For the past week or so, my inbox and mailbag have been assailed by labels and PR companies hyping their Tips For 2011, in readiness no doubt for the Brit Newcomer award and the BBC New Artists Poll. Annual frenzies, really, in which a lot of journalists diligently try and help out the music industry by anointing Clare Maguire or whoever as the next Ellie Goulding, and the odd sullen arrested adolescent like me effectively spoils their ballot paper by voting for the likes of Sun Araw. To be honest, I’m pretty fed up with the whole game already this year, and don’t really see the point in getting involved: much better for us, I think, to let these things emerge in their own time, and to appreciate them in our own time. To that end, today I’m starting an end-of-year series called Slow Previewing; as with the Slow Food Movement, an acknowledgement that some good things need to be given a while before they can be appreciated. Basically, I have a long list of records that, for whatever reason, I’ve failed to blog about this year: many, like the Avi Buffalo one, that revealed their strengths after more than usual plays. In a similar sort of vein to Avi Buffalo, then, I can belatedly recommend “Pauper’s Field” by Dylan LeBlanc. On the surface, “Pauper’s Field” is pretty trad Americana, made by a preternaturally mature Muscle Shoals brat. LeBlanc, though, writes lovely tunes and delivers them in an unfussy, not too ostentatiously horny-handed way. I’ve played and enjoyed this one a lot, and have pitched LeBlanc a bit reductively as more or less a Townes Van Zandt for Fleet Foxes (a compliment, incidentally). Next up, “The Voidist” by Imaad Wasif. Wasif is, if memory serves, an LA scenester who’s figured in lineups of Lou Barlow’s Folk Implosion and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, as well as putting out a few solo things that have failed to make much of an impression on me. “The Voidist”, though, feels stronger: though it features Dale Crover from The Melvins and one of the Red Sparowes, it’s very much a romantic, old-fashioned rock record, with a distinct whiff of Jeff Buckley. It also reminds me a little of “Prayer Of Death” by Entrance, in the way it somehow amps up freak-folk to Zeppelinish proportions. Finally, “Chamber Music” by Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Segal. I’ve listened to a lot of kora music this year, and while this isn’t quite a match for the Ali & Toumani session, say, it’s still very nice: a conservatoire gentrification of Malian tradition – albeit recorded in Mali – that pits Sissoko’s kora up against the cello of French musician Vincent Segal. Segal mentions the influence of Nick Drake in the notes, and that’s what this one reminds me of most, actually; a series of unlikely but beautiful extrapolations of “River Man”. More of these soon, but in the meantime, feel free to tell me about your slow pleasures of 2010. No rush, obviously…

This week has mostly been about Steve Coogan. The Trip – his BBC series with Rob Brydon – has prompted much discussion here in the Uncut office. As has the return of Coogan’s most famous creation, Alan Partridge – who as I’m sure you know by now is back in a series of short episodes released online. Partridge’s return comes three weeks after the launch of Harry Hill’s Little Internet Show, via AOL. It’s interesting that Hill and Coogan have opted to explore the internet’s potential as a medium for comedy. Partridge’s return has been facilitated by Foster’s lager, who are rumoured to be keen to bring other much-loved characters back from TV limbo. Hill’s arrival on the web – despite having a deal with ITV to develop new shows – appears to be an attempt to reconnect with his comedy roots. As he told The Guardian in October, "I am producer, editor, director and star, which is how I used to do things.” Coogan and Hill’s high-profile efforts are just the latest in a small, but significant drift of comedians into a digital environment. David Mitchell’s Soapbox, for instance, has run online since 2009, while Will Ferrell launched comedy website Funny Or Die in 2008 featuring a mix of original and user generated content. Last year, former music writer and Irvine Welsh collaborator Dean Cavanagh masterminded Svengali, an online comedy set in the music business that attracted cameos from Martin Freeman, Dave Berry, Carl Barat and Alan McGee. Uncut’s own David Quantick – who’s also written for The Day Today, Brass Eye, Harry Hill and his own Radio 4 show, One – co-wrote Junkies, an internet sitcom about heroin addicts that starred Peter Baynham, Sally Phillips and Peter Serfinowicz back in 2000. David says, “Internet comedy is the future - free from commissioning editors, idiot broadcasters and focus groups, people can be as inept and amateurish as they like, only not on BBC3.” Presumably, David’s views are shared across the board by most of the creators I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this blog. It reflects badly, too, on the commissioning process at the BBC’s digital channels – which should have been a great potential breeding ground for new talent. But for every Nighty Night or Gavin & Stacey, there’s been the horrors of Tittybangbang, Phoo Action or Two Pints Of Lager. Given this fairly parlous track record, perhaps it’s no doubt that comedians are seeking to develop their projects elsewhere. But equally, creative outlets for comedians on television have become extremely limited. Curious, considering the high volume of comedy-based panel shows out there. But all the Mock The Weeks, 8 Out Of 10 Cats and their ilk have really done is nurture a particularly bland variety of stand-up comic. Still, let me put my own soapbox away and get back to Partridge. Which, incidentally, is very good. As with each subsequent series of Partridge on television, part of the fun has been in seeing how far he’s fallen this time round: from his Knowing Me, Knowing You chat show to Radio Norwich and now, North Norfolk Digital, where he presents a show, Mid Morning Matters, and still behaves like the Alan we all know and love. “North Norfolk Digital,” he announces in typically pompous tones. “’Sustaining and maintaining our core listenership in an increasing fragmented marketplace.’ Just realised I read that from an internal memo…” [youtube]ucrpgmJxx0E[/youtube] The set-up is low-budget – two cameras placed in the radio studio. In the first episode, he’s joined by Sidekick Simon (Edinburgh winner Tim Key, who also wrote and performed a lovely little Radio 4 show called All Bar Luke). In a typically excruciating send-up of the kind of inane air-filling banter beloved of many radio DJs and their on-air accomplices, subjects under discussion include Anthea Turner – “the Ford Escort Cabriolet of middle-aged women” – what they had for brunch and which one condiment they’d take to a desert island. Partridge also interviews one Jim Jones – “just to clear something up, you’re not the Jim Jones who led a mass suicide in the Jonestown massacre by feeding his followers poison broth?” Jones, it transpires, runs a campaign that encourages young kids to take up cycling. “You’ve been cleared to work with children, haven’t you?” Partridge asks. “That’s all official? You’re on the register? The good one? Sorry to have to broach that subject. It’s an awful business, but we’ve had some cracking phone-ins about it.” Brilliant stuff, and I look forward to the rest of the series.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a day trying to sort out the CDs at home; attempting to make some space on the shelves, really, for the piles of stuff that had accumulated over the last year or so. As I was weeding out a lot of mediocre post-rock from the late ‘90s, I kept coming across good things I hadn’t played in years, like Judy Henske & Jerry Yester’s “Farewell Aldebaran”. Playing it, it struck me of how much it shared with a new record I’ve been playing a fair bit over the past month, “Light Of A Vaster Dark” by Faun Fables. I’m conscious of not having paid enough attention to Dawn McCarthy’s band over the years; stemming, perhaps, from receiving my first FF record in the same envelope as Joanna Newsom’s “Milk-Eyed Mender”. Both records had something nebulously medieval about them, though McCarthy’s voice couldn’t be much more different from that of Newsom, especially at that point in her career. Not unlike Henske, McCarthy’s voice is bold and stentorian, capable of fearsome power. She’s been one of Will Oldham’s duetting partners, with a similar complimentary heft to the likes of Ashley Webber and Lavinia Blackwall. Truth is, though, I’ve liked all the subsequent Faun Fables albums, without spending a great deal of time with them.I don’t really feel qualified, as a result, to make pronouncements about whether “Light Of A Vaster Dark” is notably better than them. But for whatever reason, it’s the one I’ve played most by far. Thanks to McCarthy’s solemn, incantatory style, and the Arthurian drapes which somehow accumulate around them, it’s easy to talk about Faun Fables in terms of a perceived ‘witchiness’, though listening a bit more closely to “Light Of A Vaster Dark” that seems unfairly reductive. Judging by the footnotes and allusions which accompany the lyrics, it’s a scholarly endeavour; rich with poetry and western lore – Willa Cather gets a couple of references, for a start. Consequently, “On The Open Plains” and “Parade” seem invigorated with a kind of frontier spirit, which oddly fits in with the more baroque, Anglo-folkish vibes that generally predominate. McCarthy’s mighty voice often sits among clean, layered vocal arrangements, and above chamber-like string arrangements. Plenty of artists are currently working in this area; I listened to a pretty disappointing example, from Fern Knight, just yesterday afternoon. Perhaps the closest contemporary might be Nina Nastasia (circa “The Blackened Air”, maybe), though Faun Fables’ music feels less introverted, more theatrical. Which is where, I guess, the Judy Henske comparison makes most sense, on songs like “O Mary” especially. It’s a strong and consistent album, very atmospheric and crafted as a whole. I do, though, keep coming back to two songs placed near the start, “Light Of A Vaster Dark” itself and “Housekeeper”, which calls to mind a mix of Steeleye Span (McCarthy forthrightly leading the massed voices , like Maddy Prior) and the more arcane Comus. Anyhow, I’ve got the other Faun Fables albums at home: if anyone knows them all better than I do, maybe they could chime in and explain how this one compares?

The way Joanna Newsom tells it, Ryan Francesconi had a critical role to play in “Have One On Me”: not just as chief arranger and player of the Bulgarian tambura, kaval, mandolin, banjo, recorder and so on, but also (along with drummer Neal Morgan) in steering her towards making “Have One On Me” a triple CD set. It’s a bit of a surprise, then, to find Francesconi’s own album doesn’t reflect such extravagance. Instead, “Parables” packs eight pieces into just over half an hour, and consists entirely of Francesconi working away on nothing more exotic than an acoustic guitar. The results, though, sound less like a paring back of Francesconi’s ambition, and more like an intense concentration of it. When the title track begins “Parables”, there are flurries of guitar that suggest – like Newsom – this Portland, Oregon musician has closely studied Malian kora music. In the accompanying notes, Newsom confirms as much and calls “Parables” “an ecstatic and measured reconciliation of West African/Balkan/Baroque/bluegrass influences, which ultimately resembles nothing I know.” I can’t pretend to know much – well, anything – about the “Bulgarian folk technique” that Newsom also mentions. One of the striking things about “Parables”, though, is how – that bluegrass allusion notwithstanding – it feels distinctly apart from American folk music. While many of Francesconi’s guitar soloist contemporaries begin their trajectories in the New American Primitive tradition, then often head off into transcendental raga territory, he seems to be following a different path. The one of those contemporaries that he faintly resembles might be James Blackshaw, in particular his duets with the baroque lute player Jozef Van Wissem in Brethren Of The Free Spirit. I think it’s a certain classical bent, a courtly serenity, a barely discernible medievalism that also, on the likes of “Pravo”, also reminds me of some John Renbourn solo albums. I suspect I’ve talked about this before when discussing James Blackshaw, but for a non-musician like myself, it can be tricky identifying the strengths of a record like “Parables” without tending towards a rather woolly, nebulous way of writing about music. Suffice to say, perhaps, that it’s quite lovely; that it has an appealingly contemplative air throughout, as if Francesconi can project an air of calm through his music even in the midst of fiendish technical complexity; and that the album it reminds me of most is Toumani Diabaté’s “Mande Variations”, which ranks as pretty high praise.