I’ve finally got around to writing up my notes of my Spotify mix for 2018. I hope you enjoy it!
Here’s a mix of my favourite pieces of music, new or old, that I discovered in 2018. Eight different countries are covered this time, but bar a couple of African and a couple of Indian numbers it’s fairly Western-centric.
As ever, remember Spotify pays bugger all, so please check out the artists, follow them, buy their music, go to gigs etc.
Here it is: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7mssuvgesf2F6xhuQjJFVi
1. Anna & Elizabeth – Mother in the Graveyard
It’s traditional that I start with my favourite discovery of the year, which I concluded was this one, by the same American singers that closed last year’s mix.
From ‘The invisible comes to us’ (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 2018)
2. Kylie Minogue – Golden
I adore Kylie and she’s back with a great new album, complete with a country tinge.
From ‘Golden’ (BMG, 2018)
3. Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy with the Gift Band – Strange Weather
This mother and daughter are stalwarts of the English folk tradition, but Norma’s wonderful voice works just as well (or possibly, whisper it, better) on jazzy versions of original songs like this Tom Waits cover.
From ‘Anchor’ (Topic Records, 2018)
4. alt-J – Hares on the Mountain
An English folk song done by one of England’s most interesting and successful indie bands. If Bush Gothic ever release their cover of alt-J’s ‘Adeline’ it would make a good companion piece.
From ‘Bright: The Soundtrack’ (Netflix / WEA, 2017)
5. Anayampatti S. Dhandapani – Vathapi: Hamsadhwani – Aadi – Dikshitar
I spent a lot of time researching the carnatic music of south India in preparation for 2019’s trip to Kerala. I loved the music made by Mr Dhandapani on his rare jalatharangam (a set of tuned bowls from China).
From ‘Jalatharangum’ (Sony, 1994)
6. The Weeknd with Kendrick Lamar – Pray for me
A banger.
From ‘Black Panther: The Album’ (Aftermath, 2018)
7. Zoe Mulford – The President sang ‘Amazing Grace’
Here’s a lovely tale. A few years ago the wonderful Kirsty McGee came to my family’s holiday home (www.winterslodge.co.uk) for an intimate house concert. She brought a friend with her: Zoe Mulford. Now I confess that Zoe wasn’t on my radar before. I’d not seen her written about in the folk press. For all her talent, she’d yet to make a breakthrough, at least in the media I follow.
But one of her songs got played on an American radio station. And who should be listening but Joan Baez. Joan Baez loved the song. It was called ‘The President Sang ‘Amazing Grace’ and was about Obama’s eulogy after the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. Baez recorded it on her new album and it has become the keystone song of the set. There’s an animated video doing the rounds, the press are writing about it and Baez is singing it around the world on her farewell tour. And now people know who Zoe Mulford is!
From ‘Small Brown Birds’ (2017)
8. Joan Baez – Another World
And here’s another song Baez covered on her album. It was written by Antony (now ANOHNI) of Anthony and the Johnsons.
From ‘Whistle Down the Wind’ (Proper Records, 2018)
9. Buffy Sainte-Marie with Tanya Tagaq – You’ve got to run (Spirit of the Wind)
Another vintage north American singer still making vital new work, this time in collaboration with Inuit throat singer Tagaq.
From ‘Medicine Songs’ (Gypsy Boy Music, 2017)
10. Lonnie Holley – I woke up in a fucked up America
Fucked up America part 1. Shame things are getting just as bad here. Holley is better known as a scultor, and didn’t begin releasing music until he was in his 60s.
From ‘MITH’ (Jagjaguwar, 2018)
11. Childish Gambino – This is America
Fucked up America part 2. You’ll know this one.
Released as a single (mcDJ / RCA, 2018)
12. Phillip Henry – Reverence Revisited
One of my favourite musicians active on the UK folk scene, Phil is best known as half of Edgelarks with Hannah Martin. This is a rewrite of an older composition, based on the Indian Raga Yaman.
From ‘True North’ (2018)
13. James Blake – If the Car Beside You Moves Ahead
This is just great.
Released as a single (Polydor, 2018)
14. Gretchen Peters – Say Grace
Forgetting I’m not actually a Christian, part 1.
From ‘Dancing with the Beast’ (Scarlet Letter Records / Proper Records, 2018)
15. Johnny Cash with the Carter Sisters – Were you there (when they crucified my Lord)
Forgetting I’m not actually a Christian, part 2.
Available on ‘The Essential Johnny Cash’ (Sony, 2002)
16. Mirian Makeba – West Wind
An English language song from the late, great South African singer.
From ‘Zaire 74: The African Artists’ (Wrasse Records, 2017)
17. The Band with the Staple Singers – The Weight
I thought this song couldn’t get any better than I found this version with added Staple Singers!
From ‘The Last Waltz’ (Warner, 1978)
18. Rachel Newton – The Maid of Neidpath
From Rachel’s stripped-down album of harp and voice, recorded at her grandparents croft in the Highlands of Scotland. She was good enough to record a different number from the album outside my flat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN8nzDqDe3w
From ‘West’ (Shadowside Records, 2018)
19. Ralph McTell with Annie Lennox and the Crisis Choir – Streets of London
Is this too cheesy? I love this song, which I used to sing in Primary School, and I was pleased to do my little bit to support this version, which was released for Christmas 2017 by the homelessness charity Crisis. As well as the choir and Lennox, Richard Thompson provides a guitar solo. Talking of whom…
Released as a single (Crisis, 2017)
20. Richard Thompson – The Rattle Within
It’s been a tough few years for me and Richard. He’s up there with Peter Gabriel as my all time favourite artist. I own and love almost everything he’s done. But the last few years, his albums just haven’t done it for me. My gosh has he come back with a corker in ’13 Rivers’. It unflinchingly chronicles his marriage breakdown and new relationship, and it seems that this time the old cliche about personal drama feeding the muse is very true. I read this song to be about the his own nagging restlessness.
From ’13 Rivers’ (Proper, 2018)
21. Gasper Nali – Abale Ndikuwuzeni
I saw Nali pictured in a Songlines magazine and went to tell my friend Fiona, who is living in Malawi, about him. It turns out she’d already met him at a party and his CD was in the post to me. This has been a bit of YouTube sensation and is insanely catchy.
From ‘Abale Ndikuwuzeni’ (Spare Dog Records, 2015)
22. Sanjay Subrahmanyan – Shobillu Sapthaswara – Jaganmohoni – Roopakam
2018 was the year that I discovered the Bhavan, a converted church in West Kensington that is now an Indian cultural centre. I watched a number of Carnatic performers there in preparation for my 2019 trip to Kerala. Subrahmanyan was one of the highlights.
From ‘Gems of Carnatic Music (Live in Concert 2005)’ (Swaralaya, 2016)
23. Stick in the Wheel with Jack Sharp, Laura Smyth & Ted Kemp – Watercress-o
I confess to being mildly underwhelmed by English folk band Stick in the Wheel’s second album, but this recent, quietly released mixtape is up there with their brilliant debut.
From ‘This and the Memory of This’ (From Here Records, 2018)
24. Tenebrae Choir – Seek Him that maketh the seven stars
I went to the Easter Service at St James’s Church, Sussex Gardens, and the service ended with the
organist and choir performing this wonderful, spacey piece of music by Jonathan Dove.
From ‘Mother and Child’ (Signum Records, 2003)
25. Karine Polwart with Pippa Murphy – The moor speaks
Evolving from a theatre piece, Scottish singer Polwart’s collaboration with sound artist
Murphy is a thing of beauty.
From ‘A Pocket of Wind Resistance’ (Hudson Records, 2017)
26. Willie Nelson – Last Man Standing
“I don’t want to be the last man standing / Wait a minute, maybe I do!” I’m kicking myself for taking so long to realise how brilliant Willie Nelson (age 85 as 2018 came to a close) is. The whole album is full of wry, witty original songs about getting old.
From ‘Last Man Standing’ (Sony, 2018)
Well that looks splendid. Some I know, many I don’t – looking forward to having a listen.
Marvellous!
Nice one Murkey. I enjoyed 2017’s playlist. I’m sure this will be just as entertaining 👍
Looking forward to listening to this. Anyone who rates the fabulous Kirsty McGee is on the side of the angels in my book.
Interesting list.
But am I the only one here who cringes at praise for Kylie? For me she represents some of the worst manufactured pop of the last 20 odd years.
She can’t sing very well, can’t write, not much of a dancer. Seems she has become a national (albeit Australian) treasure because a) she is pretty attractive and b) her longevity *
* I like “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” though.
Great inclusion of Kylie. She’s fab and it’s a good album. Soz Dai.
I think it’s due to the factors you mention but you forget charisma, charm and bloody hard work.
This looks really interesting – I’m going to listen without reading the notes. My first playlist for forthcoming hols.
Thank you everyone for your really kind comments. It makes me disproportionately happy!
A small correction – ‘Seek Him that maketh the seven stars’ was performed at St James Church in Advent 2017, not at Easter. (“Of course you wouldn’t sing that at Easter” explained a more knowledgeable person than me!)
@salwarpe – yes, Kirsty McGee is wonderful isn’t she? I believe there’s a new album on the way. I thought I’d look if there is anything from it out there, and found this rater timely new song, ‘Madness & the Moon’:
and here’s a live version of the Zoe Mulford song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6FilumBes0
@dai – as a fully paid up homosexualist, I think there’s something in my DNA that makes me automatically love Kylie. But as well as being charming and sweet and having a voice with a lot of character (even if it’s not, admittedly, that strong), she has a tonne of genuinely great songs: ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’, yes, but also, ‘Slow’, ‘All the Lovers’, ‘Confide in Me’, ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’, ‘Spinning Around’, etc. I was, of course, right at the front for her Glastonbury set: https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/er3v9r/play/a9mj8g/p07f7x29
Chris
I’ve seen Kirsty more times in the last few years then any other act, because she has been kind enough to include Bonn on her round Europe tour of house concerts and small bars. I usually get to chat to her, and she plays my current favourite – first ‘Sandman’, then ‘I Burn For You’. Annoyingly I missed her last tour, as I was ill, but she always inventive and surprising and her voice is warm and clear and rich – love it.
I got taken to see Kylie for my 50th birthday last year, but I’m sorry to say that I got so tanked up on beer that my friends kept buying me that I don’t remember much of the concert, except she put on a great show. I still have the t shirt.
I’ve listened to the Spotify playlist now – always interesting, sometimes very appealing (RT with a song that fits his voice, Zoe – beautiful and emotional, Lonnie Billet – great noise, particularly the blaring horns). But the stand out track has to be Anna and Elizabeth – I do like a good American female duet (Indigo Girls, Dear Janes, Luscious Jackson), and they’ve got wonderfully contrasting voices. More than that, I’m a sucker for drone music – so that really hit my sweet spot. And then, the cherry on the top – on their website, their first cited influence is Laurie Anderson, possibly my favourite artist in the world.
So, thanks, @Murkey. I see for the first time, that you’ve been offering your Spotify playlists each year going back to 2015 on this site, so there’s plenty more to check out. It is one of the joys of this site, discovering curators of intriguing distinctive music – long may you continue!
enjoyed the Philip Henry track and whole True North album is really good.
Thanks both.
@salwarpe – my playlists actually go back to 2010. The easiest way to find them all is via my Facebook page. You can go to the latest one (https://www.facebook.com/notes/christopher-conder/murkeys-marvellous-mixtape-2018/10161046525685545/) and work your way back with the links at the end.
Good playlist. Thank you.