Various Artists
Album: The Golden Demon
Label: Hemifran
Tracks: 13+12
Website: http://www.hemifran.com

"The Golden Demon" is a 2-cd, 25 track compilation album of "new songs about chaos and transition". In essence, it is a collection of songs by artists from both sides of the Atlantic which deals with destabilising issues, such as war, poverty, inequality and political upheaval.

The "Golden Demon" referred to in the title is, of course, money, although that is not the only evil considered by the songwriters here. The album was put together by "The Old Homestead", which I believe is the pseudonym of Peter Holmstedt, who is Swedish. The album is released by Hemifran, a Swedish marketing company, who have released four previous compilations, including "Music Is Love", a tribute to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

What initially drew me to this album is the presence of my two favourite "homegrown" Americana artists, Michael Weston King [of My Darling Clementine] and Liverpool's own The Good Intentions. I am glad that their contributions brought this album to my attention, as it contains some intriguing work from a wide range of songwriters, many of whom I was not previously aware of.

The two discs are titled Golden One and Demon Too. Golden One begins with Greg Copeland's "Golden Demon" which is about "The god of money" and which features some delightful fiddle by Carla Kihlstedt.

Julie Christensen's "Ten People" is a "union song, sort of Joe Hill story" that captures the very essence of the mid-Sixties Protest Song and is very reminiscent of the sort of song that Joan Baez would have sung in her heyday.

One of the artists that I am previously familiar with is Sid Griffin, through his work with The Long Ryders and The Coal Porters. If the previous track sounds like Joan Baez, this one is[intentionally] very much in the style of Pete Seeger who is, in Sid's opinion "America's greatest living folksinger". Sid certainly succeeds in evoking his spirit in this banjo-led tribute.

One of my favourite tracks on this disc is Jenai Huff's lovely "Just Like Me" in which she looks at the differences and similarities in humans and how the differences are exploited by the media.

On a similar theme, Doug Ingoldsby [another name that is new to me] addresses the topical issue of how the media try to manipulate us into believing that the problems of the world are caused by the least fortunate.

Kenny White originally wrote "Letter From X-Ray" for a movie called "We Were Soldiers" but here we have the demo version of the song which is in the form of a letter from a soldier serving in Vietnam in 1965 to his wife back home.

I hadn't previously heard of Stephen David Austin but his "Laurel Canyon" is an absolute hoot. It is a scathing and satirical commentary on how the folk singers of the mid to late 1960's, who started out singing protest songs, came to be wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. It's a brilliant song with lines such as " The A&R men knew a flock of geese was layin' golden eggs for brandin', up in Laurel Canyon" and "Blowin' in on winds of change came Lear Jets and cocaine".

As well as the hilarious lyrics, the song parodies the jingle jangle 12-string guitar sound of The Byrds and other folk-rock bands of the era.

Closer to home, the aforementioned Good Intentions contribute a superb track in "Woody Guthrie's Rulin's". For this song, writer Peter Davies took Woody's list of New Year's resolutions from his diary for 1941 and turned them into a song. It's a touching insight into Woody's life and The Good Intentions do a typically great job of bringing his thoughts to life through the music.

I asked the band's Peter Davies for his views on the album and he told me that "the concept of a compilation album of songs reflecting the uncertainties of the world in the 21st century is an imaginative one and Woody Guthrie's Rulin's happens to fit that concept". Peter went on to tell me that he had written the song several months previously and how he didn't think that anyone else had written their songs with the album in mind "which in itself is a reflection of how so many writers are dealing with this subject".

Demon Too begins with a second track by Luisa Jordan-Killoran "Demon Revisited", which is followed by another excellent song by Doug Ingoldsby called "Brothers", which he co-wrote with Kenny Loggins, who also sings backing vocals. It's a superb song on which Jesse Siebenberg plays all of the instruments, including haunting lap-steel.

The next track takes a different musical direction - soul. Allan Thomas's "How Long Can This Go On" is a powerful, angry song about man's inhumanity to man and the damage that man causes to the planet. It has echoes of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" and was written 32 years ago but is,sadly, just as applicable to today.

The next song is almost a century old but like the previous track, is as relevant now as the day it was written, in 1915. I am referring to Alfred Bryan's "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier", which he wrote in protest at America's involvement in the First World War. The song is performed here by Michael Weston King who wrote a new melody for the words "as I really wanted to use it following a discussion with the father of a Norwegian soldier fighting in Afghanistan. The words of the song, for countless parents of soldiers, sadly still ring true".

Michael told me that having decided, in 2010, to make an album of re-worked protest songs, he spent 6 months researching a lot of old music and that " It is remarkable, and worrying, how many old, old songs with such a powerful message are still relevant today and that became the theme of the album"[ which came out in 2010 and is called "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier"].

The version here is a remix by Mark Brend/Ghostwriter and Michael tells me that he loves what he has done with the track and is working with him some more.

Other notable tracks on Demon Too include the self-explanatory "Occupying Wall Street" by Bob Cheevers and the Santana-ish "Donkey Island" by Michael Ward, which features a guitar solo by Joe Satriani.

One of my favourite singer-songwriters of the 1970's is Wendy Waldman and she appears on, co-writes and produces "Signs" by Mietek, a Polish artist whose song refers to the chaos, change and transition which has taken place in Eastern Europe. It is a chilling observation of the problems endured by people in the former Eastern Bloc.

Janni Littlepage's "Winds Of Change" was written in 2009, when Barak Obama had become President of the USA and expresses hope for a peaceful future.

When you see the title "What A Wonderful World" you immediately think of Louis Armstrong but the song here is not the one that he performed, although it is an excellent song nevertheless. This one is by Swedish artist Mikael Persson, who sounds a tad like Nick Cave on this haunting ballad.

The album's closing track is also its strangest - "Rogerson Noble" by Sky Country [the principal of which is one Nico Georis]. The "song" is a sort of electronic /dub collage with mainly spoken words about the eponymous Rogerson Noble who collects facts behind the views of regulated TV news. It may be somewhat weird but it is strangely compelling.

In conclusion, this is a wonderfully diverse yet coherent collection of songs about uncertainty, chaos, change and transition. As my grandfather would have said "Twenty five tracks and not a dud among them".

Peter Cowley