‘john fahey is reborn and this time she’s a woman.’

horsemouth is up late (he must have slept soundly).

last night he went off to see two ‘american primitive’ guitarists with howard in islington (they drank at islington prices - six quid a pint! jaysus where will it end!)

John McGrath


irish (from where horsemouth couldn’t tell you - he has a cloth ear for accents) less john fahey more michael hedges - some nice neck taping and right hand harmonics. he did do a fahey inspired piece in skip james tuning (open Dminor) - nice, decently fahey-esque, and sang one. he recommended steve lowenthal’s book as a ‘warts and all’ portrait of fahey. horsemouth liked the pedals but ultimately the set was not his thing, it was a little too mannered for him. he has written on samuel beckett, music and repetition - which makes him all the more interesting.

Gwenifer Raymond



horsemouth missed the start of her set (but probably only the first few minutes he hopes). very minimal stage chatter, which is shows confidence in the material - welsh - but from where horsemouth couldn’t tell you (he has a cloth ear for accents). it makes sense that she plays banjo also (and employs fingerpicks), guitar mic’ed up (rather than DI’ed), good frailing and fingerpicking style, the material taken at a ferocious charge, more blues meets dies irae. a strong sense she could play whatever she wanted, and decently dark too. john fahey is reborn and this time she’s a woman.

earlier in the day

horsemouth was up the dalston curve garden with iona (of gertrude and the rantipoles). she is back for a vacation  from rumania (and a rantipoles festival gig) and currently reading her way through mihail sebastian’s diaries, an account of the rise of fascism in rumania in the second world war and the succumbing of the intellectuals to it (including mircea eliade and e.m. cioran people horsemouth has heard of and even read).

this seems to be the book of our times - trump, the EU, everybody playing the immigration card and the liberals rolling over to permit the infringement of human rights.

plus, the gide, the saramago, the pessoa, you know horsemouth is a complete sucker for author’s diaries.

iona hasn’t been musically inactive in rumania, she started an ensemble to play balkans music, she mentioned a style of gypsy rap that horsemouth will have to investigate (manele).

somewhat annoyingly children can now research their teachers online - leading to classes full of rumanian children doing gertrude’s the perfect ‘O’ dance like something out of a musical.

she also blogs over at https://misstangybucharest.wordpress.com/