Editorial : EG55 JulyThe heat is on. Not just the heatwave that is currently delighting us but exciting new developments. As I write this Apple’s new OS Mountain Lion is about to pounce. Kickstarter is set to launch in UK. We are planning to engage more closely with Vimeo, the best video channel on the planet , and then there’s the music. A new Dylan album in September with rumours suggesting he is on formidable form. In this issue we are pleased to include amazing albums by Wussy, John Murry, Levellers, Kyla La Grange, Ides of Gemini and much more. Hot stuff.Lee Edwardswww.electricghostmusic.com

ElectricGhostEnglish & American Roots | Alt Rock Folk Blues Psychedelic | Songwriters | Emerging and Established

The Free Monthly Music e-Journal

Journal #55ElectricGhost • 01Artwork: ElectricAngel Blues Mixed Media Print Lee Edwards

electric angel bluesstumbling into the lightblowing the dirt from small talk

Journal #55ElectricGhost • 02

The Last Bird To Sing / Ewan McLennan (Fellside Recordings) Second album from Scottish young folk singer, guitarist and songwriter. This album builds on the earthy and raw feel of his debut. Mixing traditional Scottish ballads, uplifting swing of chorus songs plus instrumental poignant airs to energetic dance tunes.

Watch On The Street

Watch On The Street

Ewan McLennan

Go To Ewan McLennan’s Website Watch Rolling Hills Of The Borders

Niall Kelly

Go To Niall Kelly’s Website Watch Working For Your Pardon

Of Trivial & Gargantuan / Rivers Of England (Self released) Bath based quintet based around frontman and singer songwriter Rob Spalding. Lush strings, Hammond/Rhodes plus cello and viola add a quintessentially English feel to their acoustic sound. The songs are concerned with rivers, meadows and rural England.

Rivers Of England

Go To Rivers Of England Website Watch The Meadow Sways

Hand In Fire / Niall Kelly (Self released)Debut album from London based Irish singer songwriter. It charts the challenge of leaving Derry in Northern Ireland and the realities of life as a musician. The music varies from subtle and delicate to the psych-soul freak-out of the title track.

Whompyjawed / The Black Twig Pickers (Thrill Jockey Records)West Virginia’s acoustic roots trio are advocates of an ecstatic and highly personal approach to old time music. This album offers long-form, highly rhythmic and deeply layered takes on traditional fiddle and banjo music.

The Black Twig Pickers

Go To The Black Twig Pickers Website Watch Sugar In The Gourd

Photo: Tim Stuhldreher

Brothers In Brooklyn / The Dreaming Spires (Clubhouse Records) Review: Lee EdwardsDebut album from Oxfordshire’s Bennett brothers. This lot come with a great backstory. Robin and Joe Bennett played in both Danny & The Champions Of The World and Goldrush as well as co-founding two award-winning festivals, Truck and Wood. Then they staged an American version of Truck in Upstate New York where they jammed with Mercury Rev, Tim Easton and The Jayhawks – all of whom are now big fans of the Bennetts.Their influences include Big Star, The Band, Gram Parsons, and The Byrds. From this heritage they build a unique melodic and joyous roots rock. Their American jaunt, traipsing across the States in a beat-up Chevrolet van with no mirrors, informs much of this album. A truly timeless set of great songs performed with passion and style.

awellupontheway / Red River Dialect (Lono Records) Review: Lee EdwardsRecommended by Dave Heumann of Arbouretum. The Story goes... Red River Dialect are five people who met in Falmouth, Cornwall. A mostly rural county that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. David Morris took on the name Red River Dialect for his songs sometime in 2006, making recordings and performances with a revolving group of people until he met guitarist Simon Drinkwater in 2008. they got to know Jack Kindred-Boothy who now plays bass in the band, which led to the inclusion of his good friend Ed Sanders on violin & harmonica & Hugh Cowling on drums. A lot of this album is about Morris’s impending departure from Cornwall, where he was born & lived for 27 years. The amplified, feedback-droning, violin squalling sea chanties reveal a band every bit as compelling as Arbouretum.

www.clubhouserecords.co.uk Watch Strength Of StringsWatch Not Every Song From The Sixties Is A Classic

redriverdialect.bandcamp.comWatch Album Sampler

The Graceless Age / John Murry (Bucketfull Of Brains) Review: Lee Edwards Solo album from Tupelo, Mississippi singer-songwriter John Murry. Four years in the making and was produced by Tim Mooney (American Music Club) and featuring Mooney, legendary Memphis folkie Bob Frank, alongside likes of Chuck Prophet and Kevin Cubbins. Murry is a survivor and is unafraid of facing and reconciling his demons forthrightly and with a gut wrenching honesty across an album filled with layered guitars, strings, voices and experimental electronica. Murry is very much a part of history and myth of the South and is distant relative of the great southern writer William Faulkner. Chuck Prophet, a friend of Murry’s, comments on the album, “Don’t ever underestimate John Murry, don’t ever presume you know. It’s never a bad idea to keep an eye on John, not because he’s dangerous but because you’ll miss something.” This is an album that fearlessly exposes his dark past through songs that are powerful and healing. Remarkable album.

johnmurry.net Watch Schoolboy Blues (Cocksucker Blues)

Journal #55ElectricGhost • 03

Surviving The DemonsJohn Murry Photo: Amoreena Berg

Worship / A Place To Bury Strangers (Dead Oceans) Review: Lee EdwardsAnother album from Brooklyn based audio wizard Oliver Ackermann’s trio. Yes they’re back. Guitars as jet engines; guitars as haunted electronics; guitars as filling-melting white heat: A Place To Bury Strangers’ new album Worship is explosive, visceral, and dark. Ackermann says, “We made this, we recorded this, we did everything,” adds Ackerman. “Yes, we chose to do this and no, we didn’t have to but we think it is pretty cool. No producer made us. We didn’t go to school for any of this and we don’t have time for tutorials. We invented this and now we are sharing it with you.” As always they explore the limits of loud, but woven into these songs are strong melodies that hold the guitar storms together.

Ground Of Its Own / Sam Lee (The Nest Collective Records) Review: Lee EdwardsStriking debut album from a new young folk musician on the traditional folk scene. Not content to learn only from books or records, Sam has sourced most of his material direct from English Gypsy and Irish and Scottish traveller communities. Live or on record, Sam Lee and his band, Francesca Ter-Berg; Cello, Jonah Brody; Japanese Koto (Harp) Jews Harp & Ukulele, Steve Chadwick; Trumpet & Cornet, Camilo Tirado; Tabla, Percussion & Cantele, Flora Curzon; Violin, present a rich tapestries of ancient songs in an innovative and dynamic fashion, fronted by Lee’s rich baritone vocals. His varied background as visual artist, teacher of wilderness survival skills and a part-time Burlesque dancer influences his unique approach to his music.

www.facebook.com/aplacetoburystrangersWatch You Are The One

samleesong.co.ukWatch Over Yonders Hil Watch The Gainsborough Packet

Campfire Tales / The Agnostic-Phibes Rhythm & Blood Conspiracy (Shoutin’ Abner Pim Recordings) Review: Lee Edwards An unlikely collaboration between garage-punk, underground legends Forbidden Dimension and twisted roots-music cult-heroes Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir produces a wonderfully strange debut album of horror rock and murder ballads. The songwriting strengths of Jackson Phibes and Bob Keelaghan plus their intricate guitar interplay sews together a rich stew of deranged garage rock with roots music. Bassist Vlad Sobolewski and drummer Jason Woolley add the fearsome rhythm section. Heading in to the twilight zone they regale us with the old-time tradition of murder ballads with modern macabre storytelling. In the deep, dark woods of Canada, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, there is a dilapidated cabin. The campfire tales created there involve monsters, madmen, and libidinous biker women. An unholy fusing of Robert Johnson with Tom Waits. Moody, rowdy and not for the faint hearted. This music not only howls at the moon, it takes it prisoner.

Journal #55ElectricGhost • 04

The Twilight Zone The Agnostic-PhibesRhythm & Blood Conspiracy

www.facebook.com/Agnostic-Phibes-Rhythm-Blood-Conspiracy Watch CD Release Party

Lupus / Dead Sea Apes (Deep Water) Review: Lee EdwardsFirst full length album from Manchester three-piece sonic psych warriors. Formed in 2009 they comprise Brett Savage (guitar, bass, loops); Nick Harris (bass, guitar) and Chris Hardman (percussion, electronics). Their instrumental sun-scorched psychedelic, raga infused improvisations remind me of Earth and Barn Owl. Cinematic and ghostly dubbed-out post-rock soundscapes that experiment in improvising on drones and loops, followed by varying amounts of editing and further recording. Their wall of sound fuses Eastern style guitars with stoner rock jams and layers of supernatural atmospheres. At times it is dreamlike, like a walk in a haunted wood under a full moon but with a hint of menace from something unseen but felt.

Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead / Vivian Stanshall (Poppy Disc) Review: Lee EdwardsThe ginger geezer’s great lost album is found and remastered with family notes. Long unavailable apart from low quality bootlegs, this is a sumptuously remastered luxury edition sanctioned by the estate and family. It also has a cast of rock and jazz musicians to die for that include: Steve Winwood, Neil Innes, Gaspar Lawal, Jim Capaldi, Ric Grech and Reebop Kwaku Baah. His widow acclaimed novelist Ki Longfellow contributes witty and highly personal comments that include, referring to How The Zebra Got His Spots and Prong & Toots Go Steady, “They’re about his cock. He loved his cock. (Fond of it myself.) It never let him down. It gave as good as it got.”. This is a very welcome classic album from a sadly missed eccentric genius and national treasure.

deadseaapes.bandcamp.comWatch Pharmakon

www.gingergeezer.netWatch Strange Tongues

Static On The Airwaves / Levellers (On The Fiddle Recordings)Review: Lee Edwards Tenth studio album from veteran folk-rock band. It all began when Musicians Mark Chadwick and Jeremy Cunningham met in The Eagle, a pub in Brighton, in 1988. Discovering that they had a fair bit in common, including a left wing view of politics, they decided to form a band. They soon added Charlie Heather on drums and Jon Sevink on fiddle and, after a short while, Alan Miles to play harmonica, guitar and mandolin. Miles was replaced by Simon Friend. Fast forwarding to today and almost a quarter century their new albums shows that their political edge and fierce some musicianship has not in any way dimmed or diminished. Produced by Sean Lakeman, who is renowned for producing his brother’s Mercury-nominated and gold-selling albums as well as Letters From The Underground (Levellers’ previous album), Static On The Airwaves was recorded ‘as live’ at Sono Studios in Prague. In a world of corporate corruption and political idiocy we need Levellers more than ever.

www.levellers.co.uk Watch Truth Is Watch After The Hurricane Watch Levelling The Land (Live at Brixton Academy)

Journal #55ElectricGhost • 05

Roots UndergroundLevellers

Thick As Thieves / Larkin Poe (Edvins Records) Review: Lee EdwardsThe Lovell sisters get soulful on their seven track mini album which includes a special edition set with a live sixteen song performance on DVD. This follows up their Band For All Seasons, the box set of 4 EPs the band recorded and released through the seasons (Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter) of 2010. Always refusing to be hemmed in by the restraints of country music they crossed most music genres, even hints of jazz and reggae. This time working with a six piece band they settle into a rootsy soulful blues groove. All the songs were co-written by Rebecca and Megan Lovell. They co-produced with Marlon Patton percussionist on the album, regular drummer Chad Melton plus Rick Lollar on guitars, while Todd Parks and Will Robertson guest on bass and keyboards. Strong songs with vocal power make this essential.

Back To Forward / play_rewind_eject (Oh Mercy Records) Review: Lee EdwardsSelf produced album from Ipswich singer and songwriter with tales from the road. After ten years of touring the UK in Ipswich based band Hayze, singer songwriter Pete Thompson naturally gathered a large amount of stories of life on the road. During both the good and times he kept writing and produced a mountain of songs. He also plays every instrument (including programming the drums), working alongside top mastering engineer Pete Maher (U2, The Killers, Razorlight, Jack White) in providing the finishing touches. “It’s a very British sounding album...it’s got big choruses and guitar solos which are great!” enthused Maher on hearing the finished album. A regular on our playlist Thompson is positively oozing talent. Watch him take off.

www.larkinpoe.comWatch Play On

playrewindeject.bandcamp.comWatch Give Me Answers

Buckeye / Wussy (Damnably) Review: Lee Edwards Acclaimed Cincinnati four-piece rock and roll band release their third album. Chuck Cleaver, the tattooed, bearded, barrel-chested frontman of the Cincinnati band Ass Ponys suffers from stage fright and asked his equally tattooed girlfriend Lisa Walker to join him for a series of solo shows. The musical chemistry sizzled and in early 2000 they formed Wussy. The two guitarists are joined by Mark Messerly (bass, keyboards) and Joe Klug (drums). Their sound is basically drones and jangly guitars. Lyrics and vocals are equally shared between Cleaver and Walker. A compelling blend of Yo La Tengo and the Velvet Underground with a touch of REM. Two great singer songwriters complimenting each other on guitar and vocals over a pulsating thrum of drone-shoegazey. Exclusively for Europe, this remastered 17-track release features a selection of highlights from their previous albums, and will be the band’s first official International release. A band to totally fall in love with. Highly recommended.

www.wussy.org Watch Live On KEXP (Waiting Room, Pulverized, Grand Champion Steer, Pizza King, Little Miami)

Journal #55ElectricGhost • 06

Velvet PulseWussyPhoto: Brian Hall Photo: Brian Niesz

Orfeo / Fay Hield & The Hurricane Party (Topic Records) Review: Lee EdwardsFollowing her acclaimed debut album Looking Glass Fay Hield is back with her second set of fine traditional material. Whilst her debut focussed on her magnificent unadorned voice this time she back with a great band. The Hurricane Party features Andy Cutting (button accordions, melodeon), Rob Harbron(English Concertina, fiddle, vocals), Sam Sweeney (fiddle, viola, cello, nyckelharpa, vocals) and Jon Boden (fiddle, guitar, percussion, double bass, mandolin, additional banjo and vocals) plus special guest Martin Simpson (banjo, guitar). Hield choice of music of songs is again exceptional. Title track Orfeo is retelling of the epic supernatural Greek fable, Orpheus and Eurydice. The Old ‘Arris Mill is feisty mill girl tale. A total delight from start to finish. Powerful and passionate music.

Warn The Waters / Tarras (Horsefly/Proper) Review: Lee EdwardsTarras are a six piece band hailing from the north of England and the borders of Scotland. Using instruments including accordion, violin, cittern and mandolin, Tarras have a traditional sound - but with the addition of drums, piano, guitar and bass, the songs and arrangements are thoroughly contemporary in style and delivery. Warn The Waters blends traditional and self-penned material over 10 songs with the band’s distinctive contemporary style. After breaking up in 2002 they reformed in 2011 in a music environment much more favourably disposed to folk music. Founder Ben Murray explains, “The folk world’s reaching broader audiences. We never just did straight traditional music and we still don’t.” An excellent band who deserve a second chance.

www.fayhield.comWatch Orfeo

www.tarrasmusic.com Watch Promo Video

The Bear’s Revenge / Moulettes (Balling The Jack Records) Review: Lee Edwards Second album from unique eight piece folk rock ensemble with an epic orchestral feel. This is a totally bewitching and potent stew of celestial harmonies, haunting harmonies, woodwind weirdness, swirling strings and compulsive driving rhythmic wildness. They wilfully blend folk, classical, prog-rock into a unique and highly engaging presence Once and future Moulette, Ted Dwane, now of Mumford & Sons has recently returned to the fold to help record the album. Other guests include acclaimed folk-blues songstress Liz Green, Irish flute and whistle player Ríoghnach Connolly; and virtuoso banjo-ist, Matt Menefee of American nu-bluegrass band Cadillac Sky. Lyrically the build a fantastic world of heightened panoramas, dramatic narratives and surreal characters. These owe as much to Mediaeval poetry, fantastical fiction and fairy tales as music. A world where tethered circus bears wreak gory revenge; and strange woodland creatures dance spiky jigs. Mad magical and marvelous.

www.moulettes.co.uk Watch Someone Who You Love Watch Devil Of Mine

Journal #55ElectricGhost • 07

Weird FolkMoulettes

Time As We Know It / Todd Snider (Aimless Records) Review: Charley DunlapTodd Snider’s tribute to Jerry Jeff Walker.Todd Snider’s Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables is currently a hit; understandable: he is a great combination of sharp wit, wordsmith talent, musical ability, earthy populist politics and casual presentation. Suddenly, here is an album to honour his hero, Jerry Jeff Walker. When Austin, Texas was barely the seed of what it is now, Jerry Jeff was known as a country ‘outlaw.’ Now, along with Townes Van Zandt, he might well be called a father of Americana. Recorded with Great American Taxi and a few guest stars, Time As We Know It is nicely loose, like first takes by great musicians: perfect for Snider’s style – and for Jerry Jeff’s. Mr Bojangles is here with 13 JJW songs. It is comfortable, country and perfect, like a well worn, dusty boot.

The Sister / Marissa Nadler (Box Of Cedar Records) Review: Lindaura GlamouraThe Sister is a dreamy album, literally. Offering up a collection of hauntingly tender songs, Marissa wraps her sweet voice in a blanket of sonorous echo that, together with a honeyed underpinning of melancholy guitar, leads us into an almost unbearably mournful world. Marissa’s voice is as compelling as ever in its reverberated sweetness and irresistible in songs like The Wrecking Ball Company and Love Again, There is a fire. This is an intimate journey through Marissa’s haunted memories and not an album for the faint hearted. The tempo verges on indolent, but if you are a Mazzy Star fan, you will be pleased with the album’s minimalist production, resembling So Tonight That I Might See. A gorgeous album, the purity of Marissa’s voice perfectly matches her wistful, sorrow-filled songs.

www.toddsnider.netWatch Sangria Wine

marissanadler.bandcamp.com /the-sisterWatch The Wrecking Ball Company

There Is A Bomb In Gilead / Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires (Alive Naturalsound Records) Review: Lee EdwardsDebut album from the explosive Alabama quartet. The title of the album comes from Bains mishearing an old hymn as a child. He explains, “There is a balm in Gilead” sounded a lot like “There is a bomb.” After returning to Birmingham from college in New York, Lee Bains fell in with the Dexateens, a Tuscaloosa institution whose raggedy union of cock-eyed rebel pride and forward-thinking fury proved to be the perfect apprenticeship for a confused Southern boy, raised on Skynyrd and schooled in Faulkner. After leaving the Dexateens, his appetite whetted, he hunted around for another band. He finally assembled the Glory Fires: drummer Blake Williamson (Black Willis, Taylor Hollingsworth, Dan Sartain), bass player Justin Colburn (Model Citizen, Arkadelphia), and guitar player Matt Wurtele. The album is full of soulful and passionate songs that blend dirty garage rock with a fierce Muscle Shoals vibe and topped off by Bains’s drawling, howling voice. This is a band that is truly heading for glory. Light the fuse.

Journal #55ElectricGhost • 08

Light The FuseLee Bains III & The Glory Fires

thegloryfires.comWatch The Red Dirt Of Home Watch Opelika

Constantinople / Ides Of Gemini (Neurot Records) Review: Lee EdwardsFull-length debut from US stoner psych rock trio. The band produce a reverb-soaked choir of etherial ghosts floating over scratchy guitars and narcoleptic spaghetti western soundscapes. Everything revolves around the haunting and inimitable vocal prowess of singer/bassist Sera Timms. The compositions are the long-simmering mental fallout of veteran music and film journalist J. Bennett (guitar/backing vocals), and the trio is completed by Kelly Johnston, whose martial drumming techniques and soaring backing vocals literally brings Ides Of Gemini sound to life as a performing entity. Chilling and unsettling, turning tales of spiritual discord into disturbing lullabies, it has been termed ‘dream doom’. Haunting, mesmerising and essential.

Awakefulsleep / The Hawthorne Effect (Red Mist Records) Review: Lee Edwards Debut album from The Hawthorne Effect a four-piece rock band from Chicago. The band are John Jauch (Lead Vocals/Rhythm Guitar); Scott Fritz Lead Guitar/Vocals); Will Sprawls (Bass / Keys / Vocals and Joe Babiak (Drums). The album is a roller-coaster of emotion and reflects the differing sides of the human experience not only through lyrics, but also in sound. Addiction, oppression and mortality are just a few of the topics touched upon in this ten song soundtrack of lives that is unclassifiable as a whole, yet still somehow hauntingly familiar. The lyrics have rich layers of meaning wrapped in memorable melodies. Soulful classic rocks songs. This is a good start for this band and it will be interesting to see how they develop.

www.facebook.com/IdesofgeminI Watch Martyrium

www.facebook.com/thehawthorneeffectWatch Drunk Mistake (Acoustic Version)

Ashes / Kyla La Grange (Sony)Review: Lee EdwardsHighly anticipated debut album from London based singer songwriter with a devoted following who hang on her every word and have been drawn into her world, a highly imagistic one that matches the dark mystery of her music. As a child she wasn’t very happy and was drawn to the darker side of life. “I’ve always written songs about miserable things,” she laughs. “I have so many booklets of songs from when I was 12 or 13, and they’re so depressing!” Her parents though arty, bohemian types who would fill the house with all manner of magical paraphernalia. “We had trees and plants growing over the walls, nude figurines, monsters’ heads. She uses her childhood experiences to create a sort of magical gothic forest, which provides a backdrop to songs that range from intimate to gloriously loud and intense. Songs that emerge from the dark side of the human condition, or, in the case of Vampire Smile, “an all-consuming crush” that she had on “an entirely inappropriate person”. The album is an intoxicating rush. Enjoy the ride.

www.kylalagrange.com Watch Walk Through Walls Watch Vampire Smile Watch Been Better

Dark MysteryKyla La Grange

Journal #55ElectricGhost • 09

ElectricGhostMusic

ElectricGhostM U S I C I S L I K E O X Y G E N . . . E S S E N T I A L

NEXT ISSUEAugust 2012

ElectricGhost Music WebsiteOur website is our online home for all the exciting developments that are happening for ElectricGhost Music. Check out all the features.Go To: www.electricghostmusic.com

Electric Ghost Business OpportunityWith all the changes and developments at ElectricGhost Lee Edwards is looking for a business partner to help him take ElectricGhost Music to the next level. Check out the full details. Go To: business opportunity

July Video Playlist Our monthly dozen this time we feature our usual choice selection of music that we discover : Warren Zevon, Father John Misty, Wye Oak,

Eric Clapton & Stevie Winwood, The Rolling Stones, Bon Iver, Jimmy Page & Robert Plant, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Ronnie Lane, Leeroy Stagger Band, Natalie Merchant, Michael Stipe & Billy Bragg and Neil Young. Enjoy this selection and feel free to suggest music videos that we could feature. Watch: July Video Playlist

Artwork/Design: Lee Edwards | ElectricGhost Art & DesignWriters: Lee Edwards, Charley Dunlap, Lindaura GlamouraPublisher: ElectricGhost MusicCopyright: ElectricGhost Music. All rights reserved.

ElectricGhost Links FACEBOOK BLOGSITE SIGN UP EMAIL US

ElectricGhost Notes JulySean Taylor Live @ Chapel Arts Centre, Bath

A superb performance to an appreciative audience

Heritage Blues OrchestraA compelling new take on America’s Blues legacy

Goodbye From ChumbawambaAfter Thirty Years It Time To Go

Two Gallants TeasersA cracking video prom and a preview of the album cover

And Finally...A New Album From Bob Dylan

For the full July issue of ElectricGhost Notes go here:electricghost notes july

The Flaming Lips, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Little Feat ...and much more plus the best audio

and video links. Published end of August.

Journal #55ElectricGhost • 10

Life : The MovieThe Walkabouts / Collected Films & ClipsFor full review go here: life the movie Photo: Victor van der Saar