Annie Lou – Annie Lou
self-released 2009
[tags: acoustic, folk, traditional, canada, 2009]
Listen while reading:
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If you are a bit like me you are a lover of traditional folk as well as of contemporary folk music. And if I’m not mistaken, you will love those lovely four ladies from Canada playing folk just in the vein of the good old days. They hail from Whitehorse/Yukon and founded their band back in 2007. The name of the band is Annie Lou and their self-titled debut saw the light of day back in May 2009. The four members of the band are: Anne Louise Genest (guitar and vocals), Kim Barlow (clawhammer banjo and vocals), Lindy Jones (upright bass and vocals) and Meredith Bates (fiddle).
The first thing you will notice is the old and traditional sound of the tracks. You really get the feeling of the traditional folk sound – and what is the great thing about this, even the self-written songs sound as they were sung long time before. The band managed to catch the spirit of the traditional songs and let itself be guided by it to come up with this old and new, dusty and windy result. The combination of banjo, acoustic guitar, upright bass and fiddle works very well and creates a beautiful atmosphere of nostalgia especially in combination with the three wonderful voices taking turn in the songs or singing in duet or trio.
As folk fanatics you surly have heard about the Daniel, Fred & Julie release on You Have Changed Records that is going to be released in a few days. Even though I had no opportunity to listen to the whole thing, I can agree with those voices which call it one of the best folk albums of 2009 (check out the great post over at Herohill). But I don’t want to write about Daniel, Fred & Julie here. I just wanted to say that Annie Lou can be seen as the other side of folk music covers. And I think that the two records work very well together because they combine two different styles of interpretation. On the one hand there is the spares sound of acoustic guitar driven folk and on the other hand you got those emphatic fiddle and banjo driven style.
So what’s to say at the end of the post? Maybe that you have to check out their music over at MySpace and their personal homepage and that you have to buy your copy of Annie Lou at cdbaby.com without delay. A great record that deserves some blog love.
Where can I purchase a copy of Annie Lou CD?