I must say I like this IG vid more than anything on Jake Bugg’s latest album. Hope the poor boy from Nottingham gets back to basics on the next.
Jake Bugg
Jake Bugg review – angry youth cuts a world-weary figure
The Hobbledehoy doesn’t like this stinker from Mr. Bugg. Read the review from The Guardian. They don’t like it much either.
Five years ago, this acerbic singer-songwriter was transparently a major talent when, aged just 18, his debut album topped the UK chart and went on to go double-platinum. Inevitably, he was even hailed as the new Dylan. World domination appeared assured.
Half a decade down the line, Jake Bugg’s career trajectory is noticeably less spectacular. His record sales have slumped; there have been missteps. His third album, On My One, saw him unwisely dabbling in dance beats and even hip-hop. His latest, the country-hued Hearts That Strain, was recorded in Nashville with veteran studio musicians who backed Elvis and Wilson Pickett.
Such creative restlessness would usually be laudable, but in Bugg’s case the effect seems to have been to shear off the urgency and the rough edges that initially made him such a compelling artist [ . . . ]
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Jake Bugg sings Tammy Wynette
Nice cover of Tammy’s “It Keeps Slipping My Mind” by Jake Bugg.
Jake Bugg: Hearts That Strain review – a rootsier return
Jake Bugg’s last album, On My One (2016),was an ill-advised bid to engage with a new crowd. The Nottingham singer’s fourth set, recorded in Nashville, abandons the rapping and Kasabian-friendly rock in favour of dusty country-folk. Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys contributes to three tracks and Miley Cyrus’s sister Noah duets on Waiting, but Bugg is most convincing when his guests take a back seat. The delicate title track, which evokes Bert Jansch, is rich in imagery and bristles with intent. And though the faster songs are largely throwaway, Bugg is inching closer to a sound that is both familiar and very much his own.
Source: Jake Bugg: Hearts That Strain review – a rootsier return | Music | The Guardian
A sea of brollies and a world of fabulous music at the Cambridge Folk Festival
An amazing thing happens when the rain falls on the Cambridge Folk Festival, as it did, with considerable ferocity, several times this weekend.
An amazing thing happens when the rain falls on the CambridgeFolk Festival, as it did, with considerable ferocity, several times this weekend. Almost instantly, and with minimal fuss, a thousand umbrellas emerge from a thousand neatly-packed day-bags; and the fields around the two main stages become an object lesson in British stoicism and weather-preparedness
[ . . .] Musical highlights glittered across the weekend. The Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan was a memorable high point early on Friday afternoon, delivering a main stage performance of such musical accomplishment and melodic beauty that I wondered if anything could top it. Accompanied by a responsive four-piece band, she switched between guitar, mandolin and harmonium, and worked through a setlist drawn mostly from 2016 album, At Swim. On the record, these unhurried, water-themed songs are so subtle and gently realised that they almost fall into the background; but on stage, propelled by her voice – which has touches of Sinead O’Connor and Portishead’s Beth Gibbons – they grabbed both lapels. Her a cappella voicing of the Seamus Heaney poem Anahorish, mid-set, was the finest single piece of singing I’ve heard all year [ . . . ]
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