The Great Park – Stitch | Music Review

 

Let’s clear one thing up – The Great Park is a man not a band. He’s called Stephen Burch and he’s an Englishman living in the musical hotbed of Berlin, the place where David Bowie and Iggy Pop once shared a flat. There’s some great folk music coming out of Berlin right now courtesy of Woodland Recordings but none great than The Great Park.

Despite being British he doesn’t really play a huge amount in The UK. His 150-ish concerts in the last few years have mostly been in Continental Europe although he has been involved with the excellent Brighton-based label Bleeding heart recordings.

‘Stitch’ is a beast of a record at 31 songs long, spanning two discs. The 1st disc is of songs from his last few records and the 2nd is of live recordings from his various journeys. It’s good of Burch to take us on a physical journey through the live record as he takes us on an emotional one with him in his music. It’s an emotional journey that paints a vivid picture of a man with exposed, open wounds. Burch is clearly a man with the lyrically-introspective nature of Tom Williams. Perhaps also cut from the same anti-folk cloth too, although I’d imagine he’d want less of the anti.

The songs on the record are intimate, they’re at times melancholic and difficult to listen to but something about it draws you in so Burch can paint his bleak picture and on repeated listening he reveals new lyrical nuances, a bit like Forrest Gump does. Whoever coined the term “Problem Folk” for him deserves a medal – I can do no better myself. It’s not without hope though. My only hope is he continues to make records for a long time to come. Buy. This. Record. NOW!

 

‘Stitch’ is out now via Bandcamp

 

Links:

http://www.woodlandrecordings.com/

http://www.woodlandrecordings.com/thegreatpark.htm 

www.bleedingheartrecordings.com

http://thegreatpark.bandcamp.com/album/stitch

 

 

Domino: The Spot For Indie

Domino recording company, London is a good place to visit if you like your sounds indie and easy on the ears, but with a few little touches of brilliance thrown in.

Obviously, you have the big pop names like Franz or the Arctics, but the hidden gems are artists like Cass McCombs, The Kills or Bonnie Prince Billy and a host of others which you no doubt will discover once you click onto their website at  http://www.dominorecordco.com

It’s all very tried and tested music, and easy to listen to in the best possible sense.  If you dig pre-Space Oddity Bowie or Aphrodite’s Child, Bobby Vee/Vinton/Rydell  or even very early XTC, this site’s music will fire you up no end. There are some fabulous tunes to be had which will lead you to other bands and sites of a similar nature.

It’s all rock n roll and these are the best at what they do – full stop!