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

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

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

― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Saturday, 3 June 2017 18:05 (six months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

... which is a Mike Heron track actually, though he's definitely more Robin Williamson. Not that I've heard enough of his material though, tbh.

HEN OGLEDD

http://thequietus.com/articles/25272-hen-ogledd-problem-child-richard-dawson

HEN OGLEDD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O9BXeFm_yg

HEN OGLEDD

A spokesperson for the band says: "Each hailing from historically different tribal regions of the Old North, the musicians on Mogic challenge the idea that the ancient world was rife with magic, while the new is infiltrated by cold logic. The tracks on Mogic create new phantasmal blends of images and ideas that draw upon the mystical and technological. Mogic is a discombobulating pop prayer exploring artificial intelligence, witches, nanotechnology, pre-medieval history, robots, romance, computer games and waterfalls.

"I live on a mountain
The only tall sculpture on this planet
The view is appalling"

Excellent song, excellent video.

this was certainly unexpected but it's very cool

saw him live at a festival this year, was indeed something to behold, guy is brilliant

for everyone who wished peasant sounded more like the super furry animals

lmao this rules

Bass reminds me of The Cure in parts. Unexpected, this. I like

If you're going to make lazy comparisons to other Welsh pop acts, make them to people who are actually excited to hear this album

‘I live on a mountain, the only tall sculpture on this planet. The view is appalling..’ YES @HOgledd https://t.co/yLCzA3rJi4

— G W E N N O (@gwennosaunders) September 11, 2018

actually, speaking of Welsh postpunk, the song it reminded me of most was this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KquxHMQD1Z0

GWENNO KIND OF QUOTED WHAT I QUOTED FIRST I AM MORE IN LOVE THAN I ALREADY WAS <333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333

Gwenno reads ILm, I am sure of it now. And that is alright.

Finally got around to Nothing Important. I think I like his sinister minimalist moods more than his whimsy, but then again 'Hob' was the highlight of Peasant for me.

hen ogledd album good-not-mindblowing, worth a listen though

am now decided that weaver is the best track on peasant, so much range but moves through all these different moments with eerie smoothness, carried along by that slightly nervous, unsettled energy

I'm partial to 'Hob', for predictably temperamental reasons. I also happen to prefer the relative nihilism of Nothing Important, also for predictably temperamental reasons.

I too prefer the best album of the decade to the third or fourth best album of the decade

Weaver was always one of the best tracks, as was Hob, as were all the others. I can barely talk about it

springtime is dawson time

i still have vivid memories of my first listen to Ogre, walking through a Surrey village en route to a lesson, on an extremely idyllic spring afternoon

New track "Jogging", from forthcoming album 2020 (due October):
https://youtu.be/UGiQ_-Ktpvc

!!

he's gone...rock!

Droll lyrics, as usual, but I'm underwhelmed by the song proper. Nothing Important was the peak imho.

It was the peak of albums by anybody this decade, so

I mean I still like this and am intrigued by the album

did he get muse to do the arrangement? not really feeling this

muse?!

yeah this is great

I must say, I prefer him when he's stripped down and dirty. Peasant felt too dense and painterly for me to be able to get into.

This is okay though.

actually this is really good with the video

about the third listen before I was fully this song's humble servant

have to admit the bathos of the last verse/chorus got me a bit choked up. I like this song. always helps to have the words to read along with I feel

love it

You are all mad. Peasant was his peak. This next album might better it.

It will be something, that's for sure.

There's a limited-edition David Squires comic with the LP! Might have to get that...

I like the way it's somehow both specific and universal, and I also like the contrast between the surging rock chorus arrangement and the almost humdrumness of the words being sung over them. Plus, I'm just coming to the end of reading Jonathan Coe's Middle England, and - the direct lyrical parallel aside - the themes of both dovetail well. It articulates something which feels more contemporary and less past-referencing than other stuff I've heard of his, and Rock suits him better here than on the Hen Ogledd project, which didn't really do it for me.

agreed and nicely put

WOW

i think the song itself is fine but the rock arrangement is just so plodding and doesn't really work with his voice

okay this on at least the best song I've heard oooh.. in the last day of not week. Nice one Dawso

is. I'm drunk

if. fml