Jack Hayter - Abbey Wood (Gare Du Nord)

 

 

The title of Jack Hayter's wonderful new album comes from the road in which he lived four years ago but the symbol that lies at the heart of the album's first track 'The Mulberry Tree at Abbey Wood' - which I played in my Dandelion Radio show last month - is loaded with far great depth

 

In particular the tree - 'you know the one, there's only one' as its lyrics tell us - stand as a metaphor that's explored throughout the collection.  It's a collection that's rich with feelings of solitude, yet it's a resilient solitude, loaded with a defiant spirit that manages to survive despite hostile surroundings.

 

On the surface, it's an album about places, but really it's about the people who give those places their character, characters like 'Fanny On The Hill', who serves up a liquid dinner with 'whisky for pudding'

 

Or the narrator of 'I Sent My Love To Bendigo', who fights his war in the farmyard, in attempt to stop the army from taking his beloved horse to war.  His brother goes to war in order to end the fighting with his girlfriend over the issue, only to return, broken, to hang himself at Christmas.  Under its original title of 'Horsemeat For Dogs', we featured an early version of the track on an Unwashed Territories compilation.  Its redolence has not diminished in the year since.

 

Similarly 'The Arandora Star', the tale of the ship loaded with British-based Italian and German civilians that was sunk during World War II, offers much poignancy against a backdrop of the sad xenophobia of these times.    As with Woody Guthrie's 'Deportees', the power lies in the evocation of individual lives behind the tragedy - the Italian women who'd helped to build bombers in north Manchester among them - leaving again a sense of real people devoured by circumstances they had no role in instigating.   I'm playing the track in my show this month.

 

it's a powerful collection, but it's also infused with a gentle, kind spirit.  A celebration of people and places, no less who, like the Mulberry Tree, still stand defiant despite it all.  Among them, unquestionably, stands Hayter himself.

 

Get it at https://jackhayter.bandcamp.com/album/abbey-wood

21 Songs for John: 5. Jack Hayter

Jack Hayter – Horsemeat for Dogs

In the years either side of the turn of the millennium, Hefner might justifiably lay claim to the title of ultimate Peel band.  In a little over three years, between 1998 and 2001, they appeared in session nine times, with four appearances in 2000 alone, including a live set broadcast from what became a regular January John Peel show beamed from Groningen.   Jack Hayter was their multi-instrumentalist, joining them from their second session, the memorable 'gospel covers' session, onwards and, in future outings, making a range of musical contributions, including violin, mellotron, lap steel and moog synthesiser.  Recently, Hayter has made a memorable series of solo recordings for the excellent Audio Antihero label, to whom thanks for helping secure his contribution to this album.  'Horsemeat For Dogs' is a new song recorded exclusively for this compilation.

www.jackhayter.com

www.audioantihero.com



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Audio Antihero - Regal Vs Steamboat Compilation in aid of Rape Crisis

At the end of the year when I put together my list of the best albums of the year, I have a strict 'no compilations' policy.  There's no particular reason for this, except that I have extreme anal retentive tendencies and it pleases me to create systems of rules within which my obsessions can operate.  

Such a rule - which those same tendencies dictate can't be revoked without me feeling extremely uncomfortable - mean that the new Regal Vs Steamboat compilation from Audio Antihero will be denied what will surely be its rightful place as one of the best releases of 2013, unless of course somebody less constrained by psychological idiosyncrasies is willing to give it that recognition.  I hope they will.

Charity releases can, of course, be at best a double-edged sword.  Often they can be an excuse for passing off sub-standard material in the hope that people will be obliged to buy it because the cause is a good 'un.  Audio Antihero, however, already possess a better track record in this area than most.  Their previous compilations have been extremely pleasurable listening experiences and Regal Vs Steamboat, released in support of Rape Crisis, suggests they're getting even better at it.

Here, the usual AA suspects deliver to their accustomed high standard: Jack Hayter showcases a new version of the excellent 'Sweet JD', while Fighting Kites offer a frantic live version of 'Grey Starling', Wartgore Hellsnicker get impressively noisy and Paul Hawkins (above) reaffirms his position as one of our most treasured, and too often sadly underrated, songwriters.  

There are further appearances from legendary associates Darren Hayman and Jeffrey Lewis (right), which I would - in any normal circumstances - surely be hailing as the highlights of the collection.  But these are not normal circumstances: Ace Bushy Striptease, Burnt Palms and Internet Forever produce indie pop of such a sublime quality that it renders my oft-stated pleas for recognition that we live in a new golden age of such stuff barely even necessary.  New additions to the AA roster Cloud would surely incinerate the competition were it not made of such universally strong stuff while Low Low Low La La La Love Love Love are so good they make me put to the back of my mind any reservations about their ridiculous name, which is saying something.

Despite all of this, arguably my greatest pleasure has been in being exposed for the first time to the work of Helena Dukic (left), a London-based, classically trained artist who makes relatively simple music to die for, as is adequately showcased by her track 'Come Along'.  It inspired me to check out more of Helen's work here and it's a firm promise that you'll be hearing more of her in my Dandelion Radio shows in the future.

But limiting my reflections to the artists above gets nowhere near to giving you an idea of the panoramic brilliance of this collection.   To do that, you really need to get a copy.   It's available here for a minimum £3.99.  It's for a good cause, of course, but, even if it wasn't, that would be represent a considerable bargain for what is essentially just about the best sampler release you'll hear for a long time.

Jack Hayter - Sisters of St Anthony (the final chapter)

It's been one of the more remarkable series of releases in recent years.  Audio Antihero, an almost absurdly prolific record label, not only had the solid good sense to put out the recent recordings of Jack Hayter, former multi-instrumental wizard with Hefner, among others, but to put them out in a 12-part series of subscription singles.  It's been like feasting on the most sumptuous banquet, served slowly, knowing that the next instalment is going to be at least as mouthwatering as the last.

Now we've reached the last of the releases and it's going to be like facing the end of a beautiful relationship.  The comedown will be difficult, though easier for knowing that this doesn't mean the end of the road either for Hayter or Audio Antihero.  If this series has proved anything, it's that they both have such great musical sensibilities that there's bound to be plenty more where this came from.  But that didn't really need proving anyway.  So in a way, it's more an au revoir than a goodbye, though the gap between this last meeting for now an the next one will be, for a while, fairly unbearable.

It's hard to pick out highlights from the 24 tracks because there hasn't been a single weak link in this remarkable chain.  'The Shackleton', perhaps, which Audio Antihero also kindly donated to our Into The Light compilation at the end of last year, or 'Farewell Jezebel', which brought Jack back together with old Hefner buddies Darren Hayman and Antony Harding; perhaps 'King of the Shale', which I suppose I loved so much partly because its celebration of the great Ivan Mauger reacquainted me with my childhood speedway memories, the surreal whimsy of 'O Dreamland!', or 'Sisters of St Anthony' itself, which features an excellent vocal contribution from Suzanne Rhatigan and which I've been featuring in my Dandelion Radio show this month.

But there's a case to be made for Jack having left the best till last.  The final single in the series couples the raw folk of 'Quotes' with the evocative spoken word track 'The Lab Technician and the Sexton'.  I've decided to take the unusual step of featuring both 'sides' in my May Dandelion show, which will start streaming from Wednesday.  Great releases demand their own rules, after all, and something great enough to provide such a brilliant finale to this amazing series provides an even better reason for disregarding normal protocols.  

The whole series can be obtained from the Audio Antihero bandcamp site and they're throwing the excellent 'Sucky Tart' EP into the package too. Which is highly fitting for a series that, just when you thought it was as good as it could get, kept pulling out something even more extraordinary.