Tag: britain

MIXTAPE: Rose Betts’ Cottagecore For Your Ears

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

I feel like I’ve been living a cottagecore life since always. All my interests outside of music line up: I sew my own clothes, read old Russian literature, and I love horse riding, long forest walks, and filling my house with wild flowers and candles – and dreaming of picnics out of baskets, dressed in long skirts with ribbons in my hair and champagne in tea cups. My upcoming album, There Is No Ship, is a love letter to my homeland, [the UK], where a cottagecore lifestyle is a bit easier to achieve than here in LA. But, here’s a playlist with some songs that make me feel closer to it. – Rose Betts

“Do It Again” – John Mark Nelson

John Mark Nelson and I met at a session and as soon as we got to talking about books I realized he was a total keeper and we’ve been friends since. His vibe is so cottagecore. The man’s car smells like a pine forest and he bakes his own bread. I feel like his voice is so cozy and this song just feels like a day inside with the rain against the windows and pleasant feelings of being in love.

“Snow In Montana” – Michigander

My sister considers it illegal to listen to Christmas songs outside of December, but this has to be an exception. I love this song. On whatever side of Christmas I listen to it, it either makes me wistful about the one to come, or pleasantly melancholic about the one just passed. “Snow In Montana” makes anywhere feel cozy, which is quite a feat if you live in LA. I listen to it in the car on the way home from Trader Joe’s with bags full of vegetables and cheese and flowers feeling all stocked up and ready to light candles and get flower-arranging. I own so many small vases so that I can crowd my house out with flowers and make it feel like a garden.

“Deeper Well” – Kacey Musgraves

Her voice is so smooth and rich, I love it. And, her songs have this warmth and natural quality to them that I just want to sink into. Makes me want to rent a cabin in the woods with friends and get a campfire and hot cider going and watch the sparks fly up into the night.

“Wells” – Joshua Hyslop

I’ve been reading Anne of Green Gables lately and those books are so full of nature and the simple life, they make me really want to run away to Prince Edward Island, pick apples, and make jam. This song has that natural feel, like a little stream you sat by for a while and had a beautiful time, but all the while knew you couldn’t stay forever. Anne as a character is wonderfully joyful, but also so tragic, so the meeting of those two qualities felt expressed in this song somehow.

“Inconsolable” – Kate Gavin

A friend who knows me well sent me this song and I listened on loop for days. I love the instrumentation, that lovely fiddle part! One of my favorite things about being a musician is that when my musician friends come round they just start playing whatever instrument is in the house. The other week my friend came round and our hangout consisted of cups of tea, me sewing a top, and him going through my pile of sheet music on the piano. This song has that feeling of shared music… maybe it’s the harmonies or those lovely melodies, either way it reminds me of impromptu musical moments that are just so lovely.

“Bishops Avenue” – Rose Betts

For about a year and a half, some friends and I had the run of a mansion on Bishops Avenue in North London. We put on plays, painted out in the orchard, had renaissance parties and banquets in the ballroom, and it was one of those golden times when everything is just a little more precious and glittery. I feel like it’s how I always want to live, banquets by candlelight and then some creative frivolity of some kind. Moving to LA, it’s hard to find orchards and dilapidated mansions to play in, but I found some playfellows who get into the spirit with me so I get close.

“Tier Abhaile Riu” – Celtic Woman

This song has such a strong feminine energy to it, reminds me of all my creative friends who enrich my life so much. My friend and I hosted an evening where we invited just women to come and share stories and we lit candles and drank Champagne out of teacups and it was total bliss. Something about women together in candlelight talking feels ancient and holy and special in a way nothing else is.

“Skye Boat Song” – Bear McCreary, Raya Yarbrough

I’m lucky to have a twin who lives in Scotland, so I get to visit a lot and even lived there for a while in lockdown. It’s such an amazing part of the world. There is a beach near her village where I’d go for walks as often as I could, where the seals sing and the sky stretches out like a great pearl above your head. So much of songwriting is about finding the silence in the noise, so that the song has space to blossom and so many songs came from those walks. This song I’ve known since before I could remember hearing it, but it became more well known to the world when they used it as the title track for Outlander. This is a beautiful version. It sounds like Scotland to me, full of low skies and colossal lochs and mystery.

“The Author” – Luz

Some songs are so lovely they make me want to stop listening and write a song instead. This is one of those. I’ve started trying to write a poem every morning, just something small to start my day creatively. Then I punch a hole in the paper and hang it off some fairy lights I have around my bed. I think we are all the authors of our own life, which isn’t what this song is saying, but it’s so darn romantic and in its existence turns the singer into the author that tells the girl how she feels. If that makes sense…

“Sigh No More” – Joss Whedon

I heard this song in Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing and it takes a Shakespeare poem and sets it to music. I always really liked it. I have a little book of Shakespeare’s sonnets that I’ve carried around for years and I’m always trying to learn a new sonnet. If I’m bored at some LA party, I’ll get it out and read a sonnet and it puts me in a better mood.

“The Stars Look Down” – Rose Betts

This is off my first EP and I sound so young, which is kind of embarrassing, but also sweet. It’s like hearing a past version of me. I was reading a lot of Russian literature when I wrote this song and it was the mansion period of my life (which I mentioned before for “Bishops Avenue”). I’d just discovered Tolstoy, was reading War and Peace, and this song is full of the stories and vignettes in that book, heroism and love and dreaming and nights of glory followed by disastrous heartbreak. Books have always been where I get the most inspired for my songs, the quality of the writing makes me work harder at my lyrics.

“Mexico” – The Staves

The Staves are a group of sisters who actually come from a town right by the one I grew up in. It’s a place called Watford and is a bit of grey hole of a place. It’s surprising that these three beautiful singers came out of it. I guess music and beauty can come from anywhere, which is how I feel about my life. There’s beauty in everything, and if there isn’t you can bring it. My little apartment in LA is pretty boxy and lightless, but once you add candles and art and music it’s suddenly a little bohemian enclave where I can rest and be creative. Me and family sing together and there’s nothing like families harmonising, which is why I chose this song. Reminds me of the supper table at my childhood home, where we sing before we eat and sometimes after too, and whatever argument or trouble that’s going on disappears for a moment.

Photo Credit: Catie Laffoon

‘Careful Of Your Keepers’ Is an Autobiographical Glimpse at This Is The Kit

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It feels like the protests are following Kate Stables around. Mere weeks ago she was in Paris, the city where she lives, when it was brought to a halt by the May Day march against pension reform, which ended in violence on the streets between police and demonstrators. Then, she arrived in the UK just as it embarked on a week-long series of national strikes against low pay and poor working conditions.

Stables does not disapprove of the disruption. “People have to remember that this is how change happens,” says the 40-year-old behind the British alt-folk outfit This Is The Kit. Whatever inconvenience Stables may face as a touring musician who currently can’t get around by public transport, she says, only helps to make the point. “It’s more inconvenient not getting paid enough and not getting treated properly.”

Since Stables relocated to France 17 years ago, the difference in national attitudes towards civil disobedience has been an eyeopener. “The UK has got a bit comfy over the decades and taken things for granted, they assume the government will look after them. In France, the slightest threat, people hit the streets and protest.”

Stables’ skills as an observer of the human experience is the golden thread that runs through her songs for This Is The Kit. Her 2018 fourth album, Moonshine Freeze, earned her a nomination for a prestigious Ivor Novello songwriting award, and her follow-up, Off Off On, saw her break further into the mainstream as critics applauded its depth and complexity.

A rarely overt but nevertheless keen political awareness is ever-present. And while Stables describes her new release, Careful Of Your Keepers, as “slightly more personal” than her previous albums, she’s aware that this is more in the way people will experience the songs than the way she necessarily intended them.

Take the track “More Change,” which was released as a single in early June. It is accompanied by an utterly delightful animated video made by her talented family friend, Benjamin Jones, in which various inanimate objects from sneakers to pieces of fruit search yearningly for connection and meaning.

“It sounds like a relationship song,” admits Stables, “But it started off with me thinking about situations in society, and people trying to decide if those are better now than 100 years ago. It’s an impossible question – there’s so much that’s worse and so much that’s better. You have to choose which one gets you through the day.”

The lyrics on the opening track, “Goodbye Bite,” include the memorable image of a “‘How shit is this?’ measuring stick” – and the question of change becomes a recurrent theme throughout the album. “I’ve been thinking about how we deal with it, how we quantify it,” says Stables, who compiled the songs over the past two years. “We make decisions by comparing things against each other… and it’s all meaningless, because any decision is a decision! You’re following your nose and hoping for the best.”

And yet, to quote a famous French writer, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The hypnotic sound and elliptical lyrics that have won This Is The Kit its cult following fanbase remain their trademark and Careful of Your Keepers is a joyous example of the acoustic folk and clubby groove that Stables’ (stable) line-up has been blending over the past decade.

The opportunity to rehearse together for 10 days at a friend’s house in Cork, southern Ireland, proved the power of the band’s long-lasting relationships. “We all live in different places now, but it did us all such a lot of good to be there together, so far away from our other lives,” says Stables. “As the years go by we’ve got better at giving and taking criticism, and you’re able to communicate better which isn’t always the case, in bands or in life.”

She herself has gained a reputation as a musicians’ musician, a favorite of Elbow’s Guy Garvey, The National’s Aaron Dessner, and Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals, who produced the latest album at her request. “I love his live shows, he’s so articulate and thoughtful. And in the studio he has just the right balance of sense of humour and total creative work ethic.” He also turns up in the “More Change” video, transmuted into a long-eared plasticine toy singing backing vocals.

Other influences on the album included punk-folkster Naima Bock, and Horse Lords (“the way they mess or play with rhythm and timing, it makes me so excited and alive”). At home in Paris, Stables has found creative community among a group of French and English artists that include Halo Maud, Mina Tindle, and Belvoir – a duo who, like her, hail originally from the west country of England, but now sing “really loud, super energy stuff” in their adopted French tongue. “Which is really nice, because the outside world doesn’t get exposed to enough non-Anglophone music.”

Stables herself found it slow-going to learn a new language, paralyzed by her fear of making mistakes or speaking with too English an accent. “I didn’t make any progress until I had my daughter,” she admits. “But after you’ve got over the shock of having a baby your inner punk wakes up and you don’t care what anyone thinks. So I got better quite quickly!”

She also found her new environment altered the way she made music. By her own admission, Stables is “quite a drone-y songwriter” by instinct– “I’ll have the same note all the way through,” she laughs. “But French songwriting has tons of chords in it. So now I try and write songs with more than two…”

One track from Careful Of Your Keepers offers an unusually autobiographical glimpse into her daily life. “This Is When The Sky Gets Big” was inspired by a favorite park near her home: “A rare place in the city where there’s loads of sky because there’s no immediate tall buildings.” “It’s not a classic Paris park of gravel and pollarded trees in rows,” She says. “You’re allowed on the grass which is pretty unusual.” The sight of people sharing food, playing card games or dominos – even those who live in the park, because they have no other home to go to – inspires one of the album’s most reflective tracks.

When we spoke, however, she was in Bristol, staying at the home of her friend and fellow musician Rachael Dadd ahead of a show at an open-air amphitheatre on the Cornish coast. Stables loves being on the road; her favourite touring destinations include Seattle, Hamburg, and Japan, a place she, Dadd, and her partner (the musician Jesse D Vernon) toured together in the very early days of the band. “I’d just moved to Paris at the time and I was in culture shock,” remembers Stables with a laugh. “So it was so good to be in a place where people were respectful and nice and said sorry and thank you as much as I did. I’d love to go back…”

There will just be time, before the main tour in support of the album kicks off, for a family wedding in Europe, where she and her twin sister will celebrate their birthday together. (Her two other siblings are also twins – they all spent a lot of their youth, she says, filling in questionnaires from research scientists). As someone with a teenage daughter of her own, the question of the future, and the legacy her generation will leave for the next one, is uppermost in her mind.

You can hear it in the final track of the album, “Dibs,” which ends with the apocalyptic thunder of washing machine drums and the line, “Since the beginning of time, man out of time.” Here is the real change that is coming: the music resonates with the sense of climate crisis without ever explicitly referencing it. “There’s no avoiding it,” agrees Stables. “It’s on everyone’s mind, it can’t help but dribble out into the songs we write, the worry. There’s no stopping the train.”

But as a lifelong fan of the science fiction author Ursula K Le Guin, she can, too, see a brighter future. “Her books are really reassuring, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s books have given me hope, too. Life does carry on. We’re currently living in absolute sci-fi conditions for people who were around 100 years ago. It would just be nice if we knew how to respect that, and carried on in a way that doesn’t create more suffering.”

Photo Credit: Cedric Oberlin

WATCH: Billy Bragg, “I Will Be Your Shield”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Billy Bragg
Hometown: Barking, Essex
Song: “I Will Be Your Shield”
Album: The Million Things That Never Happened
Release Date: October 8, 2021
Label: Cooking Vinyl

In Their Words: “To me this is the heart and soul of the album. I’ve come to the conclusion that empathy is the currency of music — that our job as songwriters is to help people come to terms with their feelings by offering them examples of how others may have dealt with a situation similar to that in which listeners find themselves. After what we’ve all been through, the idea of being a shield, physically, emotionally, psychologically, really resonates.” — Billy Bragg

Photo credit: Jill Furmanovsky

WATCH: Christina Alden & Alex Patterson, “Hunter”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Christina Alden & Alex Patterson
Hometown: Norwich, UK
Song: “Hunter”
Album: Hunter
Release Date: May 7, 2021

In Their Words: “This is a story of unusual friendship and strength in companionship, inspired by the beautiful work of Finnish photographer Lassi Rautiainen. In Finland’s northern forests a grey wolf and a brown bear — two typically solitary animals — were found to have formed a magical bond; playing, eating and hunting together. We loved the imagery of old pines and misty lands setting the scene for this natural wonder. Recorded at home in Norwich during the lockdown of 2020/2021.” — Christina Alden & Alex Patterson

Photo credit: Ben Alden

Amid Climate Crisis, Emily Barker Brings ‘A Dark Murmuration of Words’ to Light

Posted on by Editor

Emily Barker is sitting at home in the southwest of England, as the country sweats through its worst heat wave in 60 years. There’s something not quite right about temperatures of 90 degrees F and tropical downpours flooding the sleepy villages. It’s that kind of creeping unease that’s reflected in her new album, A Dark Murmuration of Words — a moving meditation on the state of the world today, in which climate change is a recurring theme.

Barker, who recorded the songs last November, worried whether it might be too much for an audience reeling from the pandemic. “Before the album came out I was wondering: are people going to want to hear these difficult songs at a time like this? Or do they just want escapism?” In the end, she decided to release them anyway. “I know myself I’ve been needing the hard stuff as a source of comfort to feel that collective experience of all the emotions we’re going through.”

In fact, her music achieves the perfect tone for the many unsettling feelings that COVID-19 has forced us to confront. Barker’s wistful melodies bear the listener along even as her evocative lyrics take you into uncomfortable territory. “Strange Weather” grapples with the real-life conversations she has had with her musician husband Lucas about whether to bring a child into a world under threat. “Any More Goodbyes” sounds like a breakup song, says Barker, but is actually a hymn of love to vanishing species. And “Where Have the Sparrows Gone,” with its haunting chorus (“they’re where the woods were once”), takes us into a not-so-distant future where birds have abandoned London, and the city is in lockdown.

The album captures the emotions of anyone struggling to take in the frightening predictions of climate scientists and witnessing the desperate fight of environmentalists like Greta Thunberg to bring humanity to its senses before it’s too late. “Last year the climate crisis was very much at the forefront of all of our conversations and thoughts, wondering what we can do to adapt, and feeling helpless and guilty and angry and upset and all these things,” says Barker, who admits she that even as an optimistic person, she had moments, in 2019, of feeling “really, really pessimistic about it.”

Her response was to try and change her perspective to focus on her closer community. “Sometimes that’s how we cope,” she says. “I have to focus on my immediate community and the things I can change, the conversations I can have, because I can’t fix the world.” Hence the presence on this album of a tribute to Wangari Maathai, “The Woman Who Planted Trees.” The Kenyan activist’s simple individual acts of tree-planting grew an entire movement, empowering the women around her with forestry and beekeeping skills, and educating thousands of people on ecology.

Barker’s new community focus manifested in all aspects of the album’s production. “I wanted to bring in as many local artists as I could,” says Barker, whose band was made up of good friends from the UK’s thriving South West scene, including her husband. “And not only the musicians but the painter who did the art cover and the filmmakers who did the music videos. That fit with the ethos of the album but also with lockdown — we’ve got limitations now and it’s a good reason to make the work happen here.”

Stroud, the town where she lives, sits in a beautiful landscape surrounded by rivers, lakes and rolling hills. She and Lucas have just moved into a new house, and are being visited by electricians and workmen when we talk. The theme of home has been a recurrent one throughout her work, prompted by the fact that she left her country of birth 20 years ago. Having grown up in a small country town in Western Australia, she came to the UK as a backpacker in 2000, and has made her life there.

Several songs in the new album remain redolent of her love for her homeland, from the vast night skies she conjures in “When Stars Cannot Be Found” to the nostalgia of “Return Me” and “Geography,” the music to which she wrote with English rock band 10cc’s Graham Gouldman. “Eucalyptus after rain remind me who I am again,” she sings, and it makes you wonder whether having two homes rather than one is a blessing or a burden.

“It’s less easy in some ways,” Barker agrees, “because I always have this constant question of where should I be. I’m always missing at least one place. Sometimes two places! You can feel quite fragmented.” Every year she escapes the English winter to spend 10 weeks with her family down under. She had just returned before the pandemic hit.

Barker wasted no time, when lockdown began, in reaching out to her neighbours. She saw the “viral kindness” forms that Extinction Rebellion had created and posted help slips through doors on her street, asking if anyone needed someone to talk to, or their errands done. “We had five vulnerable people who were living on their own give me a call and we started doing a weekly shop for them. It was such a good way of meeting people and gave us a sense of purpose, especially with festivals and gigs being cancelled seemingly every hour.”

Purpose and mission are clearly important to Barker. At university, aware that her Australian education had celebrated colonialist settlers and taught her nothing of the oppression and injustice they had brought with them, she sought out a course taught by Indigenous historians. “That was the trigger for me looking into structural racism,” she says. “I never understood growing up why in my country town there were so few Aboriginal people — we never learned about that.”

Recent years touring the US with her friend and mentor Mary Chapin Carpenter led her to research more widely. It was Ava DuVernay’s film The 13th, about the Constitutional amendment that abolished slavery, but allowed it to continue in prisons, which inspired her song “Machine.” Written before the killing of George Floyd, her lyrics prove uncannily timely, sung from the point of view of one of the architects of a system that has oppressed Black people for centuries.

“I covered all my tracks in books on history, justified my actions through anthropology,” she sings. And then, as if anticipating the Black Lives Matter protests that have since taken hold, “a crack has appeared, it keeps me up at night… I’ve been a bully and a sinner now I’m on the way out.”

She has seen, in Australia, how the arts have influenced politics by bringing untold stories and narratives to light. Some of her favourites are Indigenous singer/songwriters Archie Roach and Gurrumul. “I feel like the story of how Australia was settled is really well-known now among your average citizen,” she says.

So there remains hope in her outlook, however challenging times may appear. As she changes her own behaviour — flying less, taking trains when on European tours — she looks for ways to help others confront theirs. “Environment and equality are very important to me,” she says. “And it’s finding the right perspective to write that from and being respectful of the people in society who are suffering.”

Photo credit: Emma John

Pet Yeti Bring Bluegrass (And a Michael Bolton Ballad) Into UK Music Scene

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Pet Yeti is a UK-based bluegrass band made up of some of England and Northern Ireland’s finest pickers. Their debut album, Space Guitars, is a collection of original tunes and reimagined takes on classics like Michael Bolton’s “Said I Loved You…But I Lied” and Ola Belle Reed’s “I’ve Endured.”

The band includes Benjamin Agnew on bass, Reuben Agnew on guitar, John Breese on banjo, Kieran Towers on fiddle, and Joe Tozer on mandolin. In an email interview with we learned more about the group, what they hoped to achieve with this album, and where they’re headed.

BGS: Was there anything particularly memorable or special about making this album? What was the experience like?

Pet Yeti: The most memorable thing about recording this album was probably recording the Michael Bolton cover “Said I Loved You…But I Lied.” The decision to record that track was very last minute but everyone jumped into it with enthusiasm. Seeing it come together was surprising because we had not really known what a bluegrass cover of such a track would sound like. The result had us really satisfied, such to an extent that I think it suits the album nicely and we would really miss it if it was not included.

It was also a real privilege to record with Josh Clark of Get Real Audio. Not only as a friend of ours but also because he brings a finesse and professional ear for bluegrass music that is hard to find, even with comparisons to great recording engineers from the US. He also took a lead production role in the making of the album, which by itself would usually be big undertaking, so that we can say the album really has been shaped by him.

What was your goal with this album, musically speaking?

The original goal of the album was to be a voice for what Pet Yeti could do to authenticate ourselves in the bluegrass scene. However, it turned into a representation of all the band members’ individual tastes and interpretations. It is not often that a song like “Space Guitars,” based on the story of Doc from the Back to the Future movies, is on the same album as Michael Bolton covers and old-time music! I think the goal became the enjoyment of playing music and trying to put that across in every track that we could.

Do the five of you come from differing musical backgrounds? If so, how do you think those differences influence the overall sound of Pet Yeti?

Every band member in Pet Yeti comes with an appreciation of bluegrass music and we have all been followers of bluegrass growing up, though we all have our own genres that we enjoy delving into — whether that be the likes of old-time to Oasis to gypsy swing. I think it’s a really healthy mix to have a core interest but also to bring in the diverseness of individual interests because it means everyone in the band has a voice, even if we are not all singing. I think it’s this mix that separates Pet Yeti from a lot of other bluegrass ensembles.

You cover a lot of ground with this album, from carefully crafted gems like “I’m Turning Away” to high energy barn-burners like “Drinking Since the Day I Was Born.” Has that wide array of sounds added a new dynamic to your live shows?

While I do think the dynamic of Pet Yeti set list shows off the diverseness in our musical ability, a big aim of the set is that the audience enjoys the music. Not only with the energetic numbers, but also with lighthearted back stories of the originals.

Did you have a plan or idea of how this album should come together, or did it come together more organically while recording?

The album really is a product of a very organic process. We came together shortly before recording and developed how all of us would like the album to be recorded. However, a lot of the best parts of the album came during recording and because of the input of our excellent sound engineer. I think you need to allow this sort of organic process to keep things fresh.

You all have experience playing in other musical projects (Cup O’ Joe, Cardboard Fox, Kieran Towers & Charlotte Carrivick, etc.). What are some ways Pet Yeti is unique and different from your other projects?

Elaborating on an earlier question, Pet Yeti gives everything that you would expect from our other musical projects but with a lot more of each band members’ individual personalities and experience. Not one member of Pet Yeti is the “front man”, which is clearly seen in the album, giving each track in Space Guitars some other member the spotlight. Every band needs teamwork but Pet Yeti really relies on each member to create the overall sound of the band.

How has this album challenged you to grow as musicians?

The album has given us the opportunity firstly, as friends, to develop a unique sound together and have fun doing it. It also let us enjoy recording on a level that’s not as stressful and serious as other projects while maintaining musical integrity and making production enjoyable. Perhaps one challenge we have gone away with is how to put that enjoyment into all the music we produce and play from now on.

If you could perform this album at any venue, where would it be? Why?

While playing at any bluegrass festival in the UK, the US, or otherwise would be a privilege, the possibility to play as part the wider Glastonbury Festival would be a great opportunity and more ideal space for our unique flavour of bluegrass.

BGS 5+5: Josienne Clarke

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Josienne Clarke
Hometown: Scotland
Latest album: In All Weather

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

This is a difficult question to answer because different artists have influenced me at various stages in my life, but to pinpoint one would be hard. I guess the first artist to influence me as a songwriter, or to [influence me beginning] to consider being a songwriter, would be Don McLean. My mother had his American Pie album on tape in the car when I was really young and I remember songs like “Winterwood,” “Empty Chairs,” and “Crossroads” grabbing my attention and drawing me into the lyrics, all heavily melancholic tunes! I would say I can hear the influence those songs have had on my approach to songwriting.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

In 2015 I got to perform in The National Theatre’s Production of Our Country’s Good (by Timberlake Wertenbaker) singing both songs I’d written and some that were composed and arranged specifically for me by Cerys Matthews. We did 43 shows of it on the Olivier Stage at The National on London’s Southbank. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my career. Having no professional acting experience, being on stage acting alongside extremely well-trained professional actors was daunting and a steep learning curve. I shan’t forget that in a hurry.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

I have a reputation for a love of brevity in song and that is certainly true on In All Weather. No song is over 3 minutes 30 seconds — the shortest one being just 59 seconds in length — and the entire album clocks in at a succinct 36 minutes long!

This is true to my career motto, I came up with it several years ago in relation to not overplaying one’s slot at a festival or gig…

“Get in there, smash it, fuck off!”

I applied this logic to the writing and setting of songs on the new album and one thing that can’t be said is that it’s outstayed its welcome!

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

The changing of seasons is always a reference in my work and none more so than this latest album. This can be seen almost everywhere but woodland areas are the most noticeable place to feel the changing colour of the leaves.

Also I grew up by the sea and I was living on the Isle of Bute while I wrote the latest album, so seascapes and beaches are a natural force much referenced in my work. I find the expanse of sea inspiring; you feel simultaneously closer to other places because you’re on the edge of the land and far away because you are separated by a vast natural moat, making them a great location for reflection.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

Almost never. I’m an extremely autobiographical writer. I’d say that’s one of the particular things about my work.

I only really write behind a character in commissioned works. For example, writing for theatre. You’re given a specific character’s narrative to create songs for. I find this challenging and it’s great fun for that reason but I actually feel like an artist reveals more about themselves when they do that, in an unconscious way.

I like to be as honest as possible in my writing. I’m usually working through something, some problem or concern from real life in song and the aim is to describe my emotional state as accurately as I can. I write emotional narrative, so this is not a series of events or actions in song form. It focuses instead on “what it feels like” and I find I can most effectively do that from a truly first-person position.

WATCH: British Folk Singer Sam Lee Explores “The Garden of England”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

British folk singer, conservationist, and activist Sam Lee is set to release a new album in 2020. In preparation, Lee provides an appetizer for the project with a video for “The Garden of England (Seeds of Love).” Lee’s writing shines in this release, as the melody and structure have a familiar air about them, sharing in the agelessness common in folk traditionals. The arrangement provides a hypnotic, entrancing bed for the melody and draws the listener in with its constant pulse.

The accompanying video is equally mesmerizing, panning through various shots of presumably British countryside and wilderness. As a preview of what we might expect to come on the album, Old Wow, “The Garden of England” piques all the right interests. The new project will be released January 31, 2020. Watch the music video here.

Photo Credit: Dominick Tyler

Britain’s Got Bluegrass: August 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 July.

Amadou & Mariam and Blind Boys of Alabama, 4 August, Cambridge

There are still day tickets available for the final Sunday of Cambridge Folk Festival and believe us when we say we’d pay the face price just for this single gig. Blending music by Amadou & Mariam and Blind Boys of Alabama, “From Bamako to Birmingham” is a special collaboration between two roots supergroups celebrating the African source of American gospel music, and it’s going to be a powerful closer to the festival. Of course, your £75 will also get you in to see Richard Thompson, Sarah Darling, Mishra, Jack Broadbent, Fisherman’s Friends, and many more acts, so consider it an utter bargain.

Amythyst Kiah, 14 to 29 August, nationwide

Having brought Newport Folk Festival to its feet alongside Rhiannon Giddens in Our Native Daughters, Amythyst Kiah arrives in the UK with her solo material. The Tennessee songstress has a devoted following in Britain – she’s played Celtic Connections, Edinburgh Jazz and Blues festival, and last year’s Cambridge Folk Festival – and here she’ll be visiting a whole host of venues across her 16 dates, from Wales and the West Country, London to the Midlands, Leeds, Manchester, and Glasgow.

Hoot and Holler, 23 August to 3 September, nationwide

In 2016, Mark Kilianski and Amy Alvey spent an entire year travelling around the US, living in a campervan, performing wherever they could. As Hoot and Holler, their resultant fiddle and guitar duo (although both are given to instrument-swapping) pays beautiful tribute to the old mountain music of the Appalachians, while incorporating their own contemporary songwriting. It’s old-time and new world combined, and it’s utterly captivating. You can catch it Newcastle, Padfield, Huddersfield, Liverpool, Sheffield, St Davids, as well as several dates in Northern Ireland where they’re appearing at the Appalachian and Bluegrass Festival in Omagh.

Prom 49: The Lost Words Prom, 25 August, Royal Albert Hall

The Lost Words was one of the bestsellers of 2018 — a beautiful illustrated book that combined the incomparable nature writing of Robert Macfarlane with the mesmeric drawing of Jackie Morris. Now as Prom 49: The Lost Words Prom, it’s found a second life as a musical project, one that has assembled a stellar crew of Britain’s greatest folk musicians including Karine Polwart, Kris Dreever and Beth Porter, as well as Senegal percussionist Seckou Keita. Inspired by the animals, birds, and landscapes from the book, they have created a series of “spell songs” intended to charm a vanishing world back into existence. This special Prom amps it up with full orchestra and the additional contributions of beatboxer Jason Singh, violinist Stephanie Childress and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. There are lots of different price points to choose from — and of course if advance tickets sell out, you can always queue on the day for gallery or standing tickets, and do it the proper Promming way.

Tyler Childers, 28 August to 1 September, Brighton, Nottingham, & Salisbury

The Kentucky songwriter Tyler Childers has enjoyed such a sudden rise in popularity that you can now buy tickets to his 2020 UK tour (dates include the Manchester Academy and the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, if you’re interested). But there’s no need to delay your gratification that long. Just get yourself to The Haunt in Brighton on 28th August, or the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham on 29th — or head down to Salisbury for the End of the Road festival. He’ll be playing there alongside acts including Beirut and Michael Kiwanuka, in the wonderful surrounds of Larmer Tree Gardens.

Photo of Amadou & Mariam and Blind Boys of Alabama: Neil Thomson

Dan Whitener: Six of the Best Tips for Touring the UK

Posted on by Editor

I love playing banjo in the UK. By the end of my latest British tour with Gangstagrass, I started thinking that next time I should stay for longer. Maybe I’ll get a Leicester flat.

Fortunately, Man About a Horse is heading out on our first UK tour. To help my bandmates adjust to the culture shock, I’ve identified a few key differences between our nations from observations during my time abroad. I hope this resource proves helpful to other touring bands and to the readers of the Bluegrass Situation. — Dan Whitener, Man About a Horse

The political system is different.

It’s important to be sensitive to the current political climate when you are a visitor, especially if you have to interact with large groups of people on a daily basis. What you should know is that there was a contentious vote in 2016 that stoked xenophobia, sowed distrust of government, drove a wedge between groups of citizens, and separated the country from the world community in a meaningful way. The country is still navigating the effects of this vote, as well as experiencing ongoing turbulence and the occasional unseating of high-ranking government officials.

How will Americans possibly understand what that’s like?

The green rooms are different.

The green rooms have tea. The hotels have tea. Every place has tea. Somewhere, a British scientist is working on a tea pipeline to have it come out of the tap. Which reminds me, washing your hands is an art that takes the better part of half an hour. The sink, or washbasin, has separate taps for hot and cold water, and you mix them to the perfect temperature in the basin, which you stopper and fill. This process serves as a reminder of why we don’t take baths in America.

These differences in your daily routine may slow you down, but you might find yourself becoming more contemplative while soaking your hands in a basin of hot tea.

The language is different.

Here in America, we sometimes make the mistake of thinking we speak a language called English. Having visited England, I can tell you that we do not speak English. Having visited Scotland, I can also tell you that they do not speak English. For instance, musicians use the word “gig” to refer to a show we’re going to play, but fans in the UK also use it to describe a show they’re going to see. This will only enhance your existing suspicion that everyone else has more gigs than you!

It’s always a good idea when visiting a foreign country to learn a few key words and phrases. This is true of the UK. To practice conversing like a local, you should first determine what’s on your mind, and then make sure not to say it.

The driving is different.

The UK is one of those places where you drive on the left side of the road. Accordingly, the driver sits on the right side, left turns are much easier, and sometimes I wake up from road naps disoriented and screaming about incoming traffic.

Calculating distance and gas economy can be confusing as well. The gas (called “petrol,” unless you’re using diesel) is sometimes measured in litres (not liters, unless it’s gallons), while distance is still measured in miles (unless it’s kilometres, not kilometers). All you need to know is that the venues are still as far apart as they need to be, according to the radius clause.

The crowd is different.

You may have some difficulty assessing the audience reaction. One time I played a show in England for a good-sized crowd who clapped for every song. However, not a single person danced. In fact, everyone plastered themselves against the back wall the entire time. At the end of the show, we went out to say hi, and asked if everyone had been having fun. “Oh, we did,” they reassured us, “but no one wanted to be the first to start dancing.”

You might also find it unsettling to not hear constant talking from the audience. They are doing something they call “listening.” You’ll get used to it.

You are different.

Remember not to blend in too much! British people may seem foreign and exciting to you, but in the UK, you are the stranger, which means you are foreign and exciting to them! So, instead of trying to perfect your British accent, just speak the way you normally do. The same goes for your music.

Imagine this: some British fans are already wild about American folk music without ever having heard an American musician play it in person. You get to play for a knowledgeable audience with fresh ears.

Editor’s Note: Man About A Horse are playing in the UK until 14 July. Get all of their tour dates here.