Here's a surprise; I'm a big fan of Martha Wainwright's first album, first released on CD in 2005.
Historically, mostly I've been a Loudon Wainwright III man, to be honest; I have about eight albums by the man, Martha's father, all signed by him at a Rogue Folk concert a few years ago. I can probably recite at least half of "Road Ode" from memory, so that when I hear Martha Wainwright reference Oprah on her song "TV Show," I think, "Huh: like father like daughter." I have never investigated Rufus; his work is simply unknown to me. I've owned some Kate and Anna McGarrigle, but I don't "know " it -- mostly I know their version of Wade Hemsworth's "The Log Driver's Waltz," the animation for which I've been known to use in ESL classrooms. I think she has other family members who perform (there is a lot of music among her people) who are also unknown to me... Roches, or something... But in fact, I think I listen more to Martha's first album than I do to anything by her Dad, these last couple of years.
It hadn't been the plan. I took Erika to see her at the Imperial a few years ago (missing out on a Lee Ranaldo show down the street at the Fox!) and was surprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did. Martha was smart, witty, wry, and kept doing this weird thing with her leg, kinda twisting it out to her side to ease pain in her hip or lower back, like some sort of auto-chiropractic dance move. She kept up a fair witty banter, as well, though I seem not to have taken notes of any of it. But I love a performer with a quirky stage presence. And there were a couple of songs where I was asking Erika afterwards, "What album was that off?"
They were songs off her first album, which continued to grow on me when Erika played the CD in the car -- "Far Away," "Factory," "Ball and Chain," "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" -- all sinking deep hooks. I haven't really cottoned onto some of the other female artists and female-fronted bands that Erika has had on heavy rotation -- I don't really need to spend time with Dido or Adele or Florence and the Machine -- but three of her favourites that have really grown on me are Alabama Shakes, Frazey Ford, and, believe it or not, that first Martha Wainwright album.
It's brilliant. Unconventional song structures, prickly lyrics and ethereal background vocals all tied to a sort of dark, swirling European romanticism -- I actually have it on my phone; it's a great headphones record, highly crafted, but full of emotion. My only complaint is, it never came out on vinyl.
That changes as of tomorrow. Martha Wainwright, by Martha Wainwright, will be on sale as of March 21st, and available exclusively at merch areas on her North American tour -- until April 4th, when Cadence will be distributing it to retail stores in Canada. May 23rd, PIAS will pick up distro in the UK, Europe, and the USA, and on May 27th, the UK tour will start, again with the vinyl available on merch tables. There will also, I am told, be a 2CD set, remastered at Abbey Road, with an extra disc of outtakes and demos.
From Martha Wainwright's publicists, we learn, also, that
Martha digitally released a previously released 10 song record called Ground Floor this past January. It was the very first set of recordings she released back in 1997 that were originally available as a 10 song cassette that she only ever sold at shows and have become collectors items of sorts among her super fans. She is also pressing 250 cassettes of this release and will be selling it at all the shows (or until they sell out).
Her vision with these extra releases of Ground Floor and the bonus disc of B-side’s, etc. is that it all ties into the same period of her as an artist and the build up to the release of her debut record. It will also be good to have it all available digitally worldwide as it’s all only been released in a hard to find format.
No comments:
Post a Comment