Music Feature
Three For The Road
Saturday 14 January 2012
At just over a tenner a ticket for three acts, The Certain Three tour could be the best value going this January in rip off Ireland. The annual nationwide jaunt is now in its third year and this time out, the bands featured are folk heroes The Lost Brothers, atmospheric ingénue Katie Kim, and the unknown quantity that is Puzzle Muteson.
It's a tour with very good credentials. O Emperor, The Ambience Affair and We Cut Corners, who released their excellent debut Last Night I Realised I Could Walk Home Backwards last year, have previously featured.
Katie Kim is no stranger to the rigors of the road and she's already won comparisons with Cat Power, This Mortal Coil and Mazzy Star for her woozy ethereal sound and like Puzzle Muteson and The Lost Brothers, there's a slow moving, haunting quality to her music.
"I respect The Lost Brothers and Puzzle Muteson highly but I think we're all quite different but we do mesh at the same time," she says. "The promoter Peter from the booking agency Word of Mouth is just very good at putting together bands that aren't in the same genre but might appeal to certain people and might open up doors to other people who mightn't listen to the left or right side of the band they're a fan of."
Katie releases her second album at the end of the month, a double, vinyl only release called Cover and Flood which brings together twenty songs she's been working on over the past two years. "I only ever want to release vinyl from now on," she says. "I know twenty songs sounds like a lot but it's just about fifty minutes long and some of the songs range from just thirty seconds to five minutes. It's a diary of little bits and big tales. It's nice to finally get it out in the ether."
The Lost Brothers
The joy and sometime pain of touring appeals greatly to Oisin Leech of Navan/Omagh duo The Lost Brothers. He and his band mate Mark McCausland spend up to eight months a year on the road. "It's a strange lifestyle but it's very inspiring," he says. "We're very lucky that we love what we do, we have a lot of fun. We're lucky we can spend three quarters of the year on the road and it keeps the fire going. This is something I've been doing since I was sixteen so I'm hooked at this stage."
The duo play a classic lonely folk that will surely pay dividends with their slow build approach. The Lost Brothers released their fine second album So Long John Fante, a gorgeous acoustic set which is named after their favourite novelist and which was recorded in Sheffield with Richard Hawley's band. The Certain Three tour is the ideal opportunity for The Lost Brothers to reach a wider national audience.
"For only ten Euro people will get a good mixture of music," Oisin says. "I think the three acts have a lot in common. We recorded our new album in Sheffield and it's quite a haunting city, there was a romantic kind of eeriness to the old steel factory where we recorded and I think that's lent itself to some of the songs. It should be a spooky January tour!" (see more at thelostbrothersband.com).
As his name suggests, the mystery man in the line up is Puzzle Muteson. That's the alter ego of the enigmatic songwriter from the Isle of Wight who sings in a tremulous voice over deft finger picking guitar complemented by cello. He's signed to Icelandic label Bedroom Community and worked with Bjork and Grizzly Bear producer Nico Muhly on his debut album, En Garde.
Puzzle Muteson
A man of few words, he's played Ireland before but this will be his first tour of the country. "There is something similar to each act and I think we'll all fit in quite nicely but I'm not overly familiar with the two other acts." He agrees that he is perhaps the mystery man of the tour package. "I guess so just because I haven't played in Ireland as much as the other two acts," he says. "I guess I keep in the background. Maybe it's shyness. I am quite introvert and that's reflected in the music."
The Certain Three - it's (just over) a tenner well spent.
The Certain Three tour plays at: Half Moon Club, Cork, January 14. Pine Lodge Myrtleville, Co. Cork, January 15 (FREE). Bourkes, Limerick, January 19 (FREE). Swan Lane, Navan January 20. Theatre Royal, Waterford January 21. Roisin Dubh, Galway January 26 (FREE). The Workman's Club, Dublin, January 27. The Spirit Store, Dundalk, January 28. The Model, Sligo, February 4
Click here for Terms of use
|
Top 10 Most Read
Must Watch TV
-
- The Real Mr & Mrs Assad: Channel 4 Dispatches
Channel 4 Dispatches reveals a portrait of a golden couple who have become global hate figures. The programme shows intimate footage of President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma as they've never been seen on British television before, and images that help explain why the West bought the idea they were true modernisers. When Bashar took the reins of power after his father's death in 2000, the West was drawn into a hope and belief that Syria would be a new force for change in the Middle East. The Assads were seen as a glamorous couple with modern Western morals and values; he was hailed a reformer, she was the 'Rose of the Desert'. Key leaders and figures in the West welcomed the young couple, convinced that the softly spoken London-trained ophthalmologist and his beautiful British-born former investment banker wife would bring reform and modernisation to a country that had been run by an iron-fisted dictator for nearly 30 years. But it seems the West was duped. Instead of a transparent and progressive leadership, what has emerged during a year-long bloody uprising is evidence of the regime's gross systematic human rights abuses, including widespread killings and torture, while the Assads look on. Channel 4 Dispatches investigates the extent of the Assad family's culpability and the chains of command that link the President and select inner circle to the brutal crackdown.
-
- Afghanistan: The Great Game - A Personal View By Rory Stewart
Afghanistan: one of the most isolated and barren landscapes on earth is a strange place for an empire or superpower to invade. But for three of the greatest powers the world has seen, it became an unlikely target and an enduring obsession. The 19th century British invasions into Afghanistan, immortalised by Rudyard Kipling as "The Great Game", ended in huge loss of life and British retreat, and set a template for the perils of incursion in this mountainous country. In this two-part series, author, journalist and former Deputy Governor during the coalition's occupation of Iraq, Rory Stewart MP travels to Afghanistan to uncover the fears, the paranoia and perceived threats that led three very different Ssperpowers: Britain, Russia and the United States into Afghanistan from the 19th century to the present day.
-
- 56 Up
Michael Apted's landmark documentary series following the lives of ordinary British people from childhoiod to adulthood and old age continues. Over the past six decades, the series has documented the group as they have become adults and entered middle-age, dealing with everything life has thrown at them in between. The series is back to discover what has happened to the group over the last seven years. And one of the original characters has decided to re-join the series after leaving almost 30 years ago.