Tag: BGS-UK

The Bluegrass Situation Returns to The Long Road

Posted on by Editor

The Bluegrass Situation and BGS-UK return for a second year to The Long Road with the creation of the BGS Songwriters Cafe on Sunday, September 8. The three-day festival, set for September 6-8 in Leicestershire, England, takes place at Stratford Hall. (Ticket information available here.)

Continuing the long tradition of great listening room venues such as The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, The Troubadour in Los Angeles, and The Gaslight in New York, BGS will bring together some of today’s best roots songwriters from the US, Canada, and the UK, culminating in a one-of-a-kind in-the-round session, swapping stories and songs. Artist lineup and more details will available soon on the BGS-UK Facebook page.

The Long Road Festival will feature performances by Rhiannon Giddens, Asleep at the Wheel (making their first full-band appearance in the UK in more than 10 years), The Cactus Blossoms, Charley Crockett, Sam Outlaw, The Steel Woods, and John Paul White, as well as some of the leading UK country, Americana and roots artists including The Hanging Stars, CoCo and The Butterfields, Jake Morrell and Peter Bruntnell. A number of mainstream country artists will also appear.

The Long Road’s Creative Director, Baylen Leonard stated, “I couldn’t be more excited to share what we have in store for year two of The Long Road. After such a warm embrace by Country and Americana fans in year one, we got straight to work on the line-up and experience for this year and it promises to be even better. Top notch artists, hands on experiences, and great food, all in a world created just for music fans really is something special. I can’t wait for the gates to open.”

In addition to BGS-UK, the following organizations are returning with festival partnerships: The Birthplace of Country Music, which showcases the role that Bristol, Tennessee and Bristol, Virginia played in the birth and development of country music; The Americana Music Association UK; and independent UK label Loose Records. These organizations will bring artists to the festival to showcase the broad array of talent across the global country, Americana and roots music scene.

Learn more about the festival at www.thelongroad.com.

Britain’s Got Bluegrass: March 2019

Posted on by Editor

Get off your couch and go hear some live music with Britain’s Got Bluegrass! Here’s the BGS-UK monthly guide to the best gigs in the UK and Ireland in March.

Mile Twelve, 20 March, Green Note, London (and nationwide)

First let us rave about Mile Twelve, a band who, unlike the bearded wonder, have never played in the UK before, and who will–we guarantee — send you home with a big smile on your face. This young five-piece from Boston are some of the most skillful musicians of their generation — they’ve picked up multiple Emerging Artist award nominations at past IBMA Awards for their ability to mix hard-driving traditional bluegrass with a thoroughly modern sensibility, all while charming an audience’s pants off. Catch them on this UK tour and you’ll be able to say you saw them first… Check out their cover of “Rocket Man.”

Chris Stapleton, 8 March, Glasgow

If there’s a musician more likely to bring a British arena to its knees this month, we’d like to know who it is. In a land of anxiety-ridden repressives (we can say that because we are too), Chris Stapleton is so droolingly cool that it’s tempting to worship him as a god. Last time he was in the British Isles he was duetting with Justin Timberlake at the Brits, for heaven’s sake. In addition to Glasgow, you can catch his barrel-aged voice in Dublin and London, where he’ll be sharing the billing with Keith Urban, Lyle Lovett, Ashley McBryde and Lady Antebellum among many more at the C2C Country to Country music festival.

Thunder and Rain, from 6 March, nationwide
A dreamy blend of dobro, mandolin, guitar and bass, the Colorado-based band Thunder and Rain sound as Golden as the town they hail from. There are plenty of opportunities to catch them across the UK and Ireland on their month-long tour, from Bangor to Basingstoke, Southport to Middlesbrough, and Edinburgh to Whitstable.

Ida Mae, 12 March, Norwich

With their Ethan Johns-produced album dropping this summer, it’s a good time to introduce yourself to Ida Mae, the husband-wife duo of Chris Turpin and Stephanie Jean. Their previous band, Kill it Kid, specialised in indie-grunge, but they’ve now created an altogether mellower sound that’s already proving hot property stateside. Having upped sticks from north London and moved to Nashville, this is a rare chance to catch them back in Turpin’s hometown. They’ll also play London’s Omeara before heading back to the US to tour with Blackberry Smoke.

I’m With Her, 19 March, Hackney Empire, London

The three artists in I’m With Her don’t like being called a supergroup. So let’s just say that the hot-damn are-you-serious this-is-too-much power trio of Aoife O’Donovan, Sara Watkins, and Sarah Jarosz stop off in London for a single night at the Hackney Empire before they embark on a European tour of Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Spain. And if you’ve never heard them sing live, you need to get yourselves to this gig and find out just how many ways their vocals can break your heart.

Photo of Mile Twelve: David Green

Baylen’s Brit Pick: Lonesome Shack

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Lonesome Shack
Hometown: London via Seattle
Latest Album: Desert Dreams (available March 1)
Sounds Like: The Black Keys, The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Rayland Baxter

Why You Should Listen: Lonesome Shack moved to London from rainy Seattle, so you imagine they feel right at home with the British weather. Desert Dreams, their third album, is the kind of music that promises to warm you up from the inside out: the perfect thing to listen to when Storm Erik is battering at your door and the UK papers are predicting a snowbomb. If you like a bit of blues — of the hill country or desert variety – mixed with some backwoods boogie and a dash of psychedelia, then Desert Dreams is for you. (Check out the BGS premiere of the title track at the end of the story.)

Ben Todd (the fingerpicking frontman of the trio) was clearly dreaming of warmer climes when he wrote these songs last winter. Perhaps he was thinking back to the early 2000s, when he spent four years living in a shack he’d built himself in the Gila wilderness in New Mexico. It was there he taught himself to play blues tunes from old recordings while living off the land. In the years since he’s honed his unique sound with the help of drummer (and graphic designer) Kristian Garrard and bassist Luke Bergman.

It should be said that, while honouring the past, this record sounds as bright as a new penny. That about sums up the feel of this recording: planted in yesteryear but cultivated firmly in the now. I for one will have it on standby to see me through the inevitable four months of winter we still have to come, before the London sunshine shows up for about a week. The album doesn’t drop until the 1st of March – but I can’t see springtime reaching us before then.

Speaking about the title track, Ben Todd says, “I wrote this album in sequence and ‘Desert Dreams’ was the last song I wrote. I see it as a postscript to the album, with a different feel, a dreamy lightheartedness. In the studio we had never played this song before as a band and after we ran through it a few times we recorded this live, first take. It tells the story of a dream sequence that touches on fears of ‘desertification’ that you hear about in the Southwest US where fertile land becomes useless after human impact plays its course, but in this case it’s an imagined city that fills up with sand. I worked at an adobe brick manufacturer in New Mexico and most of my job entailed shoveling sand and clay proportionately into a cement mixer to be poured into brick forms. Memories of this show up in the song: ‘I dreamed I was digging clay’ and ‘It takes sand and clay to begin to build the city up again.’ The chorus is an adapted quote from the book The Quick and the Dead by the great southwestern writer Joy Williams.”

As a radio and TV host, Baylen Leonard has presented country and Americana shows, specials, and commentary for BBC Radio 2, Chris Country Radio, BBC Radio London, BBC Radio 2 Country, BBC Radio 4, BBC Scotland, Monocle 24, and British Airways, as well as promoting artists through his work with the Americana Music Association UK, the Nashville Meets London Festival, and the Long Road (the UK’s newest outdoor country, Americana, and roots festival). Follow him on Twitter: @HeyBaylen

Photo credit: Holly Birtles

Six of the Best: Songs About Gunslingers

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Like movies? Like yodeling? Wow, is this a big week for you. And, as it happens, for Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, who will be mixing it with Lady Gaga and Mary Poppins on the Oscars red carpet on Monday as Best Song nominees. If you haven’t yet seen The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Coen Brothers’ latest movie, then believe us that it’s worth the Netflix subscription, if only for the sight of Tim Blake Nelson singing “yippie-kay-yey” while floating through the sky with a celestial harp. Maybe it’s the fact that we’ve been bingeing on the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood Man with No Name trilogy this week (God bless you, Ennio Morricone), but it’s about time for a list of great songs about gunslingers. (Please note: we don’t think that shooting people is cool, or a viable alternative to an impartial judiciary.)

“Big Iron” – Marty Robbins

Robbins’s iconic 1959 album, Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, is packed with sharpshooters and outlaws – from Billy the Kid, to Utah Carol, to the nameless man about to be hanged for killing Flo and her beau. Sure, it’s most famous for Robbins’s biggest hit (and Grammy winner) “El Paso.” But if you’re looking for the classic quick-draw at high-noon (or in this case, twenty past eleven), you won’t find better than the opening track, “Big Iron.” Written by Robbins himself, it’s a classic tale of good vs evil as a handsome stranger (and Arizona ranger) rides into town to bring down murderous outlaw Texas Red. If those backing harmonies – especially the incredible bass drop – don’t give you goosebumps, check your pulse. You may be technically dead.

“Gunslinger’s Glory” – The Dead South

If there’s one thing Canada’s premier punkgrassers love to write, it’s songs about Westerns. Maybe it’s because lead singer Nate Hilts’s uncle, back home in Saskatchewan, was (as he puts it) “a big ol’ cowboy”. Either way, their albums are littered with shootouts and bodies, and their high-energy, high-drama approach to performance lends itself well to the subject. This is one of their best, tackling the age-old problem of being a famed gunfighter: that everyone else wants to bring you down. Tell us about it, punks.

“The Last Gunfighter Ballad” – Guy Clark

Johnny Cash’s version – the titular track from his 1977 album – is better known than Guy Clark’s original, recorded a year earlier. But Cash’s spoken-word rendition, given with his trademark rhythmic trot, isn’t perhaps as melodious, or as affecting, as Clark’s. A simple guitar line underlies the story of an old man drinking at a bar, recalling his former life of shoot-outs in dusty streets and “the smell of the black powder smoke”, and the twist in the final chorus is a reminder that modern living isn’t without its own dangers. That’s Waylon Jennings on the harmonies in the chorus, by the way.

“When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings” – Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

Probably the best thing about the Coen Brothers’ portmanteau of short stories from the Wild West is its opening, with Tim Blake Nelson clip clopping into frame on his white horse, strumming a black guitar and singing Marty Robbins’s “Cool Water.” The second best comes seven minutes later, when Willie Watson shows up as his nemesis. The duet that Welch and Rawlings penned for the pair may be a parody of a cowboy song, but the music’s so en pointe and beautifully sung that the humour takes second place to the artistry. Also, Welch and Rawlings invented a new word – “bindling” – for the song, which has got to be worth the Oscar nom.

“Gunslinging Rambler” – Gangstagrass

There’s a fair amount of reference to guns and violence in the songs of the world’s first (and only) hip-hop bluegrass fusion band. Despite the title, and the assertion of the protagonist that “you gonna wind up another notch on my gun belt”, you realise as the lyrics progress that this one’s not actually about a gunfight, but its modern-day equivalent, the rap battle. R-SON recorded this track for their 2012 album, Rappalachia, and it contains arguably the most devastating lines on the album. “I’m not killing these guys, please let me explain/But when I’m done, there’ll be very little left of their brains.”

“Two Gunslingers” – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

What’s the best kind of story about gun violence? One where everyone agrees to give it up. Released in 1991 on Into The Great Wide Open, it’s a glorious moment of self-revelation that subverts both the genre and our expectations. As one of the gunslingers so eloquently puts it: what are we fighting for?

Photo courtesy of Netflix

Britain’s Got Bluegrass: February 2019

Posted on by Editor

Get off your couch and go hear some live music with Britain’s Got Bluegrass!, BGS – UK’s monthly guide to the best gigs happening in the UK and Ireland. Here are our top picks for February:

Mike McGoldrick, John McCusker & John Doyle — from 11 February, nationwide.
After their sell-out shows with the Transatlantic Sessions, John McCusker, Mike McGoldrick and John Doyle take their powerhouse folk trio on the road. The Wishing Tree Tour visits 24 towns and cities across Britain until 9 March, including London (Kings Place), Liverpool and Perth.

The Dead South — 17 February, Birmingham.
The Bastard Son tour has reached the UK and Saskatchewan’s superstars of bluegrass have been steamrollering their way through the UK on a series of sold out gigs, and their remaining nights in Portsmouth, Brighton, London and Cambridge are all returns only. But you can still buy tickets for their Birmingham gig, at O2 Institute3, so grab them while you can.

Whiskey Shivers— to 23 February, nationwide.
The Austin punkgrass outfit are halfway through their rumbustious tour, with gigs still to come in Galway, Norwich, Nottingham, Settle and Newcastle upon Tyne. We recommend the 19 February gig at the Lexington in London, whose upstairs room should suit their energetic, anarchic spirit.

John Smith — 24 February, Royal Exchange, Manchester.
The singer-songwriter’s first album, Hummingbird, combines his original songs with a deeply personal collection of traditional folk tunes. And he’s bringing his unique blend of slide and fingerstyle guitar to one of Manchester’s favourite venues.

Baylen’s Brit Pick: CoCo and the Butterfields

Posted on by Editor

Artist: CoCo and the Butterfields
Hometown: Canterbury, England
Latest Album: Monsters Unplugged

Editor’s Note: Look for CoCo and the Butterfields and BGS – UK at AmericanaFest UK, held Jan. 29-31 in London. 

Sounds Like: Bellowhead, Seth Lakeman, Florence and the Machine with added indie pop

Why You Should Listen: CoCo and the Butterfields are just joyful and January should be joyful. Ok, I know we are all trying to stick with our “new year new you” goals. New fitness regimes, meditation apps, veganuary, dry January, etc., but come on, surely we can all get on board with more joy!? Great, we are agreed! First thing to do then is listen to this rowdy good time group of multi-instrumentalists who combine folk, bluegrass, hip hop, indie pop, Celtic, and country. Hell, there’s even some beatboxing thrown in for good measure. I said they are rowdy and they can be, in the best possible way, but they also do soft and sad, again in the best possible way.

I first met the band when they rolled up for a session on my radio show in a multi-colored minivan they had painted themselves. They all piled out looking like a touring version of Hair, the musical, and I knew they were my kind of people. Incidentally they do all have amazing hair, but that’s beside the point. The main thing for us to note is their music is wholly and completely original, it’s a sound only they could make and I’m so glad they do. A true ensemble band, sharing vocals and switching instruments at will. They are crowd pleasers and joy makers. I’ve seen them in a packed out basement club and in an expansive field in the middle of the country and they are at home in both.

I think the reason they aren’t bigger in a “mainstream” type of way, is because they are so undefinable. A great thing in my book. So, let’s all treat ourselves, close that fitness app, and open up the playlist below and let’s start the year in the way we mean to continue, with more joyful music and fantastic hair.

As a radio and TV host, Baylen Leonard has presented country and Americana shows, specials, and commentary for BBC Radio 2, Chris Country Radio, BBC Radio London, BBC Radio 2 Country, BBC Radio 4, BBC Scotland, Monocle 24, and British Airways, as well as promoting artists through his work with the Americana Music Association UK, the Nashville Meets London Festival, and the Long Road (the UK’s newest outdoor country, Americana, and roots festival). Follow him on Twitter: @HeyBaylen

Photo Credit: Nicky Johnstone

The Shift List – Phil Bracey (P. Franco, Bright) – London

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Phil Bracey is not a chef, but rather the manager of P. Franco, a neighborhood wine shop, bar, and makeshift restaurant in Northeast London’s Clapton neighborhood. Along with Bright, a new restaurant that opened nearby last May, Phil was instrumental in P. Franco being named Restaurant of the Year by Eater London in 2017.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • MP3 

It’s important to note that ‘manager’ is a broad term, as Bracey admits that even he doesn’t know what his actual title would be. Granted, he helps to procure and looks after the wines, but more important, and less easy to recognize, is that his approach to hospitality is passionately personal.

Fed up with the pretentiousness that often accompanies drinking wine, Bracey set out to make P. Franco a welcoming space that encourages experimentation by customers, allowing them to discover natural wines in an environment that’s relaxed yet lively, a space that you can pop into for one glass and ultimately end up staying for the rest of the night.

Music is paramount to the customer experience at both P. Franco and Bright, and like a good DJ, Bracey is constantly dialing in the playlists during each night’s service, doing his best to follow the flow of the evening.

Theme Song: Jamie Drake – “Wonder”

WATCH: Si Cliff, “Run”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Si Cliff
Hometown: London, UK
Song: “Run”
Release Date: January 15, 2019

In Their Words: “The track ‘Run’ started out as two separate voice recordings of the chorus melody and bass line. An idea that I arranged on guitar later that week turned into what you hear now. The starting groove of the verse came to me when practicing and it fit so well. The lyrics are about having lots of chances not to face up to things these days, with many apps and endless media sources to preoccupy us. We can find excuses to put real life and decisions on hold when the time to do them is now.” — Si Cliff

Photo credit: John Powell

Baylen’s Brit Pick: 10 Bands Who Deserve Love in 2018

Posted on by Editor

The UK scene is as varied as it is exciting, even with doing an article each month, I haven’t really scratched the surface. There are so many fantastic UK acts that deserve some love, so with it being the end of the year, and the season of giving, let’s have a quick-fire round of artists that are worth some time in your busy ears. All are worth an entire Brit Pick, but time is short, and you have present to wrap so let’s get to it.

Yola

Yola is someone who is no stranger to BGS but she’s dropped her last name (Carter) and has a new single out, “Ride Out in the Country,” with a long-awaited new album on the way in 2019. She’s one to watch for sure. Country Soul at its finest, like taking off a pair of tight shoes, Yola soothes the soul.

O&O

London duo O&O formed in Liverpool via Israel and Colorado, with harmonies for days.

Treetop Flyers

Treetop Flyers have been rocking the UK scene for a while now but their 2018 self-titled album and appearance at Americanafest in Nashville kicked it all up a notch.

Emily Barker

Emily Barker has a lovely bluesy Memphis sound, she’s from Australia, but we’ve adopted her and she’s adopted us and everyone is happy. She’s a leading light on the UK scene and was named UK Artist of the Year at the UK Americana Awards in February.

The Marriage

A duo from Edinburgh and London, The Marriage are masters of sublime truth telling.

Hannah White

Hannah White has worked hard providing a space for homegrown acts to perform at her Sound Lounge initiative in London and has fought local government and developers every step of the way to do so. She’s a mighty fine artist as well, and one who gives back.

The Luck

The Luck are a brother/sister duo with a touch of the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac about them–what’s not to love?

Noble Jacks

Noble Jacks will get your feet stomping and raise any roof that’s not nailed down properly.

 The Hungry Mothers

Aside from having an amazing name, the Hungry Mothers combine dreamy folk with indie soundscapes.

Lucas & King

Finally, Lucas & King sound like they stepped out of the ‘60s in the best way. I love them.

So there you go, an embarrassment of riches from these isles to get you through the holiday season. If you want even more, dig into my personally-curated playlist and enjoy:

As a radio and TV host, Baylen Leonard has presented country and Americana shows, specials, and commentary for BBC Radio 2, Chris Country Radio, BBC Radio London, BBC Radio 2 Country, BBC Radio 4, BBC Scotland, Monocle 24, and British Airways, as well as promoting artists through his work with the Americana Music Association UK, the Nashville Meets London Festival, and the Long Road (the UK’s newest outdoor country, Americana, and roots festival). Follow him on Twitter: @HeyBaylen

Photo of Yola: Alysse Gafkjen

Canon Fodder: Kate Bush, ‘The Kick Inside’

Posted on by Editor

Poor Lizzie Wan meets a dark end every time someone sings her song. In the ancient Scottish tune that takes her name as its title, the young lady finds herself pregnant out of wedlock and confronts the father, who happens to be her own brother Geordy. His solution to their dire predicament is to withdraw his sword, decapitate her, and dismember her body. Afterward, he tries to convince their mother that the blood is from his beloved greyhound, but the truth proves inconcealable. At song’s end he is planning to flee: “Oh, I will dress myself in a new suit of blue,” goes one version of the lyrics, “and sail into some far country.” With its heir absent, the family will flounder in disrepute.

Even the grisliest murder ballads, such as “Knoxville Girl” and “Banks of the Ohio,” carry similar subtext: Imagining the murdered woman is pregnant with the killer’s child provides some motivation for what often sounds like a senseless killing. In “Lizzie Wan,” however, the pregnancy is complicated by the father’s relationship to the mother. Incest ballads are not uncommon, but they represent a taboo even more forbidden than violence. So it’s all the more remarkable that Kate Bush had the audacity to rewrite “Lizzie Wan” on her 1978 debut, The Kick Inside. The title track imagines a very different ending for the story, one that grants its distressed protagonist more sympathy and more agency in her fate. Rather than confront her brother, she leaves home and escapes to who knows where, saving not only her own life but also that of her unborn child. Rather than a victim, Lizzie becomes something closer to a hero.

There is nothing in Bush’s version, either musically or lyrically, that explicitly points to its source material. Coming at the end of an album that is very elaborate in its pop arrangements, the song strips away everything but the most basic elements: voice, piano, and minor orchestral flourishes. “The Kick Inside” sounds hushed relative to the elaborate songs that precede it, but still intensely idiosyncratic, emphasizing her graceful vocal swoops and pirouettes. Her performance, as eccentric and potentially off-putting as it may be, reinforces the empathy of her lyrics, which take the form of Lizzie’s parting letter to her lover/brother: “This kicking here inside makes me leave you behind,” Bush sings. “No more under the quilt to keep you warm. Your sister I was born.”

Bush was only a teenager when she undertook such a highly ambitious project to rewrite a centuries-old ballad. Her version betrays a potent strain of adolescent romanticism (“You must lose me like an arrow shot into the killer storm”), yet she displays a sensitivity that seems beyond her years. “The Kick Inside” usefully complicates the narrative by neither condoning nor condemning its protagonist for her predicament. It feels like an act of supreme mercy that Bush allows Lizzie to survive her own song after centuries of being murdered. We can sing along without participating in the violence against her.

In its inspiration “The Kick Inside” is a very different kind of folk song, but it does not sound like folk music. Forty years after its release, it sounds like nothing we associate with roots music. Rather, it’s anchored in the rock and pop of the late 1970s, incorporating some of the jazziness of Van Morrison, the sophisticated melodicism of the Beatles, and some of the artsy conceptuality of Pink Floyd, but all toward very different ends. She belongs to the generation that popularized punk, yet she is only punk insofar as she vociferously rejects certain commercial aspects of pop music. It’s not that she’s not a folkie; it’s that she’s not anything other than Kate Bush, a genre consisting of only one artist.

Growing up in Bexleyheath, Kent, in the southeast of England, Bush began writing songs when she was 11 years old, the most prodigious talent in an intensely musical family. Her mother specialized in traditional Irish dance, and her brothers were active in the Kent folk scene; in fact, brother Paddy plays mandolin on The Kick Inside. Her family produced a tape of 50 demos of her original songs and shopped it around to record labels, with very little luck. Eventually the tapes—which have since been widely bootlegged—found their way to David Gilmour, guitarist for Pink Floyd, who helped secured a contract with EMI. The label placed the teenager on retainer until they felt she was old enough to release an album and handle her success.

Perhaps they underestimated her. Bush emerges as a headstrong and even visionary artist almost from the start, with very rigid ideas of how she wants to present herself and her music. EMI originally wanted to release “James and the Cold Gun,” a rock-inflected tune that suggests a more aggro Carole King, as the first single previewing The Kick Inside. Bush not only objected but managed to convince them to release “Wuthering Heights” instead. It was a risk: The song is based on Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, sung from the point of view of a ghost haunting the moors and pining for a living lover. It was hardly a formula for chart success, especially when Bush postponed the single by a month when she was unhappy with the artwork EMI provided. When it was finally released in January 1978, Bush was vindicated. By February “Wuthering Heights” was the number one song in England, and she made history by becoming the first woman to top the UK charts with a self-penned song.

Released in March 1978, The Kick Inside reveals a young artist positioning herself strategically between the ancient and the modern, between folklore and pop music. Sounding very much of its moment, it is nevertheless an album populated by ghosts and spirits. Not goth but certainly gothic, it is an album of hauntings. Some are literal: That’s Catherine Earnshaw’s spirit tapping at the window in “Wuthering Heights.” Other are figurative: The spellbinding music she describes in “The Saxophone Song” seems to have supernatural origins and powers, and the mysterious lover in “The Man with the Child in His Eyes” only appears “when I turn off the light.” Remarkably these ghosts are not diminished by the modern sound of The Kick Inside. Rather, they thrive in that friction between the old and the new.