Good On Paper YouTube Playlist January 2016

Each month we put together a YouTube playlist featuring artists taken from our music listings.

This month features artists playing at The Prince Albert, Stroud Valley Artspace, the Crown & Sceptre, the Subscription Rooms, the Convent and Christ Church in Stroud during January 2016!

Click here to listen: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKG_R7pR5h4&list=PLBnnnmSSrgAP_jSDKO5eoNemdj7Mm1FSb

1 - Yumi and the Weather: Must I Wait (The Prince Albert, Thurs 28th)

2 - Rhain: Humdrum (The Prince Albert. Sat 9th)

3 - Emily Barker: Anywhere Away (The Convent, Thurs 28th)

4 - Songs of Separation: Echo Mocks the Cornrake (The Convent, Thurs 21st)

5 - Little Metropolis: Ghosts (The Prince Albert, Sat 9th)

6 - Eyebrow: Eye Pod (The Prince Albert, Sat 16th)

7 - Craig Cofton (Freight Quartet): Handfried (SVA, Thurs 14th)

8 - The Dukes of Mumbai: Jack the Ripper (Crown & Sceptre Fri 22nd)

9 - Son Yambu: Yo No Me Voy (Subscription Rooms Sat 30th)

10 - The Bristol Ensemble (Christchurch, Nailsworth Sun 17th)

11 - European Union Chamber Orchestra (Subscription Rooms, Sun 31st)

12 - Jaz DeLorian: Pragmathobia and other Delusions (The Prince Albert, Tues 5th)

13 - Darren Hodge: Cannonball Rag (Stroud Brewery, Sat 30th)

14 - Tobias Ben Jacob & Lukas Drinkwater: Boots of Spanish Leather (The Prince Albert, Thurs 14th)

15 - Lauren Housley: Sweet Surrender (The Convent, Sat 23rd)

Pick up issue #10 for further info!

Recommended Releases by Anna Jacob

Ardyn:  Universe

Debut EP released last month via National Anthem records

Ardyn (formerly Kitten & Bear) are nineteen year old twin brother and sister duo Katy and Rob. Originally from Cirencester, Ardyn have performed regularly in Stroud since they debuted at a local battle of the bands competition at the tender age of fifteen.

Universe is poptastic in the best possible way: catchy melodies tastefully delivered and simply produced together with some very clever harmonies and layering of vocals. Katy is blessed with a truly effortless, timeless voice. It just doesn't seem fair that they are only nineteen. I can’t wait to hear what they do next…

Taken from our debut EP of the same title released 13th November via National Anthem. Pre-order the 10" vinyl here - smarturl.it/ArdynEP iTunes - smarturl.it/Ardyn

www.facebook.com/ardynband

www.soundcloud.com/ardynband

Emlyn: Etherialism

Debut EP self released in September

Emlyn Bainbridge is a young Stroudie, now based in Bristol.

Etherialism is a voyage in ambient, electronic alt-folk music with a dreamy, sombre quality. Quirky production makes sparsely written songs sparkle a little brighter. Aiming for the minimalist sound recently made ubiquitous by the likes of The XX, Emlyn’s first release shows ingenuity and promise.

www.facebook.com/emlynartist

www.soundcloud.com/emlynbainbridge

Anna is a writer and devoted Stroudie with a passion for music, comedy and art. Visit her blog for reviews, poetry and more www.reviewyourmum.wordpress.com 

Live Review: King Klam by Sean Roe

Image by Sean Roe

“Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny” proclaims the Facebook event page inviting potential guests to the newly formed briny groovesters King Klam début performance at SVA on a wet and windy December evening. The farcical funksters comprise of Jonny Hamer on Sax, Hugh Hopper on bass and Rob Pemberton (from Hot Feet) on drums.

And farcically funky and briny-ly groovy they surely were! Some solidly syncopated rhythms balanced nicely with free flowing and melodic strangulations on the Sax all held together by the understated strumming and dranging of the bassist with more foot pedals than feet. Their songs all had wonderfully surreal titles - none of which my inebriated blubber brain can recall! An appreciative audience was lucky to squeeze an encore out of the lads before Graeme continued with his excellent selection of music on the decks. Shame I had to leave early to continue listing records on ebay...

Image by Sean Roe

Sean Roe is a Stroud based artist and musician. He runs JunKroom Records an extremely small outlet for unusual music www.facebook.com/junkroomrecords

Get The Blessing - 'Astronautilus' by Sean Roe

Get The Blessing is a jazz fusion/post rock band from Bristol featuring Jim Barr and Clive Deamer of Portishead on bass and drums with Jake McMurchie on saxes and Pete Judge on trumpet and flugelhorn. All players appear to use live processing and electronics to alter and enhance the sound of their instruments.

Astronautilus their 5th album was recorded while the band was holed up on a remote part of the Cornish coast where the landscape clearly influenced their playing and song titles! They have retained the experimental playfulness and jazzy stylings of their previous recordings, but their sound palette has expanded somewhat.  About half of the tracks have a darker feel with greater emphasis on texture and atmospherics, with more open form song structures - particularly on a track like Sepia, which is drenched in echo and reverb like a kind of murky subaquatic inky tone poem. Good humour and lightness also has a place in this varied set with Monkfish, a Thelonius Monk inspired foot stomper that the band clearly enjoyed performing in the recording studio (if the audible off mike vocal exaltations are anything to go by).

There is an adventurous use of electronics throughout, on one of the slower songs like Carapace with its echoey ethereal sax loops that build to a crescendo before rippling away through granular synthesis to silence - and on the up-tempo more rhythmic tracks like the album opener afro-beat influenced Phaenomena, with its overdriven and insistent low-fi bass pattern and blistering distorted sax solo by Jake McMurchie.  Cornish Native is another stand out track with Pete Judge’s “mutant trumpet” (reminiscent of Jon Hassell) providing the opening rhythmic melody line.  With these electronic storms brewed up by the call and response improvisations of the sax and trumpet, underpinned by the rock steady bass of Jim Barr, it is often the clean precision and inventiveness of Clive Deamer’s drumming that shines through on these recordings.
With this album Get The Blessing have solidified their reputation creating inventive genre defying music that is varied and unfussy that has melody and improvisation at its heart. Warmly recommended!

Astronautilus is out now on Naim and is available to buy from here

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Pick up a copy of our latest issue to read Sean's interview with Get the Blessing prior to their show at the SVA/Goods Shed on Sat 5th December

Visit the website: www.theblessing.co.uk

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Sean Roe is a Stroud based artist and musician. He runs JunKroom Records an extremely small outlet for unusual music facebook.com/junkroomrecords

Adam Horovitz & Josef Reeve: Little Metropolis - By Simon Vincent

Having been asked to review the Little Metropolis album (which has recently been funded through a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign) I sat down with an air of trepidation as those involved are good chums of mine, and the subject matter is a place so ingrained into my heart that it is indeed part of me and me part of it.

As soon as the first few notes hit me I was struck by how it reminded me of those heady days in the late eighties and through to the nineties, and the emotion of first hearing the likes of the Orb.
Josef Reeve has managed to capture the spirit of the time and place with gorgeously subtle use of downbeat electronica and this runs throughout the album.

Adam Horovitz has been, and still is one of Stroud’s greatest assets. "HE KNOWS STROUD" and this is evident in every word. He paints pictures of a Stroud when we were young and he paints it with such clarity that if you were lucky enough to be there at the time it feels like you are there again. But if you are new to Stroud for reasons of geographic movement (or too young to remember) this album will transport you there.
The inventive use of samples of stories from those that have fond memories of the area bring another welcome dimension.

One thing I really enjoyed about this album is that it compares to a damn good book (in fact there is also a book version available). One that you cannot but down and one that you read from start to finish. You will not want to break off half way through this album and you will not want to press pause. Each track leads you to the next with great anticipation.

If you think poetry ain't your thing, think again. If you think it won't speak to you cos you ain't from Stroud, think again. This album is as good as if Kate Tempest was giving a modern history lesson on Stroud (I love Kate Tempest).

I congratulate everyone involved in making this project happen as it's a wonderful addition to the creative back catalogue that Stroud has and continues to expand.

Adam and Joe are the two stars of this album, but at the end of my review there are FIVE STARS

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Pick up a copy of our latest issue for our feature on the Little Metropolis project

Website: littlemetropolis.bandcamp.com

Facebook: facebook.com/littlemetropolisalbum

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Simon Vincent is the owner of Trading Post (one of Gloucestershire’s oldest record stores) and has been running it since 2001. facebook.com/tradingpost.stroud