Having released two simply extraordinary albums in little over two years, it’s slightly surprising that Vermont-born folk singer Anais Mitchell is not more widely known. Then again, it’s also quite refreshing for an artist not to have come pre-wrapped in a glitzy bundle of spin and hyperbole. Sometimes taking the long way is a lot more appealing. With 2010’s collaborative effort Hadestown Mitchell delivered a wonderfully realised re-telling of the story of Orpheus featuring a perfectly cast selection of musicians, from Justin Vernon to Ben Knox Miller, via Ani DiFranco, who originally signed Mitchell to her label. Now with a newly released, intimate, and emotionally affecting follow-up, Young Man in America, Mitchell continues to build a formidable reputation. With a Brighton show imminent, we caught up with folk music’s best kept secret.

Firstly, many congratulations on following up Hadestown with something arguably even more memorable. Did you feel any anxiety when it came to following up such a critical success as Hadestown and do you get nervous about how your albums are received critically or do you avoid reading reviews?
I try not to read reviews, but it’s hard to avoid clicking ‘em sometimes in web world. For me, Hadestown was just such a different animal, since it was developed as a theater show and had so many personalities involved from the get-go. There was no way to do that again without a pretty significant commitment of time and energy and personnel. Young Man In America was just a collection of the songs that passed through my heart during and after the Hadestown project. It really couldn’t be otherwise.

What were you striving for when you started writing the material for Young Man…? As a listener, above all it feels like a very humane album, dealing with the simple but eternal themes of childhood, parenthood, love and loss. Did the album thematically start personal and become universal or vice versa?
I’m fascinated by archetypes and the ways my own feelings and stories might merge with the bigger stuff. As for the human and the personal, my dad is a very important figure on this album, there’s that song Shepherd which is based on a book he wrote when he was a young man. Beyond that, my dad lost his father a couple years ago and seeing him go through that, and seeing my dad not as my dad but as another man’s son, and a sort of an orphan, even at his age, was really affecting. But there are other influences and characters as well. All of the songs began from a very emotional place, and evolved to tell other people’s stories.

Listening to Young Man in America as an album elicited a very strong, almost reflexive emotional and, frankly, tearful response. The opening lines of the title track, for example, are so powerful. As a writer, have you any idea what alchemy is at work in the lyric writing and what invests what at first glance seems a simple lyric/melody with such power – and how long did those first four lines of the title song take to write?
That’s so funny – the first four lines took no time at all – they were a gift, they burst out just like the young man himself. But the rest of the song took months to finish…and it’s often like that for me. I think of songwriting as part fever-dream, part crossword puzzle. You have to have both. Hey, I think your alchemy is a good word for it…since it implies both magic and method.

What music or art has (or has had) a similar impact on you – if you like a burst into tears moment – when music and lyrics create an effect far beyond what they might suggest at first glance? And what about it made you feel that response?
I think when I can feel someone’s true heart, it happens – it’s easier sometimes when you see music live. The eyes, the physical presence of the singer. I’m trying to think of the last time it happened with a song, I think it was a Sam Amidon folk song, from his I See the Sign record. I was riding on the Subway (living in Brooklyn, NY at the moment) and looking at all the faces of the people and the song went “Lord I’m climbing high mountains trying to get home…I been having hard trials trying to get home… etc.” and I thought of all these New Yorkers trying to get home on the subway and it made me cry. Also there’s a new adaptation of a Woody Guthrie lyric by my friends Mike & Ruthy called My New York City (sorry all the New York themes). Good lord it is beautiful. It’d make you cry.

In a recent interview you discussed how legends in our culture very often relate to male characters and you feel like it’s harder to write in that way from a woman’s perspective. Young Man… seems as powerful, regardless of gender perspective as any album we can remember and is as potent and poignant from the view of the reckless, wild-eyed youth of the title track and the woman trying to please her lover in Tailor. Did writing Hadestown develop your ability to write for male and female voices or did that ability develop in other ways over time?
I think what I said was that writing as a man, and using masculine imagery, gave me a sense of access to the epic, big themes that it’s harder to get to writing as a woman, with feminine imagery. For the simple, unfortunate fact that when you tell a woman’s story, it is considered a woman’s story, but when you tell a man’s story, it’s just a human story. I think it’s possible to get there via the feminine but it takes more WORK. But it’s good work.

You have previously mentioned a love of British/Irish folk music. That strong storytelling dynamic, often culminating in tragedy, is a very strong part of that scene and comes across strongly on the new album, particularly on the lovely Shepherd which was based on your own father’s writing. Why do you think we are so compelled towards tragedy in storytelling?
I have a friend whose album is called Sad Songs Make Me Happy, I just love that phrase. It DOES make me happy to feel sad by way of a song or story or some other kind of art. I’m not sure if experiencing tragedy in art is an exorcism, or more like a vitamin supplement. But I know it feels good. I am so into the British and Irish folk ballads, especially the really old ones, but not necessarily for the tragedy of them. I love the mystical weirdness of a lot of the stories. Nothing is black and white. There are faeries, witches, and every young girl is just dying to run off into the woods and get pregnant. There’s truth in that. Also the storytelling is impeccable. The imagery is fucking excellent and comes right out of the ground beneath our feet.

The album has a strong sense of humanity’s place in the scheme of things and both the ambition and yearning of humanity but also the vulnerability of our existence. Are these themes you felt strongly about expressing at this point in your life – could you have written about them effectively when you were 21?
That kind of hunger, impatience, ambition, and the feeling of never enough, those are things I understand, they feel real to me when I wake up in the morning. I think turning thirty made me take a hard look at that part of myself and go, ‘Hey, where’d that come from?’ Am I gonna live like that for another decade? The Shepherd character, and the man in Ships, these are characters that are so hell-bent in their relentless pursuit of whatever-it-is, that they end up neglecting the good, beautiful, real things right in front of them. Our culture does that, I do that. I don’t wanna do it forever.

Musically speaking did it take great discipline to keep the music and production simple on Young Man…, particularly after creating something as grand as Hadestown. It seems like much of the album’s power comes from reining in the music and letting the lyrics have centre stage?
That’s so funny, because I think of it as a fairly thick production! I worked with (the wonderful) Todd Sickafoose again on Young Man…, and his imagination is very big, cinematic even, he hears things I could never imagine in my bedroom. There are horns, strings, two percussionists… there’s a lot of stuff going on. But I do think Todd advocated for a lot of space in these recordings, even when there’s a lot going on. He kept wanting me to play and sing things slowly, slowly, way slower than I’d play them live. And he was also in favour of the intros, the outros, the instrumental bridges really stretching out. But there’s not a lot of lead lines, or I suppose you’re right that the voice and the lyrics are really the lead, and the instruments create this beautiful tapestry upon which the lyrics can sit very bold…

Where are you right now and are you looking forward to the UK leg of the tour? What sort of touring band are you travelling with this time around and what kind of set can UK fans expect material-wise?
I’m in the Young Man Van, we’re on our way to Lexington KY. The Young Man Band is my dear friend Rachel Ries (we made an EP together once) on wurlitzer piano, electric guitar and voice, my husband Noah Hahn on fretless electric bass, and our friend Ben Davis on drums, banjo, glockenspiel, and voice. At the moment we’re touring with Ben’s other band Cuddle Magic as our support act, so we get to steal their horn players…it is REALLY fun. We tend to play mostly Young Man… songs and a few things from Hadestown and previous records. I try to do a couple songs solo each night too.

“Young Man in America” is out now on Wilderland Records.

Anais plays the Blind Tiger in Brighton on 30th May.

Ahead of his Great Escape set, we caught up with Gabriel Levine, aka Gabriel and the Hounds, whose excellent debut album “Kiss Full of Teeth” was recently released on Communion records, and featured a cast of players drawn from projects as variously successful and critically well regarded as the National, St Vincent and Beirut.

How did the Gabriel and the Hounds project come about and how does it tie in with/differ from Takka Takka?
I wrote a batch of dark love/break up songs that didn’t fit into what we were doing in Takka. I wanted another avenue to explore a different palette of sounds and wanted to see what would happen if I could take these songs out, dress them up with orchestra players and spin them about. I’m very happy with the result.

How much do you know about the Great Escape Festival and are you looking forward to playing?
I’m very excited to be playing Great Escape. Many of my friends will be there for it. Seems like the place to be.

Last time you played Brighton you played with a stripped down band set up, will you have a full band for Great Escape?
I’m rolling completely solo on this tour, a chance to try out some new material I’m working on and a chance to re-explore the songs on the album.

During that set you alluded to the very personal nature of the songs on “Kiss Full of Teeth”. What are the driving themes behind the album?
Loss, destructive and selfish actions, and anger. I like to talk about dark things in hopeful ways.

Love the album artwork – who is responsible for the cover?
The cover is an old photochromic travel postcard from the late 1880’s.

There is a huge amount of varied orchestral instrumentation on the album and there is something quietly surprising around every corner. As a songwriter what are the considerations in terms of building upon the bare bones of the songs and fleshing them out?
The main thing it to not kill the original intention and to maintain intimacy among grandeur.

The album was released on the increasingly influential Communion label over here. How did the link up with Communion come about?
Like all good thing, a pool side chat. I love Communion and what they’re doing. I have a real respect for those folks and am honored to be in such good company.

Given the critical success of the album, can we expect G&TH to be an ongoing project for you?
Yes yes yes. Demoing a new album now.

Bryan Devendorf, one of our favourite drummers, plays on the album, how did that come about and what do you think it is that makes him such an interesting drummer?
I call Bryan a narrative percussionist – he tells stories with his drums. We played a show with the National and we became friends. He is the patron saint for this project, donating time and studio space. There would be no hounds without him.

The album is one of great depth and beauty. What is the unique alchemy that goes into writing songs which reveal their beauty slowly and over repeated listens?
Well first off, thank you. I feel like I don’t write the songs, they slowly reveal themselves to me and my job is to translate that and record it and present it and not get in the way of the songs.

Gabriel & the Hounds play at 9.15pm at Komedia Studio Bar on 12th May.

Gabriel and the Hounds sounds…

Anyone with an ear for the shimmery pop of ’60s Motown will certainly be wooed by the soulful pleasures of Gold Road, who release their debut EP “Planes” tomorrow. Featuring members of various established London bands, the band’s brightly crafted melodies are sun-kissed by Haze Tratt’s golden vocals, which are as soothing as they are memorable and put paid to the idea that you can’t hurry love by casting you into an instant romantic swoon. The singer also writes all the songs and has captured the lost spirit of old soul, but with a sense of production restraint which avoids the more garish sensibilities of latter day Berry Gordy efforts.

A quick glance at the band’s website suggests the band is a nine-piece, replete with a brass section, and judging from the material on “Planes” they look set to be quite a formidable live proposition. Opening track “Madeline” is a treat of Supreme proportions, down to the straight-out-of-Motown backing vocals, a killer chorus and blissful, shimmering guitar and horns. Title track “Planes” might just be even better, fusing a dash of reggae with some Shangri-La stomp and a vocal as sweet as it is vulnerable. Something in the band’s blend of Detroit influences and contemporary sensibilities is reminiscent of Camera Obscura in their ability to create something fresh and endearing from familiar sources. Fingers crossed for a Brighton appearance in the near future, but in the meantime you’ll find us dancing in the streets to this sweetly soulful temptation.

“Planes” is released on 1 May 2012.

Bandcamp
Soundcloud

Given Dan Mangan’s ever increasing word-of-mouth popularity it’s something of a surprise to see him playing the relatively small confines of the Hope, but less of a surprise that the show is a sell out, particularly given the talents of his supporting cast for the evening, Brightonian cellist Abi Wade and the excellent Zeus.

Wade, a late addition to the bill, has started to make a name for herself in recent months, through a combination of relentless gigging and undeniable talent, creating some interesting XX-styled songs through a combination of plucked cello and some Seasick Steve  box-created rhythms. She certainly goes down well with the local crowd, playing a relatively lengthy but compelling set.

Last seen in Brighton playing a storming pair of Great Escape sets in 2010, Zeus are one of the undiscovered gems of the last couple of years. Ostensibly a collection of highly skilled session men who found a shared love of ’70s style pop-prog and uncannily manage to create a tightly constructed but expansive blend of Queen style vocals and Genesis style accessible rock-pop, they go down a storm with the crowd, delivering a set including debut album standouts “Kindergarten” and “River By the Garden” and the rocking “Are You Gonna Waste My Time?” and “Bright Brown Opus” from new album “Busting Visions”. Long time cover version favourite “That’s All” gets a spin too in a concise set that shows off the band’s live skills to maximum effect.

By the time Mangan emerges on stage, minus his band, who just about make it through the crowd in time to join in, the venue is packed, and the singer quickly establishes some momentum with new album highlight “Post War Blues” a song that strongly recalls the kind of anthemic folkishness of Mumford and Sons. Indeed, Mangan’s voice switches variously from a decidedly Mumfordian boom to something more Condonesque on “How Darwinian”. Mangan is a bit of a musical shapeshifter, his sound evolving across his three albums, broadening the musical palette considerably on last year’s “Oh Fortune”. Playing a good deal of that new album, there is still room for some old favourites like “Robots” although the excellent “Road Regrets” doesn’t get a test drive tonight. Mangan is a likeable performer, perhaps lacking the lyrical gifts of a Fionn Regan or the sheer expansiveness of the aforementioned Mumford, but with a strong voice and a definite gift for penning a hit, his star looks set to rise further and a combination of his diverse new material and a raft of evergreen favourites like “Sold” prove as beguiling as ever and send the loyal fanbase home happy.

2012 is shaping up to be a great year for the resurgence of un-ironic retro music with a contemporary twist, and the hip young cats at the vanguard of this new movement are all coming to the seaside for Great Escape. Alabama Shakes have already created a maelstrom of excitement with their swampy soul music, JD McPherson has updated the sounds of the ’50s with a Smithsonian twist and a new coat of paint and now Devin struts out of New York with a quiff, a guitar and a bunch of sexy, skittering guitar songs that play like a greatest hits of the last 40 years of rock’n'roll.

In fact, our boy Devin is not so much a breath of fresh air as a Brooklynite tornado coming to blow your house down, go through the jewellery and run off with your wife. The 23-year-old plays with the kind of exuberant, racy and downright dangerous energy that’ll have you wondering why anyone even questioned the future of guitar music. All the sins of the Vaccines are forgotten when Devin yelps his way into town.

But back to the un-ironic for a moment. For Devin, like the aforementioned American acts, doesn’t care for the kind of kitsch, over-knowing methodology of so many current UK indie bands. He’s gone back to the source, and like all good music fans know, the source of rock’n'roll is teenage angst and good old fashioned randiness. The sniffier of hipsters will level accusations of deja entendu at the New Yorker, but they’ll be missing the point. This is about the excitement of guitars and girls and drinking and smoking and hanging around in dingy bars, saying things like “put another dime in the jukebox, baby!” or more accurately, if you’re Devin, “I make all your dreams come true in the dark….let’s get all trashed up on a Friday night, my baby’s all in white leather”. You heard it here first, real men have girlfriends who wear white leather.

True to form, the singer has showed up with a clutch of songs already revved up and primed for action on his debut album “Romancing”. Album opener “Masochist” comes straight out of the blocks with Strokes cool, Jagger swagger, and a tumbling, sweaty stream of lyrics over a jackhammer beat, before our boy switches to a lazy, languid jangle-fest in the shape of “Born to Cry”. Elsewhere in the schematics of an impressive debut are traces of doo-wop and soul on “I’m Not a Fool” and “In My Solitude”, which showboats romantically along like James Brown on crunk juice, while the tempo shifting thrills of “New Horrors” make you wonder what Julian Casablancas might have sounded like fronting the Undertones. In short, if you like your guitar music to come pouting, hip-shaking and sporting a quiff and an insouciant swagger then Devin will quite probably be the highlight of your festival. Ours too.

Devin’s debut album “Romancing” is released on 30 April, he plays Great Escape on 10 May.

More Devin here and sights and sounds here.

Among the new bands and all-encompassing blend of genres featuring at this year’s Great Escape, there is the intriguing multi-cultural collaboration of Africa Express Sound System (AESS), which brings together some of the finest musicians from Africa and the West to collaborate in greatly acclaimed one-off shows. Each show is unique, with new artists coming together to explore new musical frontiers and develop new sounds and this convention-defying collective will be appearing on 12th May at the Brighton Dome.

Among the musicians set to appear are Senegalese legend Daniel Cissoko, Jesse Hackett (the Gorillaz keyboardist and director of the project), Reverend & the Makers’ John McClure, Shinga Shoniwa, the electric frontwoman of the Noisettes, and Ghanaian hip-hop pioneer M3NSA.

To ensure guaranteed access at the Africa Express Soundsystem performance, attendees can top up their festival wristband for £7 per show, or purchase a separate gig ticket at www.escapegreat.com

Chicago’s Maps & Atlases have been around the music scene for a few years now, releasing a string of EPs before their angular early years coalesced into “Perch Patchwork”, their well-received 2010 debut LP. If that debut edged the band closer to pop territory than their early EPs, then with their newly released second album “Beware and Be Grateful” their frothing, thrilling mix of styles and melodies has reached an addictive melt-in-the-mouth eclecticism that might just propel the windy city quartet to wider acclaim. Here is a band with both the ability to play technically inventive genre-fusing guitar music, but also with the ear to deliver pop hooks galore, while never, ever following the path of least resistance. In David Davison, the band have not only a dead ringer for Jesus, but a vocalist of such otherwordly brilliance that world domination would be assured if the band wanted to settle merely for the obvious. Happily for us, they want to reach for much more.

Somewhere in the band’s genetic balance, there is a folk heredity. Something in the group’s vocals belongs around a campfire, but whether that campfire belongs in the Serengeti or on the American plain is only one of the questions posed by the band’s arresting style. Indeed, this album is not folk. It starts intimate and beautiful, but ranges out across expansive, anthemic territory via kinetic (poly)math-rock, all the while remaining only one (afro)beat from head-rushing, singalong euphoria.

The mixture of intimate and expansive is never less than eminently listenable. Many of these new songs encapsulate both dynamics at once, and that the band pull off the mix without ever jarring the listener’s sensibilities is testament to their chops. Opening track “Old and Gray” is the perfect auditory hors d’ouevre. The quietly dense vocals and melody give way eventually to a stunning denouement as the music strips back to Davison’s beautiful vocal: “When you are old and grey, I hope that someone holds you the way I would…”. That song segues into “Fever”, a foot stomping modern classic with a pulsing beat and insistent chorus that has all the attributes to make itself a summer-long companion. Within two songs, the band has set a standard which is adhered to unrelentingly throughout. Dissecting the songs almost spoils the fun, but between the riffing brilliance of “Vampires” and the startlingly beautiful closing ballad “Important” there lie treasures aplenty, from the afrocentric brilliance of “Bugs” and “Old Ash” to the dancefloor-teasing jagged guitars of “Winter”. At one end of their spectrum, Maps & Atlases still have the pop-leaning rhythms and melodies to rival Vampire Weekend’s accessibility, but at the other end of their range, they have a technicality which informs the record with moments of leftfield brilliance and surprise. It’s those moments of smartly constructed musical ambush that make the album such a delight – and such sheer fun to listen to.

“Beware and Be Grateful“ is out now on Fatcat records.

Over the course of her last two albums, Anais Mitchell has established herself as one of the most alluring singer/songwriters of the last decade and yet remains relatively unknown on these shores. Perhaps 2010’s outstanding “Hadestown”, the 20-track updating of the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice may sound a little intimidating to the casual listener but, in reality, Mitchell’s musical vision and a perfectly cast list of contributing luminaries such as Ani DiFranco, Justin Vernon and Ben Knox Miller of the Low Anthem made it a thrilling but entirely accessible masterpiece.

Lesser artists may have wilted at the thought of following that up, but Mitchell’s new album “Young Man in America” shortens the tracklisting, pares back the instrumentation and simplifies the themes, in the process imbuing the album with goosebump moments of profound emotional impact. It would be hard to find a better example of lyricism investing potency in the music than some of the distilled imagery of “Young Man…”. When Mitchell sings “My mother gave a mighty shout, opened her legs and let me out, hungry as a prairie dog, young man in America” something in the rawness and primality of the lyric allied with the innocence of Mitchell’s voice creates a shiver of emotional connection with the song that is carried throughout the album. While the record takes time to fully reveal its nuanced heart, when it does so it delivers layers of musical subtlety and emotional depth that make it the best release of 2012 thus far.

Mitchell’s vocal, which has elements of Joanna Newsom’s girlishness but without the opinion-dividing sharp edges, is capable of conveying both the innocence and world weariness demanded by the albums themes. The singer’s pastoral sketches on “Young Man…” encompass aspects of childhood and the nurturing nature of parenthood together with the raw ambition of youth, all beautifully shaped and enhanced by the arrangements’ deceptive folkish simplicity. It’s a rare thing indeed for albums to offer such an intense symbiosis of musicality and poetry while retaining a full-blooded humanity, but this one is an unreserved triumph.

Investigating Anais Mitchell’s back catalogue is an awaiting pleasure all of its own, and a must for anyone with a passing interest in artists from Bob Dylan and Jodi Mitchell through to Bon Iver and Bill Callahan. More importantly, if you only see one more Brighton gig for the remainder of 2012, then you’ll be hard pressed to make a better choice than this one.

The Blind Tiger hosts Anais on 30th May 2012, tickets here.

Canadian folk-popsters Great Lake Swimmers have, over the course of nearly a decade, steadily become one of their country’s most successful indie exports, to the point where new album “New Wild Everywhere” is set to arrive in early April with a healthy amount of expectation. Chief Swimmer Tony Dekker (he of the pining, wistful voice) writes the kind of songs that blend a pleasing sense of melodic awareness with a naturalistic sensibility that’s entirely in keeping with the songwriter’s childhood growing up around (you guessed it) the Great Lakes. Under the polished veneer of accomplished songwriting the band maintain a rootsy feel, exemplified by the bewitching violin parts of Miranda Mulholland, but like those American folk-pop icons the Decemberists, this is music whose roots may be folky but whose branches increasingly expand into broader, wider spaces.

Previous album (the band’s fourth) “Lost Channels” was something of a breakthrough for the band, and was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, while celebrity admirers appeared from the woodwork quicker than you could say Tour de France. The band’s sound is developed further on “New Wild Everywhere”. Opening track “Think That You Might Be Wrong” manages to be both simple and grand, a trait which Dekker’s songwriting has always had in spades and sets the tone for an album which combines some of “Lost Channels” hummable immediacy with the intimacy of earlier works. That intimacy should work rather well in the cavern-like Green Door Store, a live venue where mod-cons are minimal and music is king, which is just how it should be.

2012 might just be the year of the soul revival and Alabama Shakes are the kind of band who we’d like to think Otis Redding might have been a big admirer of if he hadn’t boarded that plane. Like the big man himself, they really do shake, but they also bring a hearty dose of rattle and roll to the party as well. It’s not just singer Brittany Howard’s voice that evokes memories of Otis though, these guys like to play their soul with rough edges. This is Stax not Motown, which means shaggy sounding and raw, while they rock out with some bash and crash guitars that are more Jack White than Barry White. Then again, we shouldn’t be surprised – between southern rock and soul, the south has always been a melting pot of musical styles and this is pure jambalaya soul-rock forged in Alabama but conceived equally in Otis’s Georgia and Skynyrd’s Florida.

Word has spread quickly and debut album “Boys & Girls” is set to take the band into the mainstream when it’s released in April. It’s impressive too. While Adele and Amy Winehouse cornered the retro soul market here with their smooth sounds, Alabama Shakes feel like the real thing and they don’t need a horn section to prove it. Howard sings like she was raised on Otis’s Dictionary of Soul; check out “You Ain’t Alone” for a vocal performance that’s so reminiscent of “Try a Little Tenderness” that it’s bordering on ghostly. Perhaps more unexpected is the rockier output, album opener “Hold On” featuring a groovy riff and a mournful tone that kicks into whoopin’ rock’n'roll somewhere around the midpoint and never relents. The band have got an ear for a groove, “Hang Loose” doing just that with it’s slouchy-cool guitar and driving rhythm, while the chugga-chugg funk slink of “Rise to the Sun” gives way to a rousing rock’n'roll chorus. Writing songs big enough to do the band justice might be just their biggest problem.

Bristling with intent, heart on sleeve delivery and a natural sense of timing, Howard’s vocals knock most soul divas’ efforts into a cocked hat, which accounts in large part for the band’s rapidly burgeoning reputation, but this is no one woman show. By the time of Great Escape, there’s every chance that these southern kids will be the hottest ticket on the line-up.

More Alabama Shakes here.