Review: Hezekiah Jones – Have You Seen Our New Fort?

Hezekiah Jones: Have You Seen Our New Fort? (Yer Bird Records, 2011)

Lately I’ve been getting more and more addicted to Hezekiah Jones. It’s a Philly-based folk collective led by Raphael Cutrufello. Their latest album Have You Seen Our New Fort? came out a couple of months ago on one of the best labels there is Yer Bird Records. They don’t have the financial muscle to release a huge amount of stuff, but each and every release is like a handpicked little treasure.

Hezekiah Jones have more instruments and more people than I can name and that could lead to a horrible mess, but that is not the case, because they are all there for the sake of the song. Have You Seen Our New Fort? is definitely another little treasure and contains beautifully arranged alternative folk music. My favourites are the beautiful and slow folk tunes like Lift The Shadow From This Heart and The Last Parade On Ann St that somehow brings to mind another album that I really love, Norfolk & Western’s Dusk In Cold Parlours. It’s all pretty fabulous (apart from Some Things To Help You maybe) and makes you wonder why such a talented guy like Raphael Cutrufello is still relatively unknown. Hopefully this new interest towards folk music means that wonderful folk musicians like Chris Bathgate and Raphael Cutrufello will soon get the recognition they really deserve.

Listen to Lift The Shadow From This Heart:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjHZuOZyelA]

Listen to a absolutely stunning new song Borrowed Heart

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo10gRImsWE]

Hezekiah Jones at Facebook

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Marty The Random Guy & Devil Box

After writing that Patrick Sweany review I thought I make this a blues night here at onechord.net and quickly wrote about a couple of somewhat blues-related great artists that have gotten criminally little amount of love on this blog even though I really like both of them.

MARTY THE RANDOM GUY:

Marty The Random Guy is a blues/country/rock singer-songwriter from Turku and have played some great concerts around here. I’m not sure how well-known he is elsewhere, because I don’t really follow the roots music circle too well. Anyway, at least he should-be-well-known everywhere, because he is pretty damn good. He released a wonderful little disc called Hooks a couple years back. It’s got some fantastic stuff on it. I especially like the country-flavoured tunes, because that’s closer to my taste. However, the blues stuff is also pretty convincing. I hope he manages to release some new stuff soon. You can check out songs from Hooks at myspace, if you aren’t already completely fed up with that site. Below is a pretty new live clip courtesy of Telmu RY.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3utHHlMIzEM]

Marty The Random Guy at Facebook
Marty The Random Guy at myspace
Marty The Random Guy Website

Marty photo by Sandra Nyberg.

DEVIL BOX:

Devil Box has to do something right, because they are able to make instrumentals that I do enjoy. That’s a tough task, because usually I hate those things. Vocals and harmony vocals are by far the most important instrument to me and Devil Box have none of them. But they do have as much style and substance as Chazz Michael Michaels and are able create pretty magical bluesy instrumentals. I think some kind of release is coming up soon, but meanwhile you can listen to them at Soundcloud. Here’s one sample entitled (Gonna Be a) Feast On the Patio. You’ll find a couple more if you hit that soundcloud link.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/3399512″]
 
The Devil Box at Soundcloud
The Devil Box at Facebook

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News: Soliti – A new record label

The big news of the day was that Nick Triani launched a new label Soliti and signed Astrid Swan, Cats On Fire, The New Tigers, Black Twig and Big Wave Riders. Nick Triani did some excellent work as an A&R guy at Johanna Kustannus and I was far from pleased when I heard the news that Universal bought the label and made some big changes. Therefore it’s a wonderful thing that Nick Triani launched a new label and gave home to five indie bands that really deserved a record contract. Things will kick of with Astrid Swan’s Pavement cover album Hits (Pavement For Girls) late summer / autumn.

Soliti Website

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Album of the Month: Mummypowder – Centuries Later

Mummypowder: Centuries Later (Grandpop Records, 2011)

It’s soon time to select june’s album of the month and I still haven’t even written about the may’s album of the month, which is Mummypowder’s fourth album Centuries Later. Mummypowder is a huge favourite 0f mine, one of the best pop groups in the country and should be regarded as a national treasure.  They released three great albums between 1999 and 2004, but it took them a long while to get this fourth one done. Centuries Later is definitely worth the wait and another wonderful pop album.

Janne Lehtinen has been a magnificent songwriter since the debut ep and therefore it’s almost impossible to become any better at it, but I think Centuries Later contains the finest lyrics he has ever written. Of course Janne’s amazing voice & the band’s ability to create dazzlingly beautiful pop hooks and arrangements would make even the most typical “she loves you yeah-yeah” kind of lyric sound like the sweetest work of art, but it doesn’t hurt it if you can wrap the sentiments into a well-crafted a story. Timeless pop music is a probably a pretty lame way to describe music, but that’s what this is to me. Some songs take me to my own golden era of music, the late 90’s guitar pop scene, while other songs might take more influences from 60’s groups like The Left Banke and Honeybus. Everything sounded magical from the start, but somehow the album still finds the way to become even more and more moving and beautiful with each and every listening session. Therefore I encourage you to give it some time, if the often slow-paced melodic beauty of the album doesn’t instantly find the core of your heart. I guarantee it will find it in the end and then it’s time to forget all those worthless trendy indie bands and start shouting Mummypowder’s name from the rooftops.

Listen to Part Of The Fun:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/12978469″]
 

Mummypowder Website
Mummypowder at facebook

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