1st August 2012: The Driftwood Manor / Playlist

Featured: The Driftwood Manor - Dominican Black Abbey (Rusted Rail)

Rusted Rail is proud to announce the release of a 6-track 3inch extended player by Irish avant-folksters The Driftwood Manor called 'Dominican Black Abbey'.

Driftwood Manor mainstay Eddie Keenan worked with a number of long-time collaborators including co-producer Keith Wallace to create an EP which features fiddle player Neil Fitzgibbon, vocalist Annemarie Deacy and guitarist Bryan Higgins making their marks on the recordings.

After a drunken conversation about various musical styles and their similarities, Keenan decided to collaborate with Bryan Higgins of Galway doom metal merchants Rites on the new recording, adding some darker edges as well as light to a number of the songs, while Galway composer Annemarie Deacy (formerly of local legends Mirakil Whip) also added her vocal talents to the fray.

The lyrics to the songs emerged from an experiment that Keenan was carrying out with a dream journal, recording the stranger elements of his unconscious dream states and interpreting them into the songs. This 3” EP is housed in a hand-assembled and hand-stamped card sleeve featuring a cover photo by Sarah Grimes (September Girls).

The Driftwood Manor

Radio Playlist 1st August 2012

Magnet – Appointment With The Wicker Man [OST The Wicker Man]

Sproatly Smith – Gently Johnny [Static Caravan 7”]

Cubs – The Last Day Of Spring [Willowfield]

The Driftwood Manor – I Could Sense A Violent Death [Dominican Black Abbey]

**

The Lovetones – Navigator [Provenance: Collected Works 2002-2012]

Driver Drive Faster – Voices Pt.2 [Static Caravan 7”]

Meridians – Sunrise [S/T]

**

The Driftwood Manor – Like Parting With Ghosts [Dominican Black Abbey]

The Volta Sound – Good Lookin’ Out Y’all [Good Lookin’ Out Y’all]

Tales Of Murder & Dust – On My Mind [S/T]

**

Cubs – Lowering Of Ropes [Willowfield]

Moonwood – Fireflies Trapped In A Cracked Pint Jar [The Strength Of The Pack Is The Wolf, & The Strength Of The Wolf Is The Pack]

The Driftwood Manor – Trees Shaped By The Wind [Dominican Black Abbey]

**

Gravenhurst – Circadian [The Ghost In Daylight]

Good Shepherd – Flown The Other Side [Ah… Good The Sea]

Richard Hawley – She Brings The Sunlight [Standing At The Sky’s Edge]

**

The Seventh Ring Of Saturn – Alice Sunshine [S/T]

Ride Into The Sun – Drown Your Soul [7”]
The Driftwood Manor – Bend In The River [v/a Beyond The Pale] 

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Sideways Through Sound Archive

31st August 2011: Lucie Thorne in Session

24th August 2011: Sand Pebbles & Interview

17th August 2011: The Driftwood Manor

10th August 2011: William Elliot Whitmore

3rd August 2011: The Travelling Band

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25th August 2010: John Smith

18th August 2010: The Soft Hills

11th August 2010: The Soundcarriers

4th August 2010: Jez Mead in Session

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26th August 2009: Six Organs Of Admittance

19th August 2009: Grand Salvo

12th August 2009: International Vinyl Day

5th August 2009: Micah Blue Smalldone

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25th August 2008: Tan Or Boil

18th August 2008: Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh

11th August 2008: The Great Pop Supplement

4th August 2008: Luluc

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30th August 2007: Jessica Bailiff

23rd August 2007: Earth

16th August 2007: Angelo Badalamenti

9th August 2007: Travelling Bell

2nd August 2007: HRSTA

25th July 2012: Seabuckthorn & interview / Playlist

Featured: Seabuckthorn - The Silence Woke Me (Bookmaker Records)

The sea-buckthorns (Hippophae L.) are deciduous shrubs in the genus Hippophae, family Elaeagnaceae. The name sea-buckthorn is hyphenated here to avoid confusion with the buckthorns (Rhamnus, family Rhamnaceae). It is also referred to as sandthorn, sallowthorn, or seaberry. There are considered to be seven species, two of them probably of hybrid origin native over a wide area of Europe and Asia.

Seabuckthorn is also an exercise in atmospherics as much as in melodies... Andy Cartwright's alter ego continues to drift, nomad like, through his uniquely crafted musical landscapes. His music explores alternative terrains on six to twelve strings, often with minimal, layered accompaniments. Sometimes quietly ambient, often powerfully expressive.

A long time favourite of Sideways Through Sound, Seabuckthorn's new album continues their trademark sonic palette with devastatingly beautiful textures and explorations...

Seabuckthorn

Radio Playlist 25th July 2012 (HERE)

Sam & The Bird (Lachlan McCarthy) – Sunrise [When Words Fail]
The Daredevil Christopher Wright – San Francisco Bay [The Nature Of Things]
Seabuckthorn – Good Honest Thievery [The Silence Woke Me]
**
Wilco – I Might [The Wilco Loft 12-12-2011]
Arthur Alligood – Go On Back [One Silver Needle]
Black Lakes – Common Song [Trick Hotel]
**
Seabuckthorn – The Cool Of The Coming Dark [The Silence Woke Me]
Seabuckthorn – {excerpt}
Seabuckthorn – As Fire Moves [The Silence Woke Me]
**
Allysen Callery – Young Edwin [Winter Island]
James Teague – Hollow [7”]
Wool & Howl – Shining Through [S/T]
**
Seabuckthorn – The Pull Of The City [The Silence Woke Me]
Karima Walker – Desert Plain [A Good Year]
Farriers – Long Are The Hollows [Years Ago In Our Backyard]
**
The Great Went – Among Others [Sheltering Sky]
The Lumineers – Slow It Down [S/T]
We Are The Birdcage – Lonely Stones [Little Father Time EP]

18th July 2012: Jeff Zentner & interview / Playlist

Featured: Jeff Zentner - A Season Lost (Cities Of The Plain)

'A Season Lost' is Jeff Zentner's third album. In the broadest sense, it deals with love, loss, endings, and the transience of time, in particular, the way a season, or a whole year can slip away during a tumultuous period.

'A Season Lost' arose from just such a period in his life. It arose from a time of breaking down and rebuilding. It represents the reaching of a safe harbor after a storm and a looking back.

Some of the songs on this album are directly about that time. Some are not. But in a way, they all are.

Sonically, this album builds and expands upon the lush and haunting pastoral sound that Jeff Zentner created on his first two albums, "Hymns to the Darkness" (2007) and "The Dying Days of Summer" (2009). It features prominently Elin Palmer's elegiac string playing and harmony vocals. Buck and Shanti Curran (Arborea), Rykarda Parasol, Matt Bauer, Josie Little, Hannah Fury, and Sumie Nagano also lend their prodigious instrumental and vocal talents.

As with his first two albums, 'A Season Lost' is profoundly connected to place and time - the cool dark autumn forests of the North Carolina mountains, the soft green magnolia twilight of the Tennessee summer, the gathering storms of spring scattering blossoms on the road, the smoky stillness of a winter evening that precedes the snow, in a place where it snows just twice a year.

Jeff Zentner

Radio Playlist 18th July 2012 (HERE)


Jerry Douglas – American Tune/Spain [Traveler]
Sam Moss – Wayfaring Stranger [demo]
Jeff Zentner – Birds Fly South [A Season Lost]
**
Colossal Gospel – Shadows Of The Battlefield {Pat Benatar medley} [demo]
Jordie Lane – Swing [v/a Take Something Beautiful: The Songs Of Jesse Younan]
Mark Lanegan & Isobel Campbell – The Breaking Hands [v/a The Journey Is Long: The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project]
**
Jeff Zentner – Bleed For You [A Season Lost]
Jeff Zentner – Where We Fall We’ll Lie {excerpt}
Jeff Zentner – To Speak Above The Rain {excerpt}
Jeff Zentner – Fire In My Bones [A Season Lost]
**
MC Taylor (Hiss Golden Messenger) and Phil & Brad Cook (Megafaun) - Red Rose Natahalia {live} [Capital Club 16, Raleigh NC 03-06-2012]
Denver – The Way It Is [S/T]
Josh Ritter – Folk Bloodbath [So Runs The World Away]
**
Jeff Zentner – Skies Of Blue [A Season Lost]
Arborea – Song For Obol/Forewarned [All Songs Considered Tiny Desk Concert, NPR 14-05-2012]

11th July 2012: The Laurels & Interview / Playlist

Featured: The Laurels - Plains (Rice Is Nice)

Some years in the making, The Laurels’ debut album 'Plains' was almost washed away in a flash flood during its final stages of completion. Save for the heroics of producer Liam Judson wading across a raging causeway clad only in his underpants and holding the master tapes high above his head, it may never have seen the light of day.

Through years of touring, The Laurels have developed a solid reputation as one of the country’s best live bands and whilst notoriety as a floppy haired sonic assault machine was flattering, it felt incomplete to the band, and instilled the desire to showcase their songs as they were meant to be heard. The Laurels have given new meaning to the words ‘highly anticipated album’, 'Plains' is the album they’ve been wanting to make for years.

Recording took place in two bursts over 10 days: initially over one weekend in an isolated cottage in the imaginatively named ‘Big Hill’ in the misty southern highlands of New South Wales, and then over another eight days outside a town called Wollombi, at the southern tip of the Hunter Valley. A sprawling farmhouse set in a lush valley adjacent to a narrow creek became the studio. Recording was limited to daylight hours after a deceptively polite threat was phoned in from times of cowboy justice to “send my husband over” if the band didn’t turn it down.

Although the recording of Plains began in brilliant sunshine, the remainder was completed in a week where New South Wales experienced its most significant flooding in recent history. As the record slowly took shape, the creek surrounding the makeshift studio began to rise and things started looking a little dire. Predictably though, a band with a name symbolising peace and victory was always going to make it out in the end. The master tapes were transported safely across the flooded causeway, Liam Judson is free to wander the Earth wearing only his underpants for many years to come and The Laurels will finally release their debut album.

The Laurels

Radio Playlist 11th July 2012 (HERE)

Steve Gunn - Dusted Mind [Boerum Palace]
Seth Martin & The Menders - Putting The Sky To Sleep [Putting The Sky To Sleep]
The Laurels - This City Is Coming Down [Plains]
**
Cult Of Dom Keller - Painted Skulls [Shooting Guns split 7"]
The Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound - Mars [S/T]
The Chemistry Set - The World Is Hollow & I Touched It [This Day Will Never Happen Again]
**
The Laurels - Traversing The Universe [Plains]
The Laurels - Mesozoic [Plains]
**
Fleeting Joys - All Release [Occult Radiance]
Exlovers - Unlovable [Moth]
White Manna - Mirror Sky [S/T]
**
The Laurels - Sway Me Down Gently [Plains]
Tall Firs - Waiting On A Friend [Out Of It & Into It]
Moccasin - Last Leaf [Last Leaf]
**
The Laurels – One Step Forward [Plains]