RW Roldan – Those Who Fall
Genre: Americana, Folk
Similar artists: Steve Earle
Not a lot of things in the world are changed by a committee regardless of how big corporations might feel about it. This is true even in the ever tinier world of the music industry. The people that get their faces on t-shirts and posters across the world are very rarely corporate men.
Much like tales of the Old West, and cowboy shoot-em-ups, music mavericks usually end the story in one of two ways. Some end up being in the centre of the aforementioned poster. The majority end up having, at least, lived their dream. It’s a gamble, but it suits most people that would attempt to make the journey.
RW Roldan sounds like a man who stubbornly marches to a beat that only he and a few of his friends can hear. Those Who Fall is not a song that could have been written by a committee or handed to him by folks at the record label. It’s gutsy alternative-country, and that suits RW Roldan just fine.
T.E. Yates – Fierce Horses
Genre: Singer-Songwriter, Psychedelic / Freak Folk, Indie Folk
Biographies of famous artists rarely portray them in a good light when it comes to their interaction with others. Seems al that business with creating immortal pieces of art tends to play with a person’s mind.
The majority of artists, great or mediocre, would have made terrible dinner guests. At worst they were control freaks who put themselves ahead of others. At best, they were folks that seemed to ramble on and on about themselves.
You would think that getting in front of a group of people and offering them stories you’ve fabricated might just do that. T.E. Yates’s prog, folk excursion on Fierce Horses certainly takes a lot of confidence. But, it also requires a great musical sensibility and a love of poetry. It’s music to listen to while sitting near the fireplace, or, at the very least, the oven.
