Richard Dawson (raucous experimental UK folk racket w/ intense picaresque realness vox)

now for a rewatch of Be Glad for the Song Has No Ending.

Was about to say the guitar playing reminds me a bit of some Incredible String Band tracks, something like "White Bird" perhaps.

He also plays a travel guitar with a short scale and strings downtuned, which gives him loads of string buzz

So even when he's playing deft little melodies, it can sound slightly "wrong"

this is quite a record. slicker & tighter with the band backing, frequently too camp and overripe for my taste, but it concentrates the power and he is undeniably at the top of his game. the way he rips through shapeshifter is amazing

digging 'ogre'

while Ogre is astounding I hope you have since moved onto digging all of it, even the overripe bits (i.e. Masseuse, which was the only one I was unsure about but which has since settled nicely into my head for ever more)

let's pick up some floating Talk Talk enthusiasts (the ambient background sussurations and blurts here are as good as any on TT's last two records)

saw him in leeds on friday, slower & more dramatic than on the record & got so much heavier and fierce which sold me on tracks I hadn't been as keen on - scientist - and the likes of ogre & the vile stuff were overwhelming & awesome. just as charming & funny as I'd expected (& ofc everyone slightly giddy post election), he sang a mike waterson track a cappella & opened with the parents address to his firstborn song (the first RD track I loved), so he couldn't really have won me over any more (well I could have really gone for poor old horse but I need something to look fwd to next time). I've been discovering the magic bridge over the past few weeks too, which is a gorgeous album & right up my street

a good friend of mine turned me onto Richard Dawson's music a couple weeks ago. he played me "Ogre" and then some 20 minute solo guitar & voice piece. didn't listen to him again for a week and then the end "Ogre" got stuck in my head one night ("when the sun is dying") so i got Peasant and it's amazing. makes XTC look like the MC5.

seeing him in 2 days, couldn't be more excited

if this isn't album of the year then...someone else will have made a seriously great album

There's no such thing as 'album of the year'.

being alone is

this is definitely one of the best things i've heard this year, Beggar especially is fantastic

*my* album of the year ffs

Saw him on Saturday and I'm not convinced the full band works if I'm honest. Still tremendous though.

Can't remember the order but Scientist/Prostitute/Soldier/Weaver plus a version of The Cruel Ship's Carpenter in there somewhere, then closing with Ogre and The Vile Stuff.

Chat involved a fake electrocution, how John broke his guitar (but Richard wasn't going to make a big deal out it even though John broke his guitar), texts from Richard's dad and something about cats I don't remember.

has he toured the USA? would love to see him live this year

Yeah Im loving this. Some wyrd "A Field in England" vibes on some tracks. "Soldier" is one the best songs I've heard this year

soldier has such a comfortably-worn plodding weariness to it. played it v differently live, snarled and shouted his way through it. in general I thought he pulled the more progge elements off better live when the intensity of his performance could bear them better

good lord

that was a tonic

i am tired
and i am afraid

A cross between..

Super furry animals, Comus and Ed Barton.

That's good, BTW.

Love it so far

This guy makes me want to revisit Bob Drake, who I haven't listened to in years.

I'm so in love with this album. Really feeling 'Weaver' and 'Beggar' today.

can't stop wondering about how the potato in shapeshifter got to bryneich/bernicia. it's such an odd line, is it deliberately anachronistic/anatopic?

there are a few deliberate anachronisms! like what's a collie doing in the dark ages

it's a better world he's made

the blurring of those times and these is like what paul kingsnorth was doing with his 'shadow tongue' in 'the wake', which i read concurrently to discovering this album, both complementing each other brilliantly

see also: the closing poem of m* n***l

but what is the significance of this potato?!

perhaps the shapeshifter is also able to shift the shape of objects, and it had been a humble apple beforehand. magic does what magic does iirc

the more i think about it the more deliciously puzzling the song is, but the potato is somehow what sends it over the top for me. the potato as a casual yet unsettling gesture to seal the deal after the shapeshifter has freed them. and the way he sings it of course.

everyone i've played "ogre" for says it sounds like polyphonic spree :(

Mmmm hmmmmm

Yeeeah, this is good

how good :p

I really wasn't sure to start with but then Ogre took over my inner jukebox and now I'm getting mildly obsessed

In other words it's growing on me like a bastard. How does it compare with his older stuff?

As good as the last album, i.e. as good as it fucken gets

late to the party but aoty

obv

imo a lot of people are going to be figuring where this fits into their decade list come december 2019

Blame it on the 'shock of the new', or changing musical tastes, but I'm just not as impressed by this one as I was Nothing Important. Guess that last album hit me during my peak Wire-reading / free jazz listening / Derek Bailey celebrating phase, but this record, to me, feels safer and more flat-plan. I loved the lyrical sprawl of those longer songs, as well as the abstruse guitar playing. This feels more reined-in by comparison, but maybe I need to do some background reading here to get a better feel for what the songs are about and the concepts behind them.

maybe I need to do some background reading here to get a better feel for what the songs are about and the concepts behind them.

Progge warning.

Some of the weirdness and atonality has been delegated to other instrumentalists, but it's still there! It does have a more straight-folk vibe but that's a conscious aesthetic decision and I think it works beautifully - this record really brings out RD's amazing sense of melody and progression. Plus the arrangements are flat-out wonderful.

If forced at gunpoint to choose I'd probably still go with Nothing Important but they're both phenomenal IMO, he is the best songwriter going

I admired rather than enjoyed Nothing Important but Peasant has really struck a chord with me - that it's more melodic probably does help a lot. Definitely a highlight of 2017.

"Soldier" is a fucking great song.

Don't know much about this subgenre (British avant-folk?) but to me Dawson sounds like a less roots-anchored Robin Williamson – if we go by his later, ECM material. Anyway, I'm really enjoying this, especially the dirge-like 'Hob'.

There's nothing like it.

I like to roll out the North Sea Radio Orchestra comparisons, but that's mostly because that's the only other UK alt-folk-adjacent contemporary music I love this much. It's more chamber music than Dawson, who's in turn much more experimental. Peasant represents some kind of melodic rapprochement between the two though, perhaps