"You, Not Me" by Ivy Ash

Photo: Don T Death

With her latest single "You, Not Me" (which doesn't actually come out until August 5^th but please be ready for it because it's so good), Ivy Ash has taken another considerable leap forwards in her art.

The second track (after "Third Degree" which we reviewed last November) to come out of her ‘Developing Your Creative Practice' project with Arts Council England, the song by itself justifies the title & presumed aim of the funding: Ivy is not using the money just to record her songs, she is very deliberately using the structure & philosophy of the funding to consciously move her writing into new areas which might, without this support, have been a much slower process.

Key to this seems to be the notion of ringfencing time for exploring original ideas and approaches  (which given how much she has had to balance studying, working & travelling on top of her creativity, that must have been vital) and as she puts it herself, the freedom from pressure & sense of space to create within seem to have resulted in a very relaxed & organic writing environment: "I wrote this song during my development and creation time within the third quarter of 2021, it was one of those songs that happened so naturally, the lyrics poured out and it was a process that I couldn't stop if I tried"

That sense of material pouring out of her is pretty consistent with the overall feel of her Ivy Ash work to date: that natural effervescent charm which bubbles out of your speakers. Nevertheless, if you've been following her career, you'll remember that a couple of her upbeat tracks have subsequently appeared in acoustic form later too. In neither case was I expecting the stripped back twin (and an artist who can surprise is onto a good thing) and once again, I'm wondering whether she'll be pulling off the trick again: it just seems too "right" in its current form.

This ability to create original material which from the start is capable of being plausibly presented in differing forms is an interesting & unusual one and one which will get her noticed: quite a few other people (e.g. Joe Dolman) do this regularly, but Ivy seems to include it as part of her artistic identity: perhaps linking her current pop persona with her more laid back earlier work.

But to return to "You, Not Me"… Ivy describes it as "electro pop" which I don't intend to dispute as such, it's just that to me it's got the funk: a throbbing bassline in particular which goes above & beyond what we've heard from her before. This is a real deal & that's why I think the track will exceed streaming & other success indicators of her earlier work.

Sassy to a high degree (thank you Ivy) it seized me by the scruff of the neck on a dull afternoon & invigorated me. It should do much the same to you if you give it the chance. The word "pulsating" has already been used of it, which robs me of the chance to use if fresh, but as it fits, I'm happy to pass it on.

Ivy describes it as "… fearless, confident, and no-nonsense. I believe that everyone should be free to be themselves, and I want to hammer that message home." Which she does through enthusiasm & panache rather than crude brute force.  This is someone confident in her own skin & alert to the wiles of the world enough to be aware of gaslighting & able to swerve it.

Let's face it, "You Not Me" has a very important message, a statement of intent, but the first impression it's likely to have on anyone is that as a song it's as infectious as any of the viral atrocities still in turgid circulation, but thankfully in a beneficial way.

The canon of Ivy Ash to date can be seen as a ladder: each rung higher & by now we're a long way off the ground. Ivy sounds like she has a head for the heights.

"What Would You Change" by Luke Concannon, Darius Christian & Joshua Bailey

For his first single since the great success of his ‘Ecstatic Bird in the Burning' album, Luke Concannon has created "What Would You Change" for us & released it today.

One (of many) aspects of Luke's craft which never fails to strike me is a most tricky balance he pulls off every song.

Luke is pretty much a poet when it comes to lyric writing. As my previous reviews have hopefully made clear, he loves metaphors & allusions & is seldom happy unless each song contains various layers of meaning or deals with several subjects simultaneously. Take even his most famous song: just note down how many separate  issues he's actually tackling at once.

Against this, he aims for and achieves a simplicity of focus: he certainly doesn't want to let his poetic expression prevent his messages getting through: and messages are huge in Luke's writing: I doubt if he is capable of creating something unless it has a point to him or constitutes something which he wants to share with the world.

Thus the obvious theme of "What Would You Change" is crystal clear. There is no deception at play, no sneaking unpalatable messages through under sugar coating. It's simply about making those changes in your life in order to respond to the love & needs of those around you: and in fact if you are keeping up with Luke and what he does in the broadest contexts of his life & work, you can see him as on a pilgrimage himself (and having been so for a long long time now) towards improving himself as a human being as well as an artist. There seems little more which is so central to the choices he makes & he is urging us to consider our own responses in that respect.

That said, to return to my earlier theme, this is not some simplistic or patronising piece: musically it's typical Luke: stripped back in arrangement yet I imagine horrendously difficult to replicate exactly, with chords I certainly don't claim to recognise, idiosyncratic structures, changes of rhythm & meter etc.

Not all of the arrangement is in fact down to Luke & the single is actually credited to Luke and Darius Christian & Joshua Bailey.  Darius is a Baltimore based friend of Luke's who has played with the likes of Miley Cyrus & Gwen Stefani and added all instruments (bar Joshua's drums) to Luke's basic guitar & vocal tracks.

As might have been expected, Luke began work on the song when lockdown first hit. Concerned with the universal vulnerabilities exposed by the pandemic, he sought to remind us of how we could still connect despite the crisis. Key points he wanted to communicate included "…if we dare to wake up to how amazing it is that we have this life, and each other, what might we do? It's almost too much of a miracle to be here and be alive and, the hope in me is that we will wake up to that and take the leaps of faith required, to get us to a sane, thriving, just world". And who can argue with that?

As ever, however rotten the aspects of the world he sees can be, Luke remains an eternal optimist & believes if we pull together, we can fix things. You may well like & respect "What Would You Change" but he's asking us for our help & action as well. It's about activism not passivity.

If you happen to be near Cambridge, Massachusetts tomorrow (Saturday 25^th June) then you can join in the "Joyful June" launch concert for the single which will also be raising funds for a local Regeneration project, or alternatively you can share the experience at 10pm UK time on Facebook.

He is also coming over to the UK in a few months, so look out for a range of opportunities to catch hi live: some of which are already in the public domain & others remain to be announced.

"The Daily Male" by YNES

While YNES is preparing herself to play the Left Field Stage at Glastonbury at the specific invitation of its curator Billy Bragg, her brand new single "The Daily Male" has hit the streets.

Coming pretty hot on the heels of the excellent "Fake What Your Mama Gave Ya", this song takes the stiletto skewering on that previous release & applies it to multiple targets.

Generally speaking, taking on more than one subject to deflate it runs the risk of spreading your ammunition too thinly and as YNES goes for sub three minute songs to focus her attack, that means you have to be damn good at your craft or else the arrows can be shrugged off.

Fortunately YNEs is exceedingly good at this sort of thing (why on else would Billy Bragg rate her?) and as is her wont, goes on the offensive with plenty of glee, humour & panache.

Taking on the relatives of pseuds targeted last time out, YNEs expands this now to include the whole patriarchy, male violence, misogyny, racism, bigotry & the toxic media which sustains it. How ambitious is that, even if she's right?

Thankfully thousands are presumably about to hear this live so with a bit of luck it may gain her that commercial traction which she needs to break through to the next level: I think she'll do it. The fact that it seems YNES is incapable of writing a song which isn't catchy in that compelling pop-punk way also helps. That she works with John Rivers at Woodbine Street Studio, a man who has produced Buzzcocks, Swell Maps & The Shapes must also play a part.

There is a rare confidence in how YNES struts through her songs & that's part of the attraction: however sleazy the subjects are, she isn't going to be dirtied by contact with them nor discouraged by their come backs to her: YNES is on the high moral ground & knows it.

There isn't anyone in this single who doesn't deserve being taken publicly to task & if too many of them are pretty thick skinned (and thick in other ways too) then her barbs are sharp enough to pierce.

One final thought on how YNES achieves the sense of authenticity in her work: though we know she works hard on crafting her lyrics, most sound on delivery like she has just thought of what she wants to say & so it comes across like you are eavesdropping on a genuine conversation: and that's a most intriguing skill.

This moment might just big the Big One for her.

A new song by Antonia Kirby

Photo: Olivia Susanna Photography

I'm pleased to have the opportunity to tell you of a new Antonia Kirby song: the first I think I've reported on to you since "Sides of Me" in September 2020.

Strictly speaking it's not quite at the formal release stage yet: in fact it's sheltering under the working title of "Unfinished" for the time being, but such is its creator's enthusiasm for it & the fact that I am sure we don't have any rules against this sort of thing at the magazine, that I thought I'd give you a heads up.

The words apparently came to her in a dream a month or so ago & she's been working on setting them appropriately since:  and on the advice of Dan Sealey has produced her first composition in open tuning (DADGAD since you ask)

Inspired by her sister's first story telling show in London, Antonia had been musing upon untold & marginalised stories and "what might have been". This led to her creation of a concept of Nostalgia less as a feeling or perspective but more of a place for storage of stories & potential lifelines. Consequently, this led her to a sense that it's "…OK to be happy with your life but still be thoughtful about roads not taken, the "sliding doors moments".."

Running this past critical friends, one of whom fed back with "the purity in your lyrics is staggeringly beautiful"  and as no less an authority as Hannah Woof told her that "the world deserves to hear this one", Antonia really had little option but to proceed. As she put it to me: "I didn't expect this little beaut to emerge but my soul feels lighter having written it"

Thus we have a track she already considers her best work (that's a high bar isn't it?) and certainly her fresh approach to her tuning impacting on her music & an equally new "organic" way of writing words (she is approaching them more as a poet & bothering less about formal constrictions like rhyming schemes) has produced a song unlike any other she had previously  shared. Thus we can call it a development & thus it must be beyond her earlier work in these respects, though the fundamentals of voice, honesty & melodicism were in place long before.

The nature of the open tuning inevitably leads her towards a drone effect to anchor the song (and I'm aware that some readers may take that word in its derogatory sense, which would be annoying because that's not how I'm using it) and it's fun to hear how Antonia plays around that central melodic spine in a way more akin perhaps to classical folk singing than we've heard from her.

Inventive uses of this approach plus unexpected verbal constructions lead to regular surprises throughout & again this might be cited in evidence of it being an advanced example of her writing.

At this point I'm feeling a little apprehensive as she expressed to me an interest in what influences I might hear in there: a task I have set to but frankly I think I've failed. Without doubt there are clear routes back to that classic folk idiom that I mentioned: but mainly in a general way. The unusual lyrics & rhythm certainly don't bring any other specific writer instantly to mind & Antonia's singing doesn't exhibit any of the usual vocal tropes of the genre.. so there is definitely some sense of new ground being broken. Since I'd promised her that I'd have a go, I'll suggest that maybe (just maybe) I get a slight sense of someone like Joni Mitchell (mainly because of the register both sing in & for the unusualness of the song: otherwise the Englishness makes a strong distinction), maybe a bit of Laura Nyro,  a pinch of Carla Olson or Thea Gilmore  and since I reviewed Roxanne de Bastion the other week, there are comparisons to be made there too. Perhaps.

Ultimately though all these feeble efforts at comparison fail & whatever Antonia feels were the influences upon  "Unfinished", only she knows & can reveal if she so wishes. I'd hope that she'd take it as a compliment that I failed at the task.

Whatever form the song eventually emerges in, I think though that I'm happy to validate her assessment of it & hopefully it will attract the attention her talent deserves & her friends believe it & she merit.

"Vice Vice Vice" by Bar Pandora

In the relatively short period of time (about five weeks) since I reviewed the most recent single release "Look At Me" from Bar Pandora, things have moved on a pace: as was clearly happening at the time of that review.

Firstly I was really pleased to catch them live for the first time (please see my review for 8^th of this month) and that evening also evidenced that a nationally known touring act (Roxanne de Bastion) had Bar Pandora sufficiently on their radar to include them on the bill. Beyond that, the music is being picked up even further afield and getting featured on playlists on an international basis.

The eponymous debut EP is due out on 5^th July and as another step along the road towards that, today the final anticipatory single "Vice Vice Vice" has been issued.

Showcasing yet another facet of Charlie Tophill's lyrical & musical interests, this one probably sits nearer to the pop end of her personal spectrum and may in fact be the one to entice into her world those for whom the ambiguities & gnomic allusions of the earlier singles were some form of barrier.

That, emphatically is not to suggest that Charlie has lurched towards the mainstream here: far from it. She still seems to be using her cut up technique & dancing gracefully around her subject (which apparently is "..a remonstrance to a neglectful lover..") offering enigmatic clues to understanding it. Adopting on this occasion a rather seraphic performance style (though a rather angsty second vocal line meshes with it towards the end), the protagonist is, it would seem, intent on occupying the higher moral ground & not demeaning herself by losing her cool in public: reproachful yes, abusive no. Educational? Quite possibly.

This cool disdain is reflected in the music which grooves along warmly yet is so full of ever changing detail and structure that after a couple of plays you wonder how on earth they keep the groove going so well with so much shifting & devote the next couple of plays to analysing just that. Or alternatively you could simply play it & enjoy it which is probably a healthier choice. She is self identifying as "alt pop" after all & clearly reveling in it herself (apparently it's one of her own favourites to perform).

It would seem from Charlie's comments ("..It's about that push and pull you feel when you're putting everything into a relationship and still being taken for granted..") that there is a significant element of catharsis for her in singing about it & so it's to her credit that she's gone down this almost counter intuitive route of instead of screaming & raging, keeping her cool & demonstrating maturity and superiority of emotional intelligence: not alas the immediate reaction of most of us, but without doubt a better one in both short & long terms. That Charlie uses the word "..unapologetic.." in relation to the song is significant too I suspect. I don't think what she is saying in the song is ever going to be regretted by her & if whoever it's specifically directed at gets to hear it, I trust they'll take note & set their house into better order. I also applaud the clever use she makes of the double meaning: exposing the transgressive behaviour but also using the metaphor of being clasped woundingly tight.

It also pretty much ensures that building on the attention Bar Pandora is already getting, "Vice Vice Vice" should get her the most airplay of her career to date: if people "get" the words, that presumably is a highly desirable bonus. I suppose at best there is a fine line between "multi-layered" work & "subversive" and possible the latter exists only in any intention of the writer: however I'd like to think I find (and applaud) various degrees of subversion in the output of Bar Pandora.

Oddly enough, once I heard the story of how Charlie had come up with the name for the project, my immediate reaction was to think of another legendary café habituated by the very artistic which also gave its name to a band: Cabaret Voltaire…… maybe just a coincidence so not particularly worth mentioning had it not been for the fact that possibly their biggest single was also a single word triply cited: "Nag Nag Nag": the coincidence is now more striking though I'm at a loss to say exactly what it means (if anything) and although both bands share an interest in electronic music and each uses the titular device to amplify the intensity, the 1979 song is certainly much more abrasive on the surface (though arguably less so if you delve deeper)….. However it's little moments like this which can hint at wider patterns out there.

If like me & a rapidly growing number of other right minded people you'd like to catch Bar Pandora live, you can see them at the Elevate Festival on 16th July at the Criterion Theatre^, Earlsdon to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Coventry Haven & raise funds for them and with Batsch at Just Dropped In on 6^th August.

"Hush! A Summer Celebration"

Photo: Andy Holdcroft

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Last evening at Earlsdon Carnegie Community Library saw the "Hush! A Summer Celebration" event, another in the series of collaborations between the Library & "Hot Music Live Presents" and the first one since the announcement of the Library's national recognition in the shape of the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service: a marvellous & deserved accolade for the success of Julie Rubidge, Lucy Winter & the team at the charity which now runs it in rescuing the Library from closure, restoring it to glory & promoting such a range of community focused events including "Hush!"

Showcasing a range of artistic skills including music, the evening was another highly successful one, opening with Force of Love (Spiros Abatis) who offered us fruits of his creativity in two distinct formats: music & poetry.

This act was something of a revelation for me: recommended by Izzie herself (and he's also worked with Joe as it happens), I hadn't previously seen him perform and he is certainly a very dynamic & arresting showman who delivers his material in a way to stimulate audiences.

 If you check out his work online, you may well consider his starting point to be the more experimental end of music, but this really doesn't mean that it's so avant garde that it's inaccessible. The forms are easily engageable with & can be enjoyed on an immediate level, though it's clear how important the content & message are to him: close attention to the words brings additional rewards.

 His guitar playing (he admitted to being at the loud end of the acoustic spectrum) had many flamenco aspects to it & was an interesting mixture of the instant & the melodic. How words were passionate & gave some sort of clue to the name for his act: the concept of Love permeated the songs and poems whether for each other or the world we inhabit.

 I am not sure when I last witnessed a poem of such length being recited (though given the nature of his performance "enacted" might fit the bill more closely) without error: quite an achievement & one which consequently had a proportionate impact on the audience. A second one, also as arresting in scope & imagery was one he was working on so I think we'd all readily accept his need to read more of that one out from the text.

 I gather he'd not performed for around three years, but judging by his act & the reaction, any potential rustiness was blown away & I hope to catch him again.

 The second  item on the bill was a look at the novel writing of local author J T Wilson who gave two readings from his most recent release "Impossible Animals: or Other Outstanding Attractions" and answered questions from the audience and a handful from me on both this book, his earlier "Cemetery Drive" and his craft in general.

I wasn't sure how comfortable the audience might be in terms of asking questions (hence my preparation of a lot of my own just in case) but I was delighted to be reassured. Stimulated by the readings: which were dynamically performed with the experience and skills of someone used to the stage, there were effectively no barriers to break down & we went straight into a discussion of cryptozoology without any need for prompts etc: if the audience had not previously been familiar with the concept, they picked it up instantly from the reading. In fact so impressed with what they saw, two separate audience members suggested that Joe take this performance to the Edinburgh Fringe: an idea I suspect he'd not considered beforehand but took away as food for thought.

 Many readers will have been aware of Joe's work as a musician: featured in this magazine & in several incarnations on various volumes of "Hot Music Live Presents". How that writing interacted with his prose writing was another area those present were interested in exploring & he gave detailed accounts not only of how the different modes offered distinct opportunities to express himself, but also on his writing technique: he brought along a notebook in which initial vignettes and passages were conceived (in longhand!) and recorded for later combination into longer work and how elements of Pop Culture were so ubiquitous in his writing.

The headlining act, Izzie Derry will need no introduction to most readers of the magazine as we have covered her releases & gigs many times. However, although her EP launch at The Tin in March 2020 was literally the last live performance I saw let alone reviewed for a long time, it's still over two years since I've caught one of her gigs.

 And to take the theme of her closing song "Learn To Grow", her music has evolved in that period (knowing Izzie that's not a great surprise). I don't actually mean that her new material is a development (she took time out from recording her latest album to play this gig), though the evidence supports that. Izzie has mainly written the new songs on piano and as performing on that instrument last night wasn't very practical, we got a mostly older set of guitar compositions (and so got the classic Izzie show of continuous swaying motion which is so charismatic yet hard to photograph) and it is these which have developed.

 I mentioned some years ago when she unveiled her full band lineup how powerful her sound had consequently come (and at that point she started playing a Telecaster on stage) and that certainly informed recent releases which were with her band. That makes perfect sense I hope: what wasn't so predictable was the residual effect on her solo acoustic back catalogue.

 At one point last night she suggested that her songs could broadly be categorised as "sad" or "angry" (and I'm pretty sure I'd not really grasped that in any of my reviews: not least due to the beauty which to some extent distracts from that) and to a significant degree the latter has predominated in her more recent writing (I gather that it would be true for much of the new album too). Thus I was perhaps not too surprised when a song as stunning & powerful as "Fire" which is definitely an "angry" one came across as compellingly in a solo version as the band one I'd only ever previously heard her play it live: what hit me more was an even earlier song such as "Give Me A Reason To Stay" whose angry undertones are now much more to the fore: transforming my understanding of the song (which has been in my awareness for at least five years).

 Generally that dynamic applies to the changes Izzie has wrought & impacts in various ways: songs have certain elements of menace in their playing with more ominous riffs and even more ominous dramatic pauses. Her voice too has evolved: still confident in her upper register which has always been a characteristic of her singing, now her lower range is coming to the fore more: perhaps stimulated by the changes in writing style, or maybe to some extent exploration: when I raised the issue with her afterwards, she primarily credited a desire to refresh the older material with any changes she had made to performing it.

 That said, Izzie has written two songs on the guitar for the new album & gave us our first chance to hear one live and it was a most potent one: definitely from the "angry" category and delivered appropriately. I gather that much of the album is in this mode & apparently informed by personal experiences: I did raise my condolences with Izzie at having gone through negative interactions in this manner, but her response was that at least she got some powerful songs out of it, so if she can process them so positively then I think we can just sit back & enjoy her artistry without too much angst on her behalf.

 What we are getting is a tendency not to mince her words nor hold back lyrically: I don't think anyone will be mistaking her messages. That said, it's Izzie Derry we are discussing here and though her gloves may be off these days, the result is not mindless abuse but considered reproaches to those who've wronged her & a disinclination to demean herself by sinking to their level: above all she's not abandoned the compassion & humanity of her work and it now sits alongside defiance.

 Izzie Derry on solo acoustic guitar is a stunning live act in such a beautiful & intimate space which actively rewards her sound & strengths & the audience were greatly moved by what they experienced. However great last night was, I wonder how often we'll be getting to hear it in the future? Given her live work in recent years & the nature of the new album, it's hard to imagine solo gigs like this being the norm: and that's fine by me as I'm glad she's moving on & developing her potential. That such nights have a special magic is undeniable & if you've never caught one, I suggest that you take advantage of others she might play. Equally Izzie is clearly (however much she is still beloved in Coventry & Warwickshire) a more national name now: she has a professional & personal base in Brighton is playing all over the country, building a wider audience: no wonder her album will be funded by her successful Kickstarter campaign.

 Her next local gig is on 29^th June for Sofar Sounds & I assume that will be a solo performance too….