Good news everyone. Olivier Jarda – Good Luck Cartel is now available on itunes, click here to be magically swept away to the itunes store.
CDs will be available in the UK within the next few weeks, watch this space.
Jam Jar Records is delighted to announce that we will be releasing a new album by Olivier Jarda. ’Good Luck Cartel’ will be Olivier’s first release since ‘Ghost Fees’, which Jam Jar put out in 2008, and his second full length album since 2007′s ‘Diagrams’.
‘Good Luck Cartel’ showcases Olivier Jarda at his very best: a mature, intelligent and unconceited songwriter, an accomplished musician, and a profoundly endearing vocalist. The new set of songs tackles some big ideas: the differential fortunes of people’s lives, and the how the lucky and not so lucky come to terms with their apparent fates.
The album was recorded by Olivier and his band in Halifax (Canada) over the last couple of years, and was independently released in Canada by Olivier on the 10th April. Jam Jar Records will be handling the UK distribution as soon as we have the CDs this side of the Atlantic in May.
‘Good Luck Cartel’ has already received a great review over at herohill.com, and is presently riding at the #1 spot on Olivier’s hometown radio station, ahead of the likes of The Shins and Feist.
You can hear ‘Diving Bell’ below, or the beautiful ‘Piece of Fiction’ here. A video of ‘Skinny Grass’ can be seen here. You can hear a recent radio interview Olivier gave here. Watch this space for a release date!
Slow Club, photographed by Phil Sharp (www.philsharp-photo.com)
April is not the cruellest month. It is, however, slightly quieter than March as far as the Sheffield gig scene goes. There are still a few gems in here though. This month I’ve even put together a Spotify mini play list for your listening pleasure, in addition to the same old RSS feed for the more calendar-inclined (up there on the right).
Jam Jar Music’s top three for April:
April 4th – Retribution Gospel Choir (The Harley)
April 13th – Slow Club (Queens Social Club)
April 13th – The Monochrome Set (Greystones)
April 16th – Mystery Jets (Queens Social Club)
April 17th – Clock Opera (The Harley)
April 20th – Graham Coxon (Leadmill)
April 23rd – Feeder (Leadmill)
April 24th – Bastille (The Harley)
April 26th – Cate le Bon (The Harley)
Allo Darlin' at SXSW 2010 (from www.brooklynvegan.com)
The Queens Social Club is an strange place, and despite having been to a few great gigs here, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to enter this place without imagining I’ve just walked into the 1970s. Nevertheless, this is a large part of this place’s charm: it is quintessentially Sheffield, and quintessentially retro scout-hut/school disco/bingo hall chic.
The night kicked off with The Passing Fancy, local Wakefield acoustic folk carousers. The band seemed to have been slightly let down by a difficult sound from the venue, but got the evening off to a great start. They’re a wonderfully characterful bunch, singing deceptively simple folk songs, mostly about drinking, with plenty of acoustic guitar, harmonica and fiddle. You can hear more of them here.
Second up were rising stars Standard Fare, a band based in Sheffield, but one I’m sure will soon be receiving even more national attention. Emma Kupa’s vocals really are something else live, beautifully strong, emotive, and frankly spellbinding. Stand out songs for me were ‘Love Doesn’t Stop’, the opener from their debut album, and the closer from their new album ‘Crystal Palatial’. Hear more of them here. I’ll certainly be trying to catch them again as soon as can.
Allo Darlin’ continue to ride on the huge success and critical acclaim of their debut album released a couple of years ago, and even now it’s still one of the best things to have happened in indiepop recently. With this in mind, it would have been pretty hard for Allo Darlin‘ to disappoint. However, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a band create such a fun, vibrant and intimate atmosphere, especially in a venue that you would not necessarily associate with these things. Singer Elizabeth Morris obviously has an infectious joy for what she does, and she does it very well indeed. The whole band offered a tight performance that captured the crowd for a good hour or so. The highlight for me had to be the encore, for which no stops were left in place, including ‘Silver Dollars’, and a cover of the Just Jones. As if that wasn’t enough, I left with a copy of their recent new single ‘Darren’, which I have been enjoying since (coloured vinyl with a great bog picture of Darren Hayman on one side, and members of the Wu Tang Clan interspersed with Allo Darlin’‘ on the other – what’s not to like?).
Photos from the night can be found here and here. The night was put on by Pull Yourself Together, kudos to them, pop them in your address book!
March looks to be a very exciting month for music in Sheffield – there’s a lot of great stuff on. So, I present here a Jam Jar Music-endorsed list, which can also be seen on the right as an RSS feed. Do with it what you will.
Because there’s so much to choose from, I’m also going to give my top three:
1. Thomas Truax at the Greystones, 17th March. New Yorker/London mentalist Thomas Truax (pictured above) nabs the top spot thanks to the calibre of his live performances. If you haven’t seen him and his home-made instruments (machines with names such as the Mother Superior and The Hornicator) it’s an absolute must.
2. Los Campesinos at the Leadmill, 31st March. Indie poppers from Cardiff Los Campesinos put everything into their live shows, and with their critically acclaimed new album Hello Sadness out just a few months ago this should be a great night.
3. A Hawk and a Hacksaw at St George’s Church, 3rd March. Ex-Neutral Milk Hotel drummer Keven Barnes and violinist Heather Trose have been making sublime Balkan-folk inspired music for years. This event sees Drowned in Sound teaming up with Sensoria Festival of Film and Music for a screening of Parajadnov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors with A Hawk and A Hacksaw providing a live score.
Honourable mentions also go to Emmy the Great (supporting Noah and the Whale at the academy), Shrag (at the Riverside) and Bill Wells and Aiden Moffat (at Queens Social Club).
Feburary 27th – Shrag/Tunabunny – Riverside
March 1st – Johnny Foreigner – The Harley
March 3rd – A Hawk and a Hacksaw – St George’s Church
March 7th – Roddy Woomble – Greystones
March 8th – Portico Quartet – Queens Social Club
March 16th – Doom – Queens Social Club
March 17th – Thomas Truax – Greystones
March 17th – Alvarez Kings – Academy
March 19th – Summer Camp – The Harley
March 22nd – Noah and the Whale (+ Emmy the Great) – Academy
March 24th – Kwes – The Harley
March 31st – Los Campesinos! – Leadmill
March 31st – Bill Wells and Aiden Moffat – Queens Social Club
Four years ago yesterday Jam Jar Records launched its first website.
Resources were at a minimum: I wrote the website from scratch in (very) basic html, drawing all the graphics with a pen and paper, and digitising them with a camera (even a scanner was too much of a stretch). I chose “courier” as a font, reflecting as it did my ethos at the time: if I could have used a typewriter to print my words onto the internet I probably would have done so. I was fiercely against digital music as much as I was against the aggressive commercialisation of music, and perhaps even (wrongly) equated the two.
