Website Powered by FATEA

Releases

You've just completed your latest masterpiece and need to get the news out to a waiting world. Here's your opportunity. Click Here to mail us the details and a photo.

Please include contact, price and availability details.

You also get up to a hundred words to let everyone know what you and your release is about.

Please keep pictures below 30k

Cathal Clohessy & Eamonn Costello

Album:Bosca Ceoil & Fiddle

Website: http://www.copperplatemailorder.com/copp022.html

The title of theis album, "Bosca Ceoil & Fiddle" becomes blindingly obvious if you know that bosca ceoil is gaelic for accordion, what with Cathal Clohessy being a master fiddler and Eamonn Costello being virtuoso on the squeezebox. Despite the duo having performed together since 2008, this is actually their debut album, it's been a long time coming, but definitely worth the wait. Occasionally adding the bouzouki and mandolin of Rodney Lancashire, this album brings in stunning individual solo flights to complement the captivating duets. Reel, jig and waltz to great tunes.

Website: http://www.rodpicott.com

The last Rod Picott album I reviewed had him paired with Amanda Shires, who also appears on "Welding Burns", that album was more an emotional journey, this one is much more a celebration of the blue collar work ethic and the disproportionate impact they've felt since the economy required a bailout. The people who actually paid to keep the banks afloat having their loans and mortgages forclosed on by the institutions they saved. Picott plays classic americana with a solid working man folk lyric set. From the off this is an album that doesn't hold back on the punches. Great listen too.

Album:Harmony Street

Website: http://www.oonaghderby.com

Oonagh, pronounced Una, Derby's impressive debut album "Harmony Street" is contempory country with the odd Celtic twist. Songs like "Sick Sore And Tired", a look at the tedious side of touring, give the album an honest feel, this is not an album that allows you to wallow in false sentimentality, rather one that introduces you to a fresh perspective on country songs. Produced by 4 Men and A Dog'd Gerry O'Connor, it's an album with clean lines and one that picks up Irish instrumentation along the way to give the whole project a distinctive feel.

Blackbeard's Tea Party

Album:Heavens To Betsy

Website: http://www.blackbeardsteaparty.com

"Heavens To Betsy" been out a couple of years, but I only recently came across the band at Beverley Folk Festival and really liked their electric ceilidh, folk rock sound. Blackbeard's Tea Party are a high octane festival dance band able to move fluidly from afternoon ceilidh to late night beer tent and with an album to match. It's fuzzy around the edges, raw, ready and raucous. Its not the most sophisticated album you are ever going to hear, but I defy you to come out the back of this album without a smile on your face and your feet tapping!

Album:Small Thoughts

Website: http://folkwit.com/artists/pulco

Ash Cooke, aka Pulco, has a really intimate relationship with his music. Taking a low-fi approach via home recording he really explores his sound and how it interacts with his voice. At times melodic, at times chaotic, more indie than folk and then vica-versa, "Small Thoughts" is an album that at times really challenges the listener and as with any challenge, you can give up when the going gets tough or you can ride it in order to get to the best parts. You need to walk a distance to find the wilderness and you need to give this time to find the aural perfection, but its there.

Website: http:///www.theloud.co.uk

Featuring the current single "Amy's Gonna Get You", The Loud's mini album, "Harris Shutter" sounds like it should be played loud and proud outdoors down the park or on the beach and enjoyed with a few cans of beer. There is something of the summer, something of the festival about the album. It's an album that works better at higher decibles and who knows, maybe a air guitar. Anthemaic rock, with plenty of horns in the air moment, without falling into cliches is a difficult role to pull off, but The Loud have hit the amps just about right.

Album:Mad By Moonlight

Website: http://www.thomastantrum.co.uk

Back in the days when Fatea was a magazine we were wowed by a band called Skingames lead by the enigmatic Wendy Page. I get the feeling that Thomas Tantrum are their b#astard offspring or at the very least cut from the same cloth. "Mad By Moonlight" is indiepop par excellence. Megan Thomas is a great and distinct vocalist without sounding affected and she gives herself great lyrics to work with. She's surround by a band that provide a jangly and cutting soundscape to bounce her lyrics off. This is band that have got more buzz than a hornet's nest.

Trent Miller & The Skeleton Jive

Album:Welcome To Inferno Valley

Label:Bucketfull Of Brains

Website: http://www.trent-miller.com

I discovered Trent Miller & The Skeleton Jive via Bob's Folk Show on Radio Wey, for which I owe Bob a huge favour. If there is a finer performer of cowboy blues performing in the UK at the moment, I've yet to hear them. "Welcome To The Inferno Valley" is one of those albums that works on so many levels. If you just want to get lost in the vocals and the music you can. If you want to hear deep and perceptive lyrics rich in cultural references, its here. Maybe having your heart strings twisted and a tear in youir eye is your thing, check that box too. An impressive album by any measure.

Album:Plays More Blues, Ballads & Favorites

Website: http://www.jimmievaughan.com

Co-founder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the man that taught younger brother, the late great Stevie Ray Vaughan, guitar, Jimmie Vaughan makes a rapid return with new album, "Play More Blues, Ballads & Favorites" a sequal to last year's album with a smilar name. As with that album former Double Trouble vocalist, Lou Ann Barton gets to do a fair amount of vocals to complement the guitar fireworks. Similarly you get the feeling the two of them got a real blast out of doing this album. This is good honest blues rock with just a hint of mellow, enjoy.

Single:Brave Captain Mallard

Website: http://www.jonathanpowellmusic.com

Don't buy this single because a share of the proceeds makes its way into the RSPB's coffers, though that would be excuse enough, buy "Brave Captain Mallard" because it's rich in the eccentricity and imagination. It's also a lot more serious than the title would suggest, whilst it almost feels like your hearing the journey of life from a duck's perspective, it's also able to reflect on this single from a soldier's perspective as he heads towards the guns with no control over events. The sound is stripped back and dramatic, simple and well structured, a thought provoking delight.

The Lancashire Hotpots

Website: http://www.myspace.com/thelancashirehotpots

The problem with novelty bands is trying to get the gap between records right. It doesn't matter how good the playing is or how witty the writing is, you reach a point that without a gap, the joke starts to wear a bit thin. It's why you don't find Ukuele Orchestra or Hayseed Dixie touring and releasing every year. With "Achtung Gravy" I think The Lancashire Hotpots have come down on the wrong side of the line. Yes there's some good social commentary in the humour and if you've not been tempted before give it go, but shelf life is starting to become an issue.

Website: http:///www.gstevensluthier.co.uk

Really does what it says on the box, "3 Tunes" from instrumentalist George Stevens and a good range of instruments it is, pipes, strings, percussion. For two of the tunes, he's joined by guitarist Mick Mepham, whilst the South-East Kent Border Pipe Ensemble get an outing for the middle track. I'd relly enjoyed listening to all three tunes on the cd and was looking forward to more, when it all stopped, well it would with there being three tunes, but it shows how conditioned we've become to purely instrumental releases being an album length. Short and sweet.