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...and here's some press for Adrian's latest album

On his fourth album, this great Irish songwriter continues to creep under the skin and behind your defences, his hushed songs, spare lyrics and diffident baritone detonating with real impact, for all that they arrive by stealth and without the slightest suggestion of an imminent explosion. Crowley deploys restraint as a deadly weapon, the self-recriminating Leaving the Party merely a repeated guitar figure and mumbled, mournful singing, which gives the eventual entry of added instrumentation, rhythm and ghostly backing vocals incredible force. The sawing and swooping strings on Walk on Part (“Of all the bedrooms in this town, you walked into mine”) create a similar frisson. This is a wonderful album. [Dan Cairns, Sunday Times (6/1/08)]

It's not quite My Morning Jacket harnessing the acoustics of a Kentucky grain silo or The Knife channelling the spirit of Stockholm's underground catacombs. But Irish songsmith Adrian Crowley's fourth effort was recorded inside his very own quilted Abbey Road – a self-constructed castle of mattresses in his sister's house while her Dalmatian dog watched on.

A barmy set-up, yes. But the product is a lo-furnished, snug, auburn-tinged folk album which calls to mind Bill Callahan, Johnny Cash and Edwyn Collins clinking Toby mugs in a country hotel. Most assured moment, rosy-cheeked folk-tail 'These Icy Waters,' sounds like a tumbler of brandy, lush, full-bodied, while the gorgeous Atlantic-depth of 'Star Of The Harbour' - where Crowley softly witters about how his bones will be "powdered and mixed with coral" ("the sea and in water in general is an influence" apparently) recalls fellow countryman Fionn Regan. Emphatically lovely. [Greg Cochrane, NME (4/1/08)]

For his fourth album, Crowley decamped to Dublin, removed most of the furniture from his sister’s house and soundproofed it with mattresses. The reflective songs that resulted bring a striking grace and dignity to the ever-fertile Celtic Albion indie folk scene. Striking accompaniment from such luminaries as James Yorkston highlights the gentle but illuminating nature of Adrian’s voice, while the songs’ sea-borne imagery provides a compelling backdrop. [Daily Mirror (4/1/08)]

[chilli]

This is a wonderful album. [Dan Cairns, Sunday Times (6/1/08)]

Even The Sunday Times is catching up with what we have been saying for three years plus+++++

A very special performer

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more superb Vetiver press...

Given that Vetiver are associates of Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, the covers that comprise this album – the band’s third – are knowingly obscure. But whether the source is Hawkwind (Hurry On Sundown) or Biff Rose (To Baby), Vetiver find a raucous hoedown or campfire singalong at its core. The highlight is Vashti Bunyan’s lilting guest vocal on the beautiful Sleep A Million Years, originally by little known Californian singer-songwriter Kathy Heideman. Here, as elsewhere, Thing Of The Past is as educational as it is delightful. [Q magazine – 4/5 stars]

No surprise that Vetiver’s Andy Cabic should locate his favourite songs between 1967-73, when folk inhabited the foothills of psychedelia, but there’s nothing obvious about his song selection. The mood is sweet and slightly whacked-out, as Cabic brings campfirecheerines to Norman Greenbaum’s Hook & Ladder and wistful resilience to Ian (Fairport) Matthews’ Road To Ronderlin. Vashti Bunyan duet beautifully on Sleep A Million Years, while the sadness of Garland Jeffreys’ Lon Chaney, and the plaintive country rock of Bobbly Charles’ I Must Be In A Good Place Now, suggest further investigation of their back catalogue is required. [Uncut – 4/5 stars]

Andy Cabic and friends breathe fresh desert life into dusty old faves by the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Michael Hurley and Eyse Winberg. Yee-hah… [Fact – recommended album]

Not sure what’s up with everyone doing covers albums at the moment, but here’s one to go with Cat Power’s latest, except the range of choices is more limited. It’s always 1969 in Vetiver’s world and so it proves again. Hawkwind, Ian Matthews and Loudon Wainwright III and many (less well known) others get the gently, gently Californian folk treatment here with impressive results. Sweet album, cut cleaner than their usual stuff and just in time for spring. [Stool Pigeon]

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more Adrian Crowley press...

". . . the most brooding moment of shadow filled pop this side of Black Heart Procession. Quite personal and quite simply perfect." [Losing Today]

"Frozen into a snowbank of deep sorrow. Slow ages of exquisitely rendered details and craft supporting these gentle soft-spoken insular folk songs. [Dream Magazine USA]

"Crowley transcends the limitations of his chosen genre thanks to a deep, captivating voice and a light touch." [New Yorker USA]

"Like Nick Drake strung-out on the minor chords and major catastrophes in the lives of Low." [Plan B Magazine]

"If there were any justice in the world, Crowley's time would be right now, for this music is consummately, overwhelmingly and blindingly gorgeous." [Hot Press]

[Alan Cynic]

I hope Vetiver do their Loudon Wainwright cover....also Hawkwind's 'Hurry on sundown'

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Originally Posted by Alan Cynic

I hope Vetiver do their Loudon Wainwright cover....also Hawkwind's 'Hurry on sundown'

me too!

I am almost overloading with all this good Vetiver press...next installment

By some peculiar fluke of cosmic alignment it seems to be the month for indie-folk artists to release covers records. Chasing the heels of Adem’s similarly themed Takes comes Vetiver’s own third album, a selection of lesser-known songs that chief Vet, Andy cabic, is personally fond of. It’s a varied collection, with tracks from the likes of Hawkwind, Michael Hurley and Garland Jeffreys all reinterpreted in the band’s typically dreamy fashion. The clear highlight is Sleep A Million Years, a woozily eerie collaboration with Vashti Bunyan. There’s also a pleasingly poppy take on Biff Rose’s To Baby.

Cabic’s voice is lovely throughout, but sometimes gets a little lost. Thing Of The Past is also noticeably lacking in some of the wilder edges that characterized the band’s previous work. But while some may see this as a stopgap until the next Vetiver album proper, there is beauty and treasure here. [Clash]

Cabic and co at their most trad on this set of covers (these ears being familiar with roughly, erm, one of the originals; Hawkwind’s Hurry On Sundown, natch) and it’s a customarily beautiful work in which these folk / country / rock gems glow as though Vetiver’s very own. [Plan B]

Covers albums might be the last resort of the criminally uninspired, but in the hands of freak folker Andy cabic they can turn into a different beast altogether, as he infuses this selection of of dusty and little-heard 70s classics with his singular brand of gentle country rock. Rather like Mark Kozelek’s album of Modest Mouse covers, Cabic has a knack of making others songs his own, turning Hawkwind’s frazzled Hurry On Sundown into a frenetic blues stomp and giving a lilting psychedelic air to more obscure gems like Garland Jeffrey’s deliciously sunny MOR Lon Chaney and Towne Van Zandt’s desultory Standing. For fans of Devendra Banhart, A Silver Mt. Zion, Sun Kil Moon. [Rocksound]

[chilli]

you are finding lots of great reviews of Vetiver & AC, think this must be a very good gig & certainly one to see this Saturday........

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Originally Posted by chilli

you are finding lots of great reviews of Vetiver & AC, think this must be a very good gig & certainly one to see this Saturday........

there was a nice write up in the EE today as well...

[chilli]

Norman Records Leeds say this about AC's last single

This record left our Phil feeling ecstatic.
We're enormous fans of Adrian Crowley here. I've seen him live a few times and just about the most intimate thing I've seen live. You feel like you're sharing the guys innermost feelings and secrets. It's incredible how one man's voice can be packed with some much feeling and emotion. You almost feel like you shouldn't be there. Anyway here's a new 7" on Fence by Lord Crowley called Bless Our Tiny Hearts. It features old Yorkston on there as well. Why this guy isn't Prime Minster is a mystery to me. You need this record like you need air to breathe. Well maybe not that much but it's great. If you're a fan of Yorkston you'll like this and then want to buy Adrian's back catalogue as well. This is simply just beautiful singer songwriter stuff which will melt you into a big sweaty mush. Best have a fridge near you when listening so you can pop yourself into it when you feel yourself turning into gak. Great stuff!

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and here's the High Fidelity blog review of the Long Distance Swimmer album...

Cross traditional Irish alt folk with US folk miserabilists such as Smog and the result is this minimal, pared-down, fragile slice of singer-songwriting that no iPod should be without. It may be a style of music that's ten-a-penny these days, but that only makes artists such as Adrian Crowley, who stand out from the crowd, all the more impressive.
Opening track Bless Our Tiny Hearts is bleak and beautiful, as is the third offering, Star Of The Harbour, both recalling the archetypal forlorn troubadour strumming a lonely guitar on a sea wall as the storm clouds gather. In between, These Icy Waters adds more instruments to the mix to brighten things up a bit.

The songs slip from solo acoustic to more layered offerings with aid where appropriate from musicians including Marja Tuhkanen on violin, the ever-worthwhile James Yorkston on additional vocals, clarinet, concertina and guitar, Sinead Nic Gearailt on harp, Katie Ellis on cello and Thomas Haugh on drums.

Crowley's helpers never intrude, nor take over completely, simply boosting songs such as Walk On Part to a level above just another offering from a dead-pan bloke with a battered guitar. Here in particular the ability of the additional instruments to echo the cruel waves of a cold sea make the song rather than break it on the underlying rocks. The slow, foreboding strings of Electric Eels also deserve a mention.

Crowley's real talent shines through on songs such as Temporary Residence (probably the album's best) and Victoria, which manage to sound sparse and full at the same time while the most rounded songs, such as Harmony Row, sound more sinister than upbeat. The music is cold and bleak, perfect for its midwinter release date. Imagine Nick Cave hosting a wine and cheese New Year's Eve party in a particularly bleak cove on the Irish coast as the ghost of Nick Drake looks on, an image continued through the instrumental Theft By Starlight's sonorous piano.

As the album progresses, Leaving The Party is almost cheery by comparison, a song you can at least imagine slow waltzing to, and yet it's also one of the ones that owes the biggest debt to the darker US alt-folkies, morphing into one of the album's saddest laments before Crowley's done. Penultimate track Brother At Sea on the other hand is, genuinely, more upbeat.

This is Crowley's fourth studio album, following on from 2004's A Northern Country, 2005's A Strange Kind, and When You Are Here You Are Family. His music hasn't changed direction after the relatively long lay-off, but he's certainly come back no weaker. Think Smog, think Bonnie Prince Billy, think The Decemberists if they didn't have a sense of humour or, closer to home, Irish troubadours such as Declan O'Rourke.

And then to round it all off, there's the final, beautiful, fragile, delicate title track. Perfectly balanced, with crashing chords beating in time to the waves against the shore, it would be greedy to ask for a better beginning to the musical treasures 2008 might wash up for us.