Guy/Gal With a Guitar (Or Anything Else): Rolling Folk/Singer-Songwriter/Americana Thread 2015

don't think the album is from this year but I saw Jennifer Castle last week really enjoyed her, a little twee

Best album of the year IMO is Not So Deep as Well by Myriam Gendron

amazing adaptations of Dorothy Parker poems as singer-songwriter folk....shades of Nina Nastasia (a.k.a. the co-GOAT w/Joni)

http://tunes.mamabirdrecordingco.com/album/not-so-deep-as-a-well

You should check out her albums UMS, specifically Pink City which is brilliant.

yeah i just found out about her, just great

castle's on no quarter, right? that label has it down when it comes to this kind of thing -- great records by zachary cale and joan shelley coming out in a couple months.

yeah, also obv solar motel too, good label

last year's castle album was tremendous - my #1 vote

Love love loving the new Sam Lee album
http://www.npr.org/2015/07/27/425256277/hot-pants-glitter-and-alan-lomax-how-a-rising-singer-found-folk-music

This is a quick, third-quarter reminder that all available tracks mentioned on this thread (and a handful of album selections from each listed) are being updated to the thread-specific Spotify playlist as posted. I just did another top-to-bottom sweep prior to posting this message and have revised as of today with everything that's been added since first mentioned. Subscribe if you're into it!

It's 24 tracks, over an hour long.

Rolling Folk/Singer-Songwriter 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

I feel like today's listening will mostly consist of a surprise (to me anyway) new album by Alela Diane (with Ryan Francesconi, whom I only knew from his nice instrumental album Road to Palios but is/was apparently in Joanna Newsom's live band) and the dark folk of Dorthia Cottrell's self-titled (she's the singer of doom metal band Windhand).

one mention upthread and some discussion in the Fahey thread, but it's worth noting here, too: Joan Shelley's Over And Even is absolutely stunning, and one of the best albums of 2015 in any genre. check it out if you have not.

The new Baby Dee album is really beautiful and characteristically haunted-sounding: https://tinangelrecords.bandcamp.com/album/i-am-a-stick

YES
think it's one of my favorites of the year; saw her do the album premiere party and it was definitely one of the best shows of the year

Joan Shelley's great, thx for the tip

not quite confirmed yet, but joan shelley might be doing a house concert ... at my house!

!!

y'all are invited ...

damn, sounds awesome!

can't remember who exactly are colorado people on this board (i think some exist?) but once details are nailed down, I'll post about it...

you should cross post 2 the fahey crv thread too

the heidi berry fan in me is totally loving this.

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xlf1/v/t1.0-9/12274474_10154357667247137_1210492800646538947_n.jpg?oh=3804768df3ea71b78c92fdd24881eb40&oe=56E457B5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIDvKqCPI5w&feature=youtu.be

yeah she's great

thx for the heads up on shelley- gorgeous

I love that Joan Shelley album

she should have her own damn thread!

Joan Shelley

https://40.media.tumblr.com/7fd50f07edb289f65c8cd293e7b8dc4b/tumblr_nyorda4Q2J1qzy30io1_1280.jpg

Still really enjoying the new Josh Ritter album. Lots of tunes, lots of good lines. As a singer he's too sunny to sell the apocalyptic stuff -- he should've sold "Birds of the Meadow" to Nick Cave. But I love the fast ones, and one of the slow ones -- "The Stone" -- is on my shortlist of songs of the year.

As we move into December, I'd like to drop a quick note to encourage any readers / lurkers / ilxors to post their favorite folk-y tracks or albums from this year to the thread so that I can hoover them into the ongoing spotify playlist. Last chance for any accessible stragglers that may not already be in the lexicon.

Enjoying the new Simon Joyner album 'Grass, Branch & Bone'. Makes for a good late night listen.

https://simonjoyner.bandcamp.com/album/grass-branch-bone

Simon is amazing. Love this record.

guess we need a new thread ... but this 2015 Tiny Ruins release sounds great - https://tinyruins.bandcamp.com/album/hurtling-through
has hamish kilgour on it ... think the myriam gendron fans here would dig.

and this one too! seems to be getting a little attention -- a bit angel olsen-y?
https://scissortail.bandcamp.com/album/listen-to-formation-look-for-the-signs

guess we need a new thread ... but this 2015 Tiny Ruins release sounds great - https://tinyruins.bandcamp.com/album/hurtling-through
has hamish kilgour on it ... think the myriam gendron fans here would dig.

oh I had missed that one, thanks for the heads up

really is great -- recommended!!!!

I'm wrapping this playlist for the year. It has been updated with a few new adds (Dorthia Cottrell, Alela Diane, Meg Baird, The Weather Station) and includes every track mentioned on thread that is available via Spotify's US catalogue as of EOY 2015. If I missed something or if a track comes available sometime in the future, bump here to let me know and I'll add.

Rolling Folk 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Julien Baker's Newport Folk set now live streaming on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2016/07/22/486910594/were-off-to-newport-folk-festival
Might be posted later; some from earlier this weekend are starting to show up. Unpretentious, fervent sonic-spiritual testimonial speculations, or quest if you like. She knows what she thinks and feels, but gets why they call it "faith."
John Moreland's Saturday set was very good too. ("Hang me in the Tulsa stars.")

joanne robertson is inexplicably underrated, appeared on a few dean blunt things and she suits that hazy intimacy v well. I guess it's on her to record all the new cat power albums now, including this year's wildflower released a month before the avalanches' one. really like her spare guitar playing and the whole thing has an effortless strength to it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3aiuan3Pk0

dori freedman made one of this year's best albums

would love for this thread (or a new 2017 thread) to be more active in the coming year!

me too!

it doesn't help that some of this stuff is already covered in the post-fahey brigade thread

some of the things I enjoyed this year, some with vocals, some without:

Sarah Louise - VDSQ Solo Acoustic Vol. 12
Marisa Anderson - Into the Light
Glenn Jones - Fleeting
Luke Roberts - Sunlit Cross
Marissa Nadler - Strangers
Jackie Lynn (aka Circuit des Yeux) - s/t
Mike Wexler - Syntropy
Gareth Dickson - Orwell Court
Brigid Mae Power - s/t
Matt Elliott - The Calm Before

Hope everybody heard these in 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7b3Mrtzm-0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUeU3FgFCOs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHyMtYdAX2E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHLIKOoX_n8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r08sY9lzFpQ

https://fredericksquire.bandcamp.com/album/spooky-action-at-a-distance

https://newdog.bandcamp.com/album/lost-weekend

yes, see, thank you for these ^^

i don't know if i am mellowing in my old age or what but i think i'm more into "Folk/Singer-Songwriter/Americana" than ever before.

2016 faves include Lori McKenna, Andy Shauf, Laura Gibson, Lydia Loveless, case/lang/veirs and Eric Bachmann, plus the great Stephen Steinbrink, though he's probably more "indie" than belongs in this thread.

The new Duke Garwood album 'Garden of Ashes' is a bit of a Lanegan-esque dark blues affair and it's better than anything Lanegan has done in years. Here's the 1st track:

https://youtu.be/9Ok3ztBXQIU

Full disclosure, I've done some writing for the roll-out of this album, but it's just wonderful, wonderful:

https://soundcloud.com/secretcityrecords/03-leif-vollebekk-elegy

Really love that Duke Garwood album.

woah I had totally forgotten about Leif Vollebekk, love this guy's previous album, that's great news

new julie byrne record is extremely nice
https://badabingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/not-even-happiness

yeah the julie byrne is nice

here's something else in that vein, from Hand Habits aka Meg Duffy

https://handhabits.bandcamp.com/album/wildly-idle-humble-before-the-void-2

I'm very much into this French guy right now:

https://talitres.bandcamp.com/album/the-silver-veil

I saw that on the overlooked albums thread, that is a great release. Raoul Vignal's soft whisper and his fluid restrained guitar play remind me a little of Nick Drake. Vignal is more serene than melancholic though. So tender and smooth, perfect lullabye music.

Bands I really should explore more of part #123: Elephant Micah.

This version of Still Life Blues is so fucking good.

https://youtu.be/_1eqA681el4

this guy from Portland should be much better known, his 2017 album is excellent:

https://jeffreymartinportland.bandcamp.com/album/one-go-around

This new Lotte Kestner record is right up my alley. You know the deal by now: melancholic tunes ala Marissa Nadler, Alela Diane etc.

It's quietly been quite a good year for Americana/Roots records. Amanda Shires released a fantastic album. But the one I want to tell you all about is Life Ain't That Long by Rich Krueger. It's his debut album, he's a 58 year old neonatal doctor from Chicago who happens to be a fantastic songwriter.

If you like this genre, you will love this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_gKj7hS6OQ

Nice tune, but just once I'd like to hear one of these guys play a chord that can't be found within the first three pages of the Mel Bay Beginner Guitar Method Vol. 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjB3Qwjcimw

she knows a lot of chords

You are right about the chords but it'd be better if she would not sing.

I made it about twenty seconds into that one

she's great but she already has two threads of her own! (for Big Thief and solo work)

I have never heard of this person but that's some of the most insufferable singing I have heard in a long time. Sorry.

tbf that's by some distance as out-there/incantative as her vocals get, stuff like "cradle" and "womb" are more representative