Filed under: Arts, creativity, music, The Scotsman | Tags: diamond mine, East Neuk of Fife Music scene, fife music, Kenny Anderson, king creosote, King Creosote and Jon Hopkins, npr music
This is a great concept and nobody could be better suited than King Creosote with Jon Hopkins showcasing the two best songs from Diamond Mine.
I couldn’t agree more with NPR’s point of view…
At the risk of serving up a spoiler three months in advance, King Creosote and Jon Hopkins‘ Diamond Mine is going to turn up near the top of many Best Albums of 2011 lists on this website. The breathless love isn’t unanimous across the NPR Music staff, but it’s widespread and intense, and rightfully so. For all its brevity — just seven songs in 32 minutes — Diamond Mine is an absolutely spectacular record, as plainspoken and charming as it is breathtaking in its cinematic sweep.
Filed under: Arts, music | Tags: fife music, folk, james yorkston, mark bannerman, the fence collective, when the haar rolls in
To complete a trio of folky delights I’d like to pick up on this stunner that I have ommitted to share with you dear reader.
I have been growing deeper in love with this record every time I hear it for over a year now and it is sublime. The standout track is almost unclassifiable; Tortoise Regrets Hare puts the hairs on the back of my neck up every time I hear the stunning harmony that Yorkston creates with Nancy Elizabeth (or is it Elizabeth Nancy I wonder). Its structure is bemusing and its lyrics, to say the least, are unconventional. Basically I think it’s about jealous love. But it is so, so beautiful.
Here it is. Please watch.
Anyway, the rest of it is also amazingly poignant, beautiful, affecting, sad, lyrical, compelling, emotive. I’ll stop. I like it. I like it very much and I think you owe it to yourself to like it too.
I would be very pleased if you did.
As would Mr Yorkston.
Oh, and by the way. What a cover! (Mark Bannerman)
