Recording: Janet MacPherson & Co.

Artist: Janet MacPherson & Co.

Song: Jock O'Hazeldean [traditional]

Recorded atThe Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Cosmic Country for Communists), September 8, 2022.

Janet MacPherson & Co. - Jock O'Hazeldean

While logistics make it difficult for Kurt Newman to pull together a Mermaids gig, he could certainly create the conditions for some Mermaids-adjacent music by pulling in vocalist Janet MacPherson (a truly under-appreciated gem) and her book of traditional British Isles tunes. Channeling some nimble-fingered folk-rock guitarists, Newman was joined by Chris Adriaanse on bass and Blacke Howard on percussion, with the group using the form of the songs as raw material to gently ramble through ad hoc arrangements.

Recording: Macpherson/Kirkpatrick/Newman

Artist: Janet Macpherson/Kyle Kirkpatrick/Kurt Newman

Songs: The Grand Tour [George Jones cover] + There Stands the Glass [Webb Pierce cover]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Cosmic Country for Communists), February 6, 2019.

Janet Macpherson/Kyle Kirkpatrick/Kurt Newman - The Grand Tour

Janet Macpherson/Kyle Kirkpatrick/Kurt Newman - There Stands the Glass

"Lacanian psychoanalysts think of addiction as a disease of capitalism," guitarist Kurt Newman said by way of introduction to the latter song here, giving a hint of how the night's banner crept into the material in ways slightly deeper than jokes about the People's Key. ("They're not wrong," someone in the audience tossed back.) Enlisting Mermaids' Janet Macpherson on vox as well as Kyle Kirkpatrick on dobro, the trio essayed a number of country and old-timey classics amongst the banter about Bloch and Adorno.

[Kurt Newman will be bringing some sounds to Ayal Senior's monthly residency in the Southern Cross Lounge this Sunday (April 14th), and he will also be opening things up for Invocation's presentation of Appalachian folk songstress Sarah Louise at Array Space on Friday, May 24th.]

Recording: Mermaids

Artist: Mermaids

Songs: Trimdon Grange [composer: Tommy Armstrong] + The Humpback Whale [composer: Harry Robertson]

Recorded at Ratio, August 6, 2015.

Mermaids - Trimdon Grange

Mermaids - The Humpback Whale

No mere folk-revival revivalists, Mermaids surrounds Janet Macpherson's wonderful vocals with layers of drone, warble, and distortion. Experimental folk theorist Martin Arnold's hand is apparent in the arrangements, mixing his banjo with the contrasting guitar styles of Justin Haynes and Stephen Parkinson as well as Ryan Driver's analogue synth burbles. In the mining disaster ballad "Trimdon Grange", the chunka-chunka of the guitars at the outset make the song sound like a rough-hewn second cousin to "Long Black Veil" — but by the time Driver's dissociating synth-wooze joins in it sounds more like an invasion of Daleks in ancient time floating upon England's mountains green. Word is that the band is taking a bit of a break for the next while, but keep an ear out for whisperings of a return.