This band from Iceland make me feel old.
Samaris are all still in their teens and has an album coming out via One Little Indian on July 29th.
You can download a beautifully chilled Sei A remix of the single (“Góða Tungl”) here.
Perhaps as a nod to more mature listeners like yours truly, the lyrics derive from 19th century Icelandic poems. I can’t understand a word but it’s the thought that counts!
Read my review of the album at Whisperin’ & Hollerin’ here.
If you close your eyes and listen to the voice and virtuoso banjo playing, I am sure you’d visualise Sam Amidon as an older and more ragged individual. A modern-day Dock Boggs perhaps.
Instead, as you’ll see in this quirky video, he’s clean-cut and far younger than he sounds. The track – As I Roved Out – is from his excellent new album, Bright Sunny South, which I had the pleasure to review for Whisperin’ & Hollerin’.
Amidon was born less than 25 years ago into a music loving family in Brattleboro, Vermont (where the New Weird America genre took root after Matt Valentine’s free-folk festival).
His music has gradually evolved to embrace British influences, thanks in part to his marriage to Beth Orton.
All his songs are covers of old and new tunes but he adapts these so radically they could pass as his own.
The new album shows that he’s an artist brimful of talent and brimming in confidence.
“Pure, fragile, dreamy and graceful; this is the sound of a gifted artist in perfect harmony with herself and with nature”.
This is how I described the new album by the super talented French musician, Colleen (Cécile Schott) called The Weighing Of The Heart released on the London-based Second Language label on May 13th.
You can read my full review on Whisperin’ & Hollerin’ here and you can listen to excerpts on Soundcloud.
I thought I posted a video of Ólöf Arnalds at the time of writing a review of her Sudden Elevation album but it seems not; so, I’ll make amends now.
Some have criticised her for not singing in her native Icelandic but the words are so kooky, I don’t think it really matters what language she is using.
I’m not too sure about the kaleidoscopic effects on the video but the effect of the song is still mesmerizing.
She seems to be within her own world and takes the listener there with her.
The album from which this song comes, on One Little Indian records, is high on my list of favourites of the year
if you like this, you should also watch her NPR Tiny Desk performance.
Photo of Annabelle Chvostek by Heather Pollock
Canadian singer-songwriter Annabelle Chvostek wants to change the world, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she can see that the world is changing.
She has a great new album out this month called Rise which I reviewed for Whisperin’ & Hollerin’. The best songs on it are inspired by the Occupy Movement. In her online journal she writes :
“Stripping away the unnecessary means staying tuned to the beauty and the potential in the small things, gathering the rage, the love and the uncertainty together and making our little lives work. We have agency. We have power. In our tiny daily actions we are part of something huge”.
The music she makes is every bit as inspiring as these words. Original songs plus a killer version of Peter Tosh’s Equal Rights. You can get a flavour of the album by watching this video of her singing the opening track, End of the Road :
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