Thursday August 23 Old Man Luedecke
Nova Scotia based singer-songwriter and banjo player Chris Luedecke isn’t that old, but the music he plays is certainly ingrained with a tradition stretching back centuries, salt stained old time folk tunes (mostly self-penned) with contemporary storytelling lyrics that conjure thoughts of Guthrie and Seeger, and, in more playful moments, fellow Canadian Loudon Wainwright III.
Although he has four albums to his name and a new one due later this year, he’s not well know over here, not even on the roots circuit, so this offers a useful opportunity to discover why he’s a favourite on the American festivals circuit and has picked up a clutch of Juno awards, notably for the Proof Of Love, a sprightly goodtime number that’s become a sort of signature tune.
You have to like banjo music (guitars are not part of his arsenal, though foot stomps and the occasional yodel are) and Appalachian folk colours , but this is firmly expertly played old school front porch mountain music and while there may be uptempo tunes there’s none of that banjo bluegrass breakdown that can put off non purists. Besides which, the social commentary of numbers like Hinterland and Rear Guard, the bluesy folk of Cemetaries Downton or the spritely wit of The Drawing Near are far more likely to be the focus of your attention Melancholic, romantic, acerbic and uplifting in equal measure, he’s the real thing and it promises to be a night folk fans will be talking about for months. 8pm. £8. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath
Cheek Mountain Thief live at Hare & Hounds September 13th
Mojo September 2012
Former Tunng man abandons folktronica for the textures of Iceland.
With his former Tunng bandmate Sam Genders off and running with Diagrams, Mike Lindsay returns. Cheek Mountain Thief is Lindsay and sundry musical characters he’s picked up while living in the tiny Icelandic coastal town of Husavik. Cheek Mountain Thief itself is the nearby Kinnarfjöll. The circular song structures and chant like repetition Lindsay favoured with Tunng are present, but there’s been a change. Electronica is mainly eschewed and texture comes from a subtle interplay between the instrumentation and Lindsay’s care worn, reflective vocals. When grandeur comes, it’s measured - the choir on Attack is like amassed but muffled Russian voices. Percussive rattling and wayward brass injections suggest he’s been listening to the latter day incarnation of Icelanders müm (the album is mixed by their Gunnar Om Tynes). Lindsay’s found his new voice, and it speaks the musical language of his adopted country.
Kieran Tyler
Q September 2012
Tunng singer goes to Iceland. Meets girl, makes record.
It’s a sweet tale. Mike Lindsay, singer with folk sextet Tunng, fell for an Icelander in 2006. Last year, he moved to Husavik, under Cheek Mountain, the Island’s prime whale-watching site. There he made a record with some locals, moulding the album to fit their unlikely inclinations, hence the marimba band underpinning the standout, Strain. The often magical result is light years from Tunng’s intricate electro-folk. In fact, when the choir kicks in on the stentorian Cheek Mountain, it’s not a million miles away from Sigur Ros‘s expansive, brave warmth, while the moving Attack is part Yorkshire brass band, part Ennio Morricone. Wake Them Gently, meanwhile, shows Lindsay can do pounding, pretty pop too. Where Lindsay goes after this remains to be seen: a return to the day job might just feel like a step back
4 stars
John Aizlewood
Time Out London 08 Aug 2012
After the first solo LP by one of the founding members of Tunng (Sam Genders, as Diagrams) comes the debut from the other, Mike Lindsay. Recordded in Iceland – muchof it in a tiny norther fishing town – it’s a set of light filled, lovely electronic pop, incorporating strings and brass and played by members of Lindsay’s new community. There are echoes of Bon Iver, Müm and Belle And Sebastian butsweetly offbeat songs like ‘Nothing’ and ‘Snook Pattern’ cast their own shadows.
Sharon O’Connell
Uncut September 2012
Tuung singer loses his heart in Iceland
In December 2010 Tunng’s Mike Lindsay visited Husavik in Iceland, a remote fishing town overlooked by Kinnarfjöll, otherwise known as Cheek Mountain. So bewitched was the singer by this ‘mythical wonderland’, and a girl he met there, that he decided to leave London and make it his home. Cheek Mountain Thief is an engaging and cccaisionally wistful love letter to Iceland in wehich he gasps at the alien landscape, loses his head under the Northern lights, and gets naked in hot springs, to a soundtrack of lollaping drums and woody percussion. A fine advert both for Lindsay and his adopted home.
Fiona Sturges
The Guardian 10 August 2012
In 2006, Tunng’s mike Lindsay visited Iceland, falling in love with a girl and the small, snow covered northern fishing town of Husavik. Four years later, having lost touch with the girl and drifted back to his old life in London, he felt the pull of that ‘mythical wonderland’, and travelled back to Husavik to rekindle the love affair with town and resident. This lovely album documents Lindsay’s new life, songwriting sensors heightened by romance and discovery. Recorded in a cabin with local musicians including the local school’s marimba band, and finished in Rejkjavik, the songs are as beautiful and occasionally challenging as the landscapes, as military drum beats and Arcade Fire – type walls of sounds and cries mingle with wind instruments, violin and wistful, poignant moods. Lindsay’s lyrics drip with tales of ghosts, melting snow and great unknowns. “With the sun in your face you see a questionmark in the mountain,” he whispers in Spirit Fight. It’s a departure from Tunng’s folktronica, but anyone who love’s that band’s Bullets will find a wealth of similar treats here.
Dave Simpson
--
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment