Beyond The 45
Singles, EPs, Downloads
The Fatea office also serves as a home for our weekly Along The Tracks show on Folk Friday Radio and as a rule singles and Eps have generally gone in that direction whilst Fatea generally concentrates on albums and live reviews for our full length feature, but with more artists going back down the single route to keep themselves in the public eye, we thought it was time to reflect that in our offerings and as rules are made to be broken or at the very least adapted, welcome to the Singles Round Up.
Bruce Springsteen - A Rainy Night In Soho
brucespringsteen.net
The first single from a tribute album 20th Century Paddy - The Songs of Shane MacGowan, due in the Autumn. Springsteen has reimagined the old Pogues hit with a few E-Street band touches. Big drum rolls and vibes but adds a solo trumpet and orchestral backing to create an epic sweeping song. MacGowan the songwriter was never given his due in life so perhaps this star-studded album will redress that. TM
Vickers Vimy - Breaking A Fever
www.facebook.com/vickersvimy
Inspired by Bert Jansch and John Fahey, the County Mayo band say, "Breaking A Fever moves from fever-dream haze into clarity, capturing the afterglow of late-night hallucinations and the search for a voice again." Coming across like an Irish folk version of Coldplay, this would be a great radio play song. TM
Eileen Rose - Lockdown
www.eileenrose.com
A blues/soul shuffle which Rose wrote "as a sort of homage to the music of Ike and Tina Turner. She liked to imagine Tina herself belting this one out in a fringe skirt and big hair wig." Comparing the end of a relationship to the 2020 lockdown the song features Italian trumpet player Raffaele Kohler who Rose encountered online in that strange time. A fun and punchy dance tune straight out of 1969. TM
Abigail Lapell - Shadow Child (ft. Frazey Ford)
www.abigaillapell.com
The title track of Lapell's new album feature's Frazey Ford's distinctive vocal as a duet, and what may well be a Theremin added to a spikey electric guitar, which together bring an unsettling air to a song which looks at the joy and fear of childbirth. If the stark otherworldly sound and feel to this song is typical of the album, then it will be a highlight when it arrives in May. TM
Chloe Matharu - Peat Fires
www.chloematharu.co.uk
We've covered Matharu's harp-based tunes here before and this amongst her best. Inspired by her Croft home in the Outer Hebrides it features her distinctive vocal blended with fellow Scot Vivien Scotson, and Irish musician, Clodagh McCarthy. Ethereal and lovey, the musical version of a Scottish mist. TM
Marina Florance - Faith
www.marinaflorance.com
A slight delicate tune from singer and writer Florance. With a vocal that sits right against your ear and the piano and guitar dropped into the distance. A thoughtful song which sounds quite unlike anything else currently trading as "folk." It takes a while for the words to sink in, but when they do you will be playing his on repeat. TM
Jaime French - The Hunter
www.instagram.com/jaime.french
A debut single with an initially catchy folk/pop feel that morphs into a punchy big rock chorus and back. The songwriting is a step ahead of the legion of Taylor copyists, while still having the potential to speak to that audience. Quality modern pop with a folk edge, and enough depth and grit to have a broader appeal. It is crying out for a TV soundtrack appearance to boost the streams. TM
Polaroyd - Prayers (You're Not Bold Enough To Say)
www.polaroyd-music.com
A stinging slide guitar, pounding drums on a song which reflects Polaroyd's approach to creating their music where improvisation alternates with composed passages. The song stops halfway through to pick up again into what feels like an improvised section to complete it. Unusual in structure but very listenable. TM
Ruby James & Rosie Flores - Bumblebee
rubyjamesmusic.com
A pumping update of the 1950s standard best known for a version by Lavern Baker. Guitarist Roise Flores turns in a fuzz guitar piece straight off the Nuggets album. The whole song is somewhere in 1965 garage rock land and is the lead single from a now highly anticipated album Call It Rock & Roll. TM
Lee Ann Kelly - Home
leeannkelly.com
One of the best of the new wave of British country singers, Kelly has kept a more English feel to her music than some of her Nashville bound contemporaries. The fiddle is as much Norfolk folk as Bluegrass and the song itself is a catchy acoustic number that deserves airplay and notice more than most of the output of the USA home of Country. TM
Lemoncello - Articulate Animal
www.lemoncelloireland.com
An Irish band comprising Laura Quirke (guitar/vocals) and Claire Kinsella (cello/vocals) who produce an ambient soundscape over which they offer delicate melodies and at times abstract singing. They describe their approach to new album Perfect Place. "With this album we wanted to express things that are difficult and messy. Sometimes to be clear emotionally you need to be abstract lyrically, but you can't be afraid to take everything off and just stand there completely vulnerable." And that gives you a clear idea of their intriguing music. TM
Little Lore - Don't Speak
littlelore.uk
Little Lore aka Tricia Duffy's latest album, Being Serafina, was inspired by the work of Tennessee Williams. Taking elements of his play The Rose Tattoo, Don't Speak looks at the moment that Serafina learns that her husband has died. Duffy says, "the sparse music is uncomfortably dissonant with an off-key drone in the mix to give that sensation of the blood rushing in our ears as she experiences the shock." It is indeed a stark simple song and all the more effective because of that. TM
Re:Vulva - Mammoth Party
www.revulva.org
Imagine folk with a techno beat and you have the latest single from Re:Vulva. A danceable instrumental tune, lead by fiddle and mandolin. "They reclaim the best classic folk tunes and refashion these and their own compositions with a squirt of millennial pop nostalgia." Claiming to be fuelling the folk revolution, they sound like they will be a great live show, and you can find them at festivals across the summer. TM
Brona McVittie - Stolen Child
bronamcvittie.corkbots.com
Evocative, a dark brooding track literally oozing with atmosphere. The title alone brings me feelings of foreboding, the beauty in Brona's voice carries those feelings deeper. I'm always amazed by the quality of music FATEA receives, this track being no exception. Instantly listenable (is listenable a word) well, if not it should be where Stolen Child is concerned. MF
Dan Whitehouse - Only Love
www.dan-whitehouse.com
A warm, relaxing recording which embraces your soul. Maybe everyone should get to experience this kind of only love at least once in their life. Lead yourself to the kitchen, find your favourite mug, make your most pleasurable brew, shuffle your way back to the sofa, wrap yourself up in Dan's sublime voice, close your eyes and dream of everything you only ever, really, wanted from love. MF
Allan Thomas & The Fake News - Fake News
https://allanthomas.bandcamp.com/track/fake-news-blues
Insightful, foreboding, honest, a huge dose of tell it like it is. An absolute stonker of a track that manages to succinctly sum up the situation that we currently find ourselves in. I suppose we could take some comfort in the fact that songs like this are still allowed and that, so far, we're not locked up just for listening. An exceptionally entertaining track which, somewhat surprisingly, gives me hope. Thank you very much for documenting all this sh*t in song. MF
John Reed - The Newburn Smugglers
www.johnreed.bandcamp.com/album/the-newburn-smugglers
Commissioned by a local Berwick illustrator Alison Edwards to write a song for a project about the story of Lancelot Errington and his nephew Mark who took Lindisfarne Castle for the Jacobites in 1715, Reed went two better for a 3-track EP. The Erringtons were a wealthy Newburn upon Tyne family who supplemented legitimate income with smuggling guns and brandy and, in October 1715 the pair hatched a plan to put Lindisfarne Castle under the Jacobite Flag, gaining entrance to the castle courtesy of the Master Gunner who used to be Lancelot's barber. This is all summed up in the stridently strummed title track while, adding more detail, 'Sergeant Chadwell's Men' recounts them getting the garrison drunk aboard their ship the Mary ("With salmon from Goswick shore/nd brandy of the finest kind/They feasted well, they feasted long/They drank till they were blind"). Unfortunately, French reinforcements never arrived and they were taken prisoners, escaping Berwick Tollbooth jail by tunnelling under a loose floor tile, as told in the nigh seven-minute 'Outlaw Masquerade' which speaks of the escape, Mark's sweetheart and eventual wife Sally and how they had to masquerade as women ("Bonnets for the two big men/Never had they seen the like…bodices so tight about/They grimaced hard and practised pout/A sight of ridicule indeed") while on the run before eventually being pardoned, with Lancelot returning to Newburn to run a pub. MD
Fatea Showcase Sessions
The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.
Pirate is the current session and features 16 fantastic artists check out the website to find out more about them and download your copy
www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk for all the artist information.
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