Mt Misery 'Once Home, No Longer'

Debut album from highly touted North East trio, Once Home, No Longer via Prefect Records

Mt. Misery became a band in 2019, initially a solo project of Andrew Smith they quickly established themselves on the live scene in the popular North East fraternity by touring constantly until the Covid-19 pandemic took hold of the world.

This album is a marker of intent for a young trio of male musicians, incorporating the best of west coast Americana but with a Northern England sensibility with daydreams and soundscapes of halcyon days in the sunshine. As I write this review, the South of England is being bombarded by a deluge of rainfall in stark contrast to the blistering mini-heatwave of a few days prior. So putting on this album helped overcome the sadness of the never-ending rain and helped dream about days by the foreign shore which remain a long way away personally.

Full of the time capsule capabilities reminiscent in contemporaries from across the pond such as Whitney with that magnificent eye to the tradition of Laurel Canyon song-writing but also recalling that mainstream busting album by Irish band The Thrills which was the archetypal love letter to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.

Opening with 'The Dreaming Days Are Over' which exudes romantic realism with trembling guitars and gentle percussion; yet for all the sunshine on the exterior of the songs there is an underlying internality such as 'In The Blink of an Eye' which is about Andrew's unemployment and feelings of directionless.

This personality of the record speaks volumes as it helps the album become both universal and welcoming to a listener to take the song on as their own: 

“We tend to labour over songs for a long time before committing to them, but with ‘The Thought of Losing You’, being a bit more spontaneous led to one of our favourites on the album. In this instance, I’d been tinkering with the piano part since before we formed the band. With an hour to spare at the end of a long day tracking drums, we came up with a loose structure and built the song around that.”

The record incorporates the geography of the band themselves hailing from Hartlepool; but the restrictions of working as a band during lockdown does lead to happy accidents such as the album being unexpectedly mixed by Kenny Gilmore in Los Angeles, a far cry from the North Sea coast. This helps a track such as 'Taken by the Tide' become something more akin to Denis Wilson and Neil Young.

The album is a perfect antidote to the gnawing antagonism and angst of the pandemic coming to an end; while the sun may be shining here is an album that is the perfect partner to it with warm weather goodness running through its veins and through the airwaves.

Once Home No Longer is out now from Prefect Records

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity.

Red Ribbon 'Planet X'

 

New album by multi-instrumentalist Red Ribbon released by Danger Collective

Singer-songwriter Emma Danner has navigated the difficulty of leaving a bustling up and coming band and sailing alone to produce her second album under the moniker of Red Ribbon in the release of Planet X.

Working with Randall Dunn (renowned for his collaborations with Sunn O))), he has pushed Danner to create a piece of work that is both full of personal discovery away from the comfort zone of keys and electronica.

Starting with the inward looking 'The Weight of Man', Red Ribbon is talking about her place in the world that has gone through a seismic change in the last 18 months owing to the global pandemic - melodic and full of internality; the music grows into the second track 'Way' which is full of swooning ooh's and aah's. There is no mistaking the vision on display here by Danner who creates a foreboding atmosphere with her meditative lyrics.

Embracing a plethora of musical influences ranging from folk and Laurel Canyon to the songstresses of Billie Holiday, Red Ribbon is a vehicle for Danner to embrace a sonic change in her experimentation and the end result allows her to be spoken of in the same breathe as her contemporaries Laura Marling, Margaret Glaspy and Anna Burch.

Hailing from Seattle but residing in Los Angeles; there is this collision of those two different American worlds the influence of nature upon any settler in North West America as well as the enigmatic glamour of Los Angeles - two psyches collide here in this album. In the case of the title track, 'Planet X' is a response to the forest fires that ripped apart California (not for the first time) in November 2018 so this clash of the personal with something you cannot control shows the fragility of the individual in this big world.

Full of the joys and tragedies which life can throw at you in this brittle and fragile world, Planet X is a treasure trove of transformation for both the artist and the listener. The external forces are there to be utilised and is ripe for inspiration for an artist.

From the strings of 'Hold' to the anxiety on display in 'Renegade' there is a real sense of personal in this album that is full of personality.  If this can be done in solo isolation, the future bodes well once the gates of collaboration open up again.

Planet X is out from Danger Collective Records on 11th June

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity.