lot more of her.

 

Album: Unexploded Bombshell

Label: Creating Reality

Website: http://www.domchapman.co.uk

"Unexploded Bombshell" is the debut solo cut for Chapman. It's an aptly named album from this inspiring singer/songwriter. On the surface there is a warmth to the material, enhanced by subtle use of orchestration throughout the album. Underneath you can feel the brooding of an individual that has had his run ins with life and hasn't always re-emerged unscathed. It's not a whining bitterness, it's the sound of someone that has grown from the experience and has a gift that allows him to turn those experiences into songs.

 

Album: Mair Licht

Label: Hackpen Records

Website: http://www.mouse-eat-mouse.co.uk

Scotland has often been home to innovation in folk music and Mouse Eat Mouse are certainly part of that tradition. The songs are poetry and rants set against a musical backing. They cover political issues, the ages of radicalism, CND, lost opportunities and common sense. Wear clean breeks in case of accidents. Mouse Eat Mouse have an 'interesting' approach to their music. Dark and brooding, like a Scots John Truddell. I did need my wife to translate some of the slang terms used on the album.

 

The Accolade
Album: Still In The Cities

Label: Tamusic

Website: http://www.theaccolade.co.uk

The third of the leading lights in the Poole/Bournemouth connurbation(most it's prominent buildings appear on the sleeve) to release a cd in recent months. The Accolade pick up on the Americana genre for their inspiration, drawing on alt.country and US folk for their sound. The band pen all of their own songs and this album sees them building on the success of last year's self titled debut. There's not a weak track across the fourteen released on this cut. The Accolade deserve... their accolades.

 

Tim Arnold
Album:Secrets Of Soho

Label: Self Released

Website: http://www.myspace.com/timarnold

Whilst there are lots of albums about travel and the road, it's often the ones that are focused on one place that get really interesting. It's particularly true of albums about places you think you're familiar with. That's the case with Tim Arnold's album, "Secrets Of Soho" You get a view of places and people that you didn't know in an area you did. Arnold's jazz touch to his music also manages to envoke part of the area's charm for me. Arnold turns something that is obviously personal into a guided tour you couldn't find in an a to z

 

Album: Painted Lady

Website: http://www.jonboden.com

Jon Boden, the tall one from Boden & Spiers, delivers an album that can only be described as a masterclass in songwriting for the contemporary folk world. Dark, bordering on gothic, rich in sound and image, the album positively broods with menace. It may not have the body count of murder ballads, but there is an undertone that beguiles like a vampire turned to song. If that sounds depressing, it's not, mainly because it's not without hope and redemption. Wine, cigarettes and Boden, you know you shouldn't but you can't help it.