Hippie chick flower-pop heaven

The Russ Meyer movie

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

has one of the best soundtracks ever.

Girl Group Heaven.

This won't be up for long.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9Q3ECLWR

The gorgeous Dolly Read (a Playboy pin up from Bristol*, England) played the band's lead-vocalist Kelly McNamara but the vocals are actually by the deep-throated Lynn Carey (Mama Lion) and are pretty amazing.

* no, really, no sniggering

Woodland Recordings (Free things #4)

If you haven't checked out the Woodland Recordings website lately, you should do so as not only is Stephen Burch making some of the Great Park albums available as free downloads for a short while, he is also in the process of documenting what seems like every other live gig he plays - and he plays a lot. Just him and his guitar, and the sets don't vary that much, but when you can find songs as great as 'We could have, We should have, We didn't' or 'I do wrong' you know you're onto a good thing. There are also some excellent lie recordings of other Woodland artists, such as Birdengine, the Diamond Family Archive, Fee Reega and Thirty Pound of Bone. All lovely stuff and highly recommended.

Woodland's downloads page is here: http://www.woodlandrecordings.com/downloads.html

and as a taster, try these

The Great Park - We Could Have, We Should Have, We Didn't (from 'We Could Have, We Should Have, We Didn't' WR016) mp3

King James - The River Of Jordan (live at The Basement, Brighton, United Kingdom 04/12/09) mp3

Birdengine - Buried in the Black Snow (from 'Live at Komedia Brighton 30 July 2008, with Clara Kindle) mp3

and then download the latest combined set from Fee Reega and the Great Park, playing live in Germany earlier this month.

Jesper Norda (Free things #3)

Jesper Norda is a conceptual artist living and working in Göteborg in Sweden. He is also in the electro-rock band If there is something, whose album can be downloaded for free from the 23 Seconds website.

However, for me his best work has been the extraordinary cycle of songs that have made up his two recent collections We Have The Guts and Little Ones. Primarily just Jesper's piano and vocals, this is no Elton John. The two self-released EPs are full of some extrordinarily honest compositions, with some beautiful light piano work underlying a dark resonant vocal style that reminds me of Ian Curtis, or a somewhat warmer Tom Waits at times. The songs are primarily about relationships, but from the point of view of maturity, not innocence or lust, which gives them a rather rare quality. Composition seems to happen mainly free-style, sitting at the piano, which gives the song a crystalline and directive quality.

There are great tracks throughout, but for me the two stand-outs are the title song from We Have The Guts, and Tomorrow you'll be forgiven... from Little Ones. These are songs you absolutely have to hear. There's also an excellent cover of a Telepopmusik song (Dance Me) which stretches the simple disco music into a different place.

I look forward to hearing more from Jesper Norda, but in the meantime, download these superb EPs.

Tasters:

• Jesper Norda - Tomorrow you'll be forgiven but tonight you will have your teeth knocked out mp3 Download the Little Ones EP
  
• Jesper Norda - We have the guts mp3 Download the Guts EP
  

Website

Myspace

Iron & Wine (Free stuff #2)

Iron & Wine have just re-released the acoustic demos for the Shepherds Dog album, as a free download from their website.

This is one of the best albums of the last few years, so hearing these simple hone-down versions of the songs is a delight. Just Sam Beam and his guitar, but the quality of the playing and the songs is superb.

Download the eight tracks here;

website www.ironandwine.com;

and a taster below:

• Iron and Wine - Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car mp3
  

Doomcloud (Free Stuff #1)

(c) Photo by David Hawkins

Kevin Hewick has just released his album Doomcloud as a free download available from his website.

Kevin Hewick is probably most famous for being the man who flunked the audition to replace Ian Curtis in Joy Division. That's probably unfair, not least because he was never really suited to be a dark front man to New Order, it wasn't really an audition and he never really sought it out. He was however an inspirational anti-folk singer-songwriter (Tony Wilson compared him to Elvis Costello), a bit of an oddity on the Factory record label that was home to Joy Division, New Order and their like. His song Haystack is one of that label's classics (or would have been if it didn't actually emerge in its proper form on the 1980 Les Disques du Crépuscule compilation From Brussels With Love). Stylistically, Kevin's gruff neurotic-yet-romantic punk-folk singing was in a world of its own. After the 'dark years' in the 1980s/1990s, Kevin is now writing songs and has been gigging a lot, mainly around his hometown of Leicester, playing three hour covers sets and of course his own songs. He is currently playing in Hewick, Haynes and James who describe themselves as a power-trio in the Hendrix/Cream mould, but with bits of Davy Graham and Girls Aloud. Sounds fascinating.

Doomcloud is an album of demos recorded at home and then left unfinished in 2003. It's a pretty stark, but at times beautiful, album of love songs; the lyrics raw and honest and in places deeply touching. The tone is set by the opening song 'An Object she's left behind' :

Now she's gone it's as if she were never here
It's as if I imagined the last few years
The fighting is over, the loving is too
My other half was just passing through...

The guitar lines are simple, yet at times impossibly beautiful. The words weave in stories of sad lonely relationships, of longing, of hope and opportunity. The song 'How far off the target was I?' is one of the best, a tale of a lonely man's hope and failure in the quest for love. Kevin's vocal is superb too, carrying his powerful impassioned voice across the plaintive refrane captured in the title, and then some "...how embarrassing it was to see my dart fly, a mile off target from the bullseye."

Not all of the album works, and some of it still sounds unfinished, perhaps too painful to keep working on. But where it works, it really works.

I can't fail to be moved by the beautiful guitar lines in 'Make that call', and the optimistic demand "to turn on your mobile, wherever you are... I'll stay in touch". Another favourite is 'I'm not involved', with an excellent memorable riff and a melody that sounds both modern and straight out of the finest English folk from 1972.

Imperfect and flawed perhaps, but honest and moving and raw.

• Kevin Hewick - An Object She's Left Behind mp3
  

Download the whole album here

Visit Kevin's website

And buy the brilliant Tender Bruises and Scars compilation
by clicking on the cover image below: