Found sounds, experimental noises and a husky female voice that sounds like it’s been flavoured by decades of cigarettes and brandy over plucked acoustic and electric guitars. Intimate recordings are the cornerstone of Katie Kim’s debut album, Twelve. It’s a style that’s served her well, and which she has honed to beyond perfection on her fourth and latest LP, Hour of the Ox.
It’s Twelve we’re here to celebrate, though. As a whole, it’s a celebration itself across the ten tracks. It’s like Katie has found a cauldron in which to pour all the best elements of other amazing women in the music business, such as PJ Harvey, Soccer Mommy and Hope Sandoval, stirred it up with a sprinkling of her Gaelic roots and making it very much her own through her use of loops and unstructured structure. It makes her music into something both ethereal and yet as solid as a claw hammer thrown over and over against an anvil.
Taking that description you’d think this album was difficult, but it’s anything but. Yes, it has moments that are distinctly non-indie-folk (if that’s even the best way to describe this album); however, overall it’s bright and warm, but perhaps in the same way the house in Handsel and Gretel is warm and bright. There’s an uncurrent of something almost indescribable that adds excitement and a sense that you’re not in control of how it pulls you in.
The album was the result of over 50 other songs being wiped from her hard drive. Perhaps that’s why it has that bubbling frustration threaded through it? Maybe that’s why this sounds like a performer at the height of her game so early on in her career? It really doesn’t matter, because whatever it is it doesn’t diminish the extraordinary nature of this album, the depths and layers that you’ll pick out on the third, fifth or fifteenth listen.
And you will listen to it that many times, because you’ll wonder how it escaped your attention for so long – and you’ll want to share the experience of hearing the adept playing and composition throughout this album – such as that slide guitar far back in the mix – with others. You can hear Twelve on Katie’s Bandcamp page. Or stream it here. And then enjoy the rest of her stunning discography.
Prizes awarded to artists for their work are not often controversial. 2005 was different. Certainly for the Mercury Music Prize, which is awarded to an album that a panel of industry judges deems to have been released the previous year in the UK for a British or Irish act. It’s usually obvious who will win. However, in 2005 it was controversially awarded to Antony & The Johnsons who many complained was living in the US and therefore not eligible.
It was almost as controversial as 1994, the year that M People won it.
Of course, any judgment that isn’t the one you would have made is wrong. However, the point is often not who wins but who doesn’t. And in 1995, the biggest winner was a young man from Devon called Seth Lakeman.
Previously known for his work with his brothers, Sam and Sean, Seth went solo in 2002. Kitty Jay, nominated in those controversial Mercury Music Awards, was his second album. The story goes that it was recorded for less than £300 and its title track tells the story of a Dartmoor landmark, Jay’s Grave.
What was immediately clear from Seth live appearances was here was a young artist reaching his potential. Often singing while playing violin, the album is everything folk can be while also not sounding like a folk album might be expected to sound. It’s pacy. It has an undercurrent that might be described as unnerving and potentially violent. It makes your heart race and the hairs on the back of your neck rise. It’s also contains a warmth and humility thanks to the stories that act as scaffold for Seth’s songwriting skills.
And then there’s his voice, shown off on more traditional interpretations such as Farewell My Love and Cape Clear. Strong, with a tone that evokes bucolic scenes and the traditions from which its words are drawn, but which has an edge of punk venom.
It’s undeniably indie pop wrapped in folk instrumentalism. And that’s a good thing. It takes the elements of pop composition and presents them using sounds and instruments not traditionally associated with the oeuvre from which it draws. The result is something quite special.
Its rawness perfectly suits the subject matter. However, it would sound just as amazing with a full orchestra, I’m certain. I can attest to the fact that seeing this album live lifts it into another realm. Seth is a performer from whom you cannot tear your eyes, or ears. Listening back now, as I write this, the title track could easily be sampled by Wu Tang Clan and no one would think anything of it. As versatile and it is virtuoso.
Available on CD only, it’s an Unspun Hero that really needs to make the leap to vinyl. Stream it in full below.
At 10 the vocal genius of Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All”. This wasn’t cool.
No. 9 was Queen “It’s a kind of magic”. Not cool.
At 8 the highest climber was Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” re-released on the back of Nick Kamen’s iconic appearance in his boxers (they became cool) for Levi’s. This was a very cool record.
Position 7 was Five Star and “Can’t Wait Another Minute”. This collection of five brothers and sisters showed loads of promise but sat stubbornly the wrong side of cool (too much choreography for me).
At 6 was George Michael with “Different Corner”. This was the start of George’s solo career and was way cooler than everyone thought it would be; a song that has stood the test of time.
No. 5 was Janet Jackson with her first single “What Have You Done For Me Lately?”. Not my bag at all.
At 4 we saw Patti Labelle and Michael McDonald singing to each other (one in NYC and one at the coast). Patti looking supreme and sounding amazing, Michael looking like your uncle Nigel but sounding pretty good. This kind of duet didn’t float my boat and was definitely one for my Nan.
No. 3 was slap-bass maestro Mark King and his Level 42 with “Lessons of Love”. I can’t really say anything bad about Level 42 – they were (maybe still are) a good band. The Chinese Way was a belting single. There was a hint of the soul-boy string vest about them but that’s not a bad thing.
At 2 was a song I had completely erased from my memory – Madonna’s “Live to Tell”. I’ve just watched the video again and even though that was only five minutes ago, I still can’t remember it. At this point Madonna could have released a recording of her gently snoring and it would break the top 5.
And, after a slow climb, Austrian musical genius Falco. Described as the Austrian godfather of white rap by some, his track, Amadeus, was number 1 everywhere. Pretty cool I think.
Why am I giving you a Bruno Brookes-style rundown? Well, I wanted to paint a picture of the background against which one of my favourite albums of all time “Boat to Bolivia” by Martin Stephenson & the Daintees was released. This backdrop of over-produced tunes (excluding Marvin Gaye and George Michael, of course) was a distinct contrast to Boat to Bolivia (admittedly outside the top ten there were a few brilliant and more indie tunes including The Cure, Suzanne Vega, It’s Immaterial, the B52s, and Doctor and the Medics) and was simple and beautiful.
This period saw me listening to a lot of Lloyd Cole and the beginnings of the C86 bands, and of course, The Housemartins (still the best gig I ever went to I think, although Blur at ULU in 1990 comes close). Then, in the middle of all that, Martin Stephenson released Boat to Bolivia and me and my mate Pete were hooked. It was the record that was played each lunchtime and break in the sixth form. It was the record that mirrored, or charted, my first proper relationship. It was the record (and this was probably more important than I realised at the time) that made me feel cool-ish. It was the record that started the conversation with the people at Uni that became my best friends, the record that my wife and I listened to the most (actually maybe that was Donovan but this was a close second).
It’s the record I go back to when I need a hug.
Martin is from the North East, born in Durham and celebrated for his NE folk roots (to which he has returned) and this can be heard throughout the album. My brother was at Sunderland University and I fell in love with the coast up there.
Martin was set free by punk. In an interview with Folking he says:
“I was born in a rough environment but I was always a deer. I wasn’t a wolf but I thought I was a wolf because I was running with the wolves but one day at the watering hole I caught a glimpse of my reflection and I saw Bambi there. When I was fifteen Punk came along and even to my guru Punk was shite but to me it was like being reborn. I thought at that time you had to be a genius to play music but Punk gave you the confidence to have a go and be primitive so I started as a guitarist. I was a punk guitarist from fifteen to seventeen or eighteen but punk started to move on into New Wave and then I started to educate myself. I bought a classical guitar book, a jazz guitar book, a folk guitar book and I would usually get through the first ten or eleven pages and get bored and go and put the kettle on. It was the journey from giving up on a classical exercise to putting the kettle on where I would meet conceptual art. I became a songwriter and I‘d have little bits of jazz, blues, country – jack of all, master of none – I just used what I had. I was a guitar fan and a bit of a poet and it just started merging. I’d probably been taught how to channel as well so every time I wrote a song I was bringing it through the crown chakra, I wasn’t getting in the way. I felt that I didn’t have the craftsmanship to get in the way but that was giving me a head start with the songs.”
This blend of influences is what hooked me in. Plus, the fact that he wasn’t a popstar. This was the fag-end of the New Romantics and the height of the pretentiousness of Morrisey and The Smiths. Martin felt like the antidote to both.
For me the thing that runs through the album like “BLACKPOOL” through a stick of rock is Love. Unashamedly. I’m not going to go through each song in detail. But I’ll tell you how it made me feel. In an era of heightened masculinity, it was unusual to talk and sing about feelings, about sexuality, about aging, about nostalgically prone alcoholics, about slow loving. The album balanced my life (rugby playing on one side, poetry writing on the other), it helped me express my form of masculinity. Martin also looked great. Pre-baggy and post-Smiths, finding a sartorial direction was challenging. Bros had emerged and added Grolsch bottle tops to their Docs, the tail-end of Goth was very much still evident and neither felt like me. Martin’s look did. In short, the album reached a hand out to me when I needed it most. Those mid teen years are tough and it’s easy to get a little lost.
Martin Stephenson became a talismanic figure to me and my mates, a symbol of new masculinity as much as music. But the music was great. “Coleen” still makes me weep a little today, as does the “Little Red Bottle” in a different way. The great washing of “Running Waters” was like a baptism. Washing away the old me and revealing the new. I utterly love this album from the marrow of my bones.
The album has travelled through time with me. Like my best friend. Always there when I needed it. Sometimes forgotten and then re-discovered. I found out about 5 years ago that Martin (now living in the Highlands of Scotland) was recording again. I googled, found him on Facebook and we chatted. What a lovely and wholly humble man he is. We met up before a gig in Birmingham (and what a gig). We arrived on time (The Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath). The door was shut but I could hear someone coming down the stairs. It was Martin and the band off for a curry. He was just about to perform, after a veg dopiaza. Hats off and kudos. He was ace, friendly, warm. His love for his art, his band, his kids, and his friends is tangible and warm. They say never to meet your heroes as you’ll be disappointed. Well in this case I wasn’t. I don’t think life has always been easy, but he is still smiling and still writing and recording great music.
The album can be hard to find now, but well worth searching out. It’s one of those albums that flows, that’s been put together to listen to from front to back rather than on shuffle. The vinyl is rare, and I love nothing more than putting it on and sitting and listening through. It’s a time machine, an emotional crutch, a best friend, a mentor, and a reason to be cheerful.
Thanks Martin. You’re a diamond. Faceted, sparkling and a one-off.
Give Boat To Bolivia a listen via Martin’s Bandcamp, embedded below.
In 1985, Beltane Fire had a short-lived moment in the spotlight as Sony Music’s latest signing. They produced one album and toured extensively, supporting Adam and the Ants, Ian Dury, and Marillion at the height of Kayleigh fame. It must have been fun while it lasted, which wasn’t long.
The band was formed out of the Neo-Rockabilly band The Blue Cats, who as a group of south London teenagers fused their love of old 50’s classics with a modern flavour. Then came the likes of Adam Ant, Marillion and Tenpole Tudor, along with a swathe of sword and sorcery movies and TV series such as Robin of Sherwood. The Blue Cats became Beltane Fire, started wearing leather jerkins, clipped on some hair extensions and invested in a dry ice machine. The result was the album Different Breed, which builds on their rockabilly base, but added synths, military drums and loads of reverb.
The main single from the album is Fortune Favours The Brave, which is accompanied by a video featuring the obligatory fist clenching, candlelight, dangling chains and wavy flags.
Video for Beltane Fire’s single, Fortune Favours The Brave.
The rest of the album is a journey through Arthurian legends, pirates and poachers. The record didn’t trouble the charts and the money ran out – largely because they spent a load of cash on the album artwork.
The whole thing is massively overblown and very silly, but it is bags and bags of fun.
After they were dropped by Sony, the band went back to being The Blue Cats, where they produced the excellent album The Tunnel. The guitar work on “Man on a Mission” is particularly excellent.
Video for Man on a Mission by The Blue Cats.
There was a rumour going around that lead guitarist Carlo Edwards gave The Edge a few tips back in the day. Carlo’s day job is as head baker at the Box Hill café in Surrey if you want to ask him directly.
