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JACOB GOLDEN In the new musical world order, where digitised tunes can be emailed or downloaded anywhere, any time, intimacy – that precious sense of communion between listener and performer – has become a rarity. But not in the world of Jacob Golden; and never at any point on his beautiful and powerful album, Revenge Songs. Golden is a singer, guitarist and songwriter from California, who makes music suffused with big and complicated emotions in small, friendly spaces.
Most of his tours grow organically, their bespoke itineraries designed in response to audience requests via Myspace and Mog.com. Last year he toured the East Coast of America, playing 'living room shows' in the front rooms of fans to no more than 40 people at a time. "But you make an unbelievable, lifelong connection with those people." He seldom bothers with recording studios, preferring, when he's away from home, the natural acoustics of underground car parks and a particular subterranean concrete art gallery. "I love the idea of making modern field recordings."
The simple truth is that, once heard, Golden's music is very, very difficult to ignore or forget. "Revenge Songs is not the kind of album that needs to be rammed down people's throats," he says. "It just needs to be approached quietly and with love."
CLICK HERE TO VISIT JACOB'S WEBSITE Sarabeth Tucek Sarabeth Tucek is the very definition of understated. She’s physically small and her voice is quiet, but it still has the power to cut right through you – as anyone who heard her debut single ‘Something For You’ will testify. Released last February on the tiny indie label Sonic Cathedral it became a word-of-mouth success, being crowned record of the week on Steve Lamacq’s BBC 6Music radio show and raved about everywhere from Playlouder, where it was made single of the week, to NME, who summed up their Radar profile of Sarabeth by saying, “If you don’t think ‘Something For You’ is the most beautiful record released this year, then you might as well fuck off and die.” Such is the power of the song, which is quite possibly the most affecting two and a half minutes of music you’ll ever hear. So why did it have such a big impact? “I don’t know,” replies Sarabeth. “It's a very simple song. Short and sweet and bitter.” As we said, understated.
Sarabeth was born in Miami, but it was while growing up in Manhattan that she fell in love with her mum’s favourite music such as Cat Stevens’ ‘Tea For The Tillerman’ and Simon & Garfunkel. She went on to discover the likes of Neil Young, Big Star, The Zombies, The Velvet Underground, Television, Joy Division, The Dream Syndicate, The Gun Club, My Bloody Valentine and Elliott Smith for herself. However, more than any other, she worships Bob Dylan. “My whole life is wrapped up in his songs,” she explains, revealing, at a push, that ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’ and ‘Blonde On Blonde’ are her favourites. “He is wholly original. There will never be anyone like him again.”
This made a support slot with Dylan in Massachusetts earlier this year all the more unbelievable. The story is a simple one, but at the same time it was a dream come true: Dylan’s people were sent a copy of Sarabeth’s album, liked it and asked her to open for him at the Pines Theater in Northampton. The great man himself even took time out to speak to her afterwards. “It was a surreal experience,” exclaims Sarabeth, losing her understatedness for just a second. “I don't think I was ever so excited about anything in my life.”
In 2002, after relocating to Los Angeles, Sarabeth sang backing vocals on a little-known record by EZT (aka Will Oldham associate Colin Gagon) called ‘Goodbye Little Doll’. The producer was Bill Callahan of Smog who, suitably impressed, called her up a few months later and invited her to Chicago to sing on what would become Smog’s acclaimed 2003 album ‘Supper’. “I’m a big Smog fan,” recalls Sarabeth. “So it was pretty exciting.” Around the same time she also hooked up with Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre and collaborated on a few songs that ended up on the band’s 2005 mini-album ‘We Are The Radio’, which also includes a version of ‘Something For You’ that Anton retitled ‘Seer’ (“I’m not sure why”). Sarabeth even makes a fleeting appearance in the infamous documentary film ‘Dig!’ where she is introduced onstage at LA’s Knitting Factory club as Anton’s sister, shortly before he kicks a heckler in the face.
Despite all of her work collaborating with other artists, Sarabeth much prefers to work alone and was keen to make her own album. “I’d been writing for a while and people started responding pretty quickly to the lyrics,” she explains, acknowledging her darkly cryptic words that are reminiscent of the sinister ‘flipside of Hollywood’ atmosphere of Neil Young’s landmark 1974 album ‘On The Beach’. Over two weeks in 2006, she entered the studio with Ethan Johns (Kings Of Leon, Ray LaMontagne) and Luther Russell (Richmond Fontaine, Fernando) to record the 11 tracks that make up her eponymous debut and from the bitter-sweet and sparse ‘Something For You’ to the heartbreaking, string-laden closer ‘Home’ it’s a masterpiece. And that’s no overstatement.
Click here to visit Sarabeth's MySpace page Forever Like Red You won’t forget the first time you heard Forever Like Red. Songs very rarely make you stand up and sing but 'Exit Signs' and 'Dream On' and 'What Will You Pay' and 'Breakdown' just might. And you could stand here all day and say that Forever Like Red sound like this and Forever Like Red sound like that but it wouldn’t get you anywhere – you’d still be standing up and singing.
Forever Like Red is Cameron Meshell (voice, guitar, piano), Pelle Hillstrom (guitars, effects), Mikkel Heimburger (bass) and Jesper Kristensen (drums). This line up came together in London at the start of 2006 but prior to that Danish born Mikkel and Jesper were in the LA-based Citrus whilst Swedish-born Pelle featured in electropop outfit Modwheelmood. Cameron hails from Shreveport, Louisiana but coincidentally all four had spent time in LA before individually heading over to the UK.
Forever Like Red's debut album 'Distance' is due for release on the Echo Label in September 2007.
LIVE PHOTO STEVEN BIRD Click here for more info on the band Morcheeba
Multi-million-selling darlings of down-tempo, Morcheeba, will release their sixth and latest album Dive Deep in the UK on February 4th through The Echo Label. Having sold 6 million albums, toured the world over, plumbed the depths of nervous exhaustion, and pushed their working relationships to breaking point, Morcheeba return with their new album Dive Deep, an “emotional blueprint” which has restored their faith in music. Morcheeba’s refusal to be categorised musically extends to the band’s set-up, and in 2008, these pioneers of song-based dance music have become an eclectic and open-minded collective. The thoughts and experiments of brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey provide the blueprint, with the songs mainly co-written in the studio with guest vocal collaborators, most of who were sought out via myspace and the internet. Guests on Dive Deep range from established names such as acclaimed singer-songwriter Judie Tzuke, to relative newcomers Thomas Dybdahl from Norway, rapper Cool Calm Pete, and Manda, a French singer who contacted the Godfreys via Myspace, admitting it was her dream to sing with Morcheeba. Lead track Enjoy The Ride features Judie’s soulful voice, which has enchanted Paul since childhood, and One Love Karma sees Cool Calm Pete incorporate the world’s first ever recorded fluteboxing – a human beatbox through a flute. Riverbed and Sleep On It show off Thomas Dybdahl’s impressive Roy Orbison like vocal range, and together, the collaborations provide an atmosphere of genuine fluidity and free-form exploration.
Click here for more info... Rosalie Deighton Born in Holland to an Indonesian mother and a British father, Rosalie Deighton has been playing music since the age of three and she and her family moved to Barnsley, Yorkshire when she was just eight. The Deighton Family were musicians and already successful practitioners of an eclectic range of bluegrass, Cajun, country and folk with Rosalie and her four brothers and sisters very much part of this musical entourage. The Deighton Family toured the world but as Rosalie confesses “at the age of thirteen I knew I had to do it on my own.” Rosalie’s first album on Echo ‘21 Days’ is an absolute belter. Intimate, powerful, melodic and blunt, 21 Days (incidentally, the amount of time it took to record) pays tribute to Rosalie’s roots. Essentially New English Folk, it is the sound of someone hitting the ground running and a record that’s so instant and classic, you might think it’s been knocking around your house for years.
21 Days was produced by Sam Dixon, Jon Kelly and Dave Marks and is released on the Echo Label in June 2007.
Click here to visit Rosalie's MySpace page FEEDER Formed in 1992, Feeder are an old-school rock phenomenon, a slow-motion musical landslide who've galvanised their devoted fan-base through relentless graft, persistent self-belief and enticing, gradual progress. "These days," withers Grant, "if nothing happens immediately, you're just dropped." Not so with Feeder who remain with life-long independent, 'Echo'. Moving to London in '89 Grant worked in a studio and as a courier. Grant and Jon then met bassist Taka Hirose (originally from Japan), the group's global rock influences setting them naturally apart from the flourishing Britpop nostalgists. "To begin with," chortles Grant, "we were the British Smashing Pumpkins." By 2001, both 'Buck Rogers' and third album 'Echo Park' were Top 5 successes until, on January 7th 2002, they lost Jon. The songs, ever since, have been shot through with the melodic search-light of what it means to be alive. "Such tragedies do happen," says Grant, plainly, "and in a way it keeps me driving along. For what we went through then, as did everybody else close to Jon, there's always gonna be that in the songs.
Since August 2002, Feeder's drummer has been ex-Skunk Anansie dynamo Mark Richardson, who remains in the band indefinitely. ?An amazing rock drummer," enthuses Grant, "I'd put him right up there with the Dave Grohl?s of this world.
click here for more Steven LindsaySteven Lindsay is based in Glasgow, Scotland. He originally trained at Glasgow School of Art - 'more Damien Hirst than Damien Rice' and never really intended to be a singer and musician. His solo career was launched in 2004 with EXIT MUSIC on his own Seminal label.
EXIT MUSIC was adored by critics - The Daily Telegraph called it "a quiet, timeless masterpiece", the Guardian -"the kind of disc that could start its own cult", Q - " a beautiful record" and it became an Album Of The Week in both The Times - ("a gorgeously muted wander through an autumnal, nocturnal season") and The Sunday Times as well as being Scotland On Sunday's Album Of The Year.
Steven Lindsay's follow-up album KITE is released in June 2007 on The Echo Label.
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