A couple of months ago I noticed a strange trend appearing amongst the visitors to We Write Lists. That week, and every single day since, we’ve had somewhere in the region of a hundred visits simply from people searching for the lyrics to ‘Steal My Heart’ – a wonderful song by our friends Emily and the Woods. The problem is, the post that drew everyone in didn’t actually feature any lyrics to the song. So consider this our apology – we emailed Emily, who has played our Folkroom gigs in the past, and she quickly and brightly obliged. So thanks to Emily, and all her fans – we couldn’t be happier to see her doing so well! If you want to see her do well for yourself, she’s playing unplugged at the St Pancras Old Church tomorrow night (16/12/11).

Steal His Heart

Get in my boat

We’ll sail away

I’ve always been scared, scared of the sea

I’ll give you some string, you’ll find your way home

And I will be waiting when you return.

I can’t steal his heart, but I can steal back mine

I can steal back mine,

I can steal back mine.

I can’t steal his heart, but I can steal back mine.

Stand on the shore

Arm is outstretched

The stars, in their heavens, are doing their best.

He calls my name, and I meet his eyes,

Now I have lived I might as well die.

I’m saying things are, (they are, they are)

I’m saying things are, (they are, they are)

I’m saying things are, (they are, they are)

Going to change

I’m saying things are, (they are, they are)

I’m singing things are, (they are, they are)

I’m singing things are, (they are, they are)

Going to change

I can’t steal his heart, but I can steal back mine

I can steal back mine

I can steal back mine.

I can’t steal his heart, but I can steal back mine.

Takes off my crown,

Throws it to the sky,

And we are emblazoned, as bright lights we’ll thrive.

Oh, we will thrive.

I can’t steal his heart, I can steal back mine

I can steal back mine

I can steal back mine.

I can’t steal his heart, but I can steal back mine.

Steal back mine.

‘Steal My Heart’ lyrics copyright Emily and the Woods.

That’s me, myself and I up there. Stephen W. Thomas. Glastonbury. Apologies if I look grumpy, but that is a) my neutral face, so shut the hell up, and b) the result of 72 hours of exhaustion. 2011 was the greatest hits of Glastonbury – the year where the Eavis family brought back some of the most historic acts of the past 41 years. The Spirit of 71 stage presented us with bands who had played the festival forty years ago. The Park Stage relived two of the more legendary Glasto sets of the 90s with their ‘secret’ appearances by Radiohead and Pulp. And the weather provided us with memories of every extreme we’ve ever seen at the festival – the miserable rain, the toffee/fudge mud and the sweltering, sweltering heat. Let’s look back at 2011 through photos, and some stories of our… more interesting experiences.

We’d been wishin’ and a-hopin’ for weeks in the run-up to this year’s Glastonbury, but as the train drew closer to Castle Cary it was painfully obvious what was in store, the rain dragging itself staggered along the glass of the windows. Cue a weekend of lost wellies, over-priced ponchos and over-enthusiastic cheers whenever the sun came out. Which made Sunday very, very noisy.

Some bands, fortunately, are made for the rain – Bright Eyes drew a large crowd for his vaguely emo folk-rock, and angry songs like ‘Lover I Don’t Have To Love’ worked well in the cool drizzle come Friday afternoon. There was a suspicious amount of songs featuring the word ‘rain’ or some deriative scattered across the set. Either Conor Oberst was angling his set in a very specific direction, or he’s a bit of a miserable sod. Not our place to say, mind.

This is a cage. With a disco ball inside. Not that this is remotely evocative of Glastonbury’s stand on dancing – after all Kool and the Gang headlined West Holts on the Sunday. A day earlier Janelle Monaé had dragged a thousand feet from the mud as they stomped and twisted to tracks from her debut album The ArchAndroid and a cover of The Jackson 5′s ‘I Want You Back’ that sounded eerily like the original in many ways.

In fact, the best stage all round for dancing and moving and being a little bit surprised was West Holts. We’ve said it once or twice over the years (including in our mini review earlier in the week), but West Holts is the BBC4 of Glastonbury. The gang above are enjoying a much-welcomed burst of sunshine that came both literally and by way of Fool’s Gold, whose summery tones lightened the moods of everyone in the field on Saturday afternoon.

The biggest treats of Glastonbury often come from the smallest acts. Not the insect circus hiding in the Avalon film, but the unsigned acts making their way in the only way unsigned acts can – by playing bloody everywhere. The Worry Dolls, who we go on about endlessly on here played a storming set on Wednesday afternoon that resulted in an unplanned encore. That’s Zoe sitting above, tuning the ukelele on which she had learnt all of their songs the night before (a banjo had seemed to unwieldy for the festival). Twin Brother played the BBC Introducing stage Friday morning. Emily and the Woods stole some hearts with her humble Acoustic stage set – including a delightful ‘Single Ladies’ cover. Incidentally, catch The Worry Dolls at our Folkroom gig on July 20th. That wasn’t a plug. That was me doing you a favour.

I tell you with some certainty that this isn’t true. I trekked 40 minutes through the mud to Coach Gate A in order to bring you that info, but that’s just what I go through for you guys.

A lesson in festival journalism. It’ll take you just seconds to find shots of this year’s Glasto in which people are stranded in great lakes of mud, or covered in it as though they woke in a great silt lake. Do not be fooled, sofa-festivalists of the world! Though the mud was pervasive across the festival, it was stodgy and sticky mud, not big wet mud. The above shot is one of only three puddles or so on the whole site, and the girls walking through it are doing so purely for the benefit of a camera just out of shot. So, yeah. Class dismissed.

Some refreshing optimism as someone speculates on a special guest in the dance arena.

Laura Marling gets a bit of a bum deal during her set on the Pyramid stage.

Saturday at the festival, and some-time WWL contributor Rob has arrived onsite with a PR colleague also called Rob (who, for sake of ease, shall now be called Mark). The two are down only for the last two days in order to sort out some press for a few acts playing. Mark can’t quite get the pass he needs, so after we drop off their stuff in my tent, where we’ll all be sleeping for the remainder of the festival, he and Rob head off to try and arrange something.

Later on, Rob and I meet up and catch Coldplay’s set (which, much to our mutual surprise, is utterly engaging). Afterwards we head over to Shangri-La with another friend. We wander the sordid streets of the temporary city, jive in a jive bar and at half two we go our separate ways and Rob and I head back to our tent. We reach it around 3am, but Mark isn’t there yet. Fair enough, Glasto kept us out til 3, and the music will keep going til 5am. We fumble our way into our respective sleeping bags and drop asleep in no time at all.

When I awake briefly at 4am the tent is already vaguely lit by the half light of the pre-dawn hour, and I am relieved to see that our tent is filled to capacity, myself and the two other bodies, deep in slumber. I go back to sleep. By Rob’s own account, he woke up at half 5 and saw much the same thing. He fell asleep once more.

We wake around 7, and only Rob and I are in the tent. We reckon Mark must have gone of to do some PR work or something, but just to check if he’s left us a message we both switch on our phones. There is a message on each – the same one, sent as a joint text. It goes roughly like this:

“Guys – couldn’t get the pass I needed and couldn’t find the tent. Am driving back to London.”

We look at the bottom of our messages. 1:30am.

WE SPENT TWO HOURS SHARING A TENT WITH A STRANGE MAN.

I spent the last few days hoping that when I got my Glastonbury photos developed there would be a self-shot of our mystery man leaning of Rob and I, giving a massive thumbs up. He certainly had the chance – when we woke in the morning my camera was lying where he had been. Oh well.

There were rumours rumbling around the site all weekend. Arcade Fire were gonna play! (False) Pulp were gonna play! (True) Radiohead were going to play! (True) Prince was gonna play! (You had me going there, Sam…). My favourite rumour was that Marcus Mumford was the illegitimate son of the above fox. But then, I made that up, so I would like it.

And so that was our Glasto for 2011.

Two years til the next one.

So, we’re back from Glastonbury. Our clothes our muddied, our bodies resting after the best showers of our lives, and the world’s least likely tanline formed half way up our calves (courtesy of the necessity of wearing wellies in 30 degree weather). In the next week or so we’ll get our Glasto photos up on the site (we went retro with an analogue camera). Until then, enjoy a custom-made list of every single thought we had at Glastonbury this year. Don’t worry, there aren’t many. Mostly we were just trying to stay upright in the mud.

1. Travelling light is key. We had one bag, one tent, and eighteen sherpas.

2. They’re right when they say ‘It’s not the same without the rain’. It’s significantly better.

3. If we were to make a venn diagram where a red circle represented ‘Men who take their shirts off when temperatures hit twenty degrees’ and a blue circle represented ‘Men who could reasonably be described as ‘a bit of a dick”, all we would have is one purple circle.

4. Next time we are for-going tents in favour of bringing sheds.

5. This year’s festival trend is going to be woolly hats made to look like Sesame Street characters. We don’t know who came up with this, or spread it across so many vendors with such success, but they are clearly marketing geniuses.

6. Lemonberry is a better festival drink than any other. Lemonade with strawberry blended into it, and bits floating about.

7. Mumford and Sons are successful because they appeal to two major demographics: fans of well-made, beautiful folk music and people who like to sing loudly while holding a can of Strongbow in the air.

8. This works out very well for Mumford and Sons, but not so well for us. Our enjoyment of Fleet Foxes was dampened by three ‘blokes’ behind us who, whenever they got bored of sumptuous vocal harmonies, started shouting ‘IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT BUT MINE’ at the top of their bleedin’ voices.

9. West Holts is the BBC4 of Glastonbury. You won’t always have heard of the artist playing, but they’ll always be interesting.

10. The BBC clearly know who the secret guests are before the festival: this year iPlayer was showing two ‘classic’ sets from previous festivals prior to the weekend kicking off. One by Radiohead and one by Pulp.

11. Shangri-La remains as scary as it is fascinating.

12. The walk people adopt in order to not fall over in Glastonbury’s sludge is not dissimilar from that of Captain Jack Sparrow.

13. As cynical as we wanted to be about it all, we ruddy loved that Coldplay set.

14. When Stornoway thanked the previous night’s headliners U2 for supporting their Pyramid stage opening slot, we laughed. When Dan Mangan made the same joke about The Chemical Brothers on the Other Stage, we still laughed. But only because he’s so bloody nice.

15. Our favourite sets were (in chronological order) by: The Worry Dolls, Billy Bragg, Stornoway, Emily and the Woods, Fool’s Gold, Elbow, Coldplay, The Low Anthem, Don McLean and his Amazing Twenty Minute Singalong to American Pie, Laura Marling, John Grant and what we saw of Bellowhead before returning to our tent and collapsing into a sunstroke slumber.

We’re watching the skies nervously, hunting in the loft for our air beds and foot pumps, looking to the skies once again, and twitching excitedly every time someone mentions The Wombles and Michael Eavis. It’s Glastonbury once again, and come the end of this week there will be two types of people at train stations across the country: wellie-clad folk with cumbersome tents getting in everybody’s way, and business people who think they are frustrated now, but will be looking back with sweet nostalgia when the same punters return four days later to cause all the same havoc once again – only this time covered in mud and sweat and dust and mud (again).

Needless to say, we’re all rather excited over here at WWL Manor. We were lucky enough to be involved in this year’s Emerging Talent Competition at the festival, and so we’ll be checking out a few of the acts from that and a few folk acts and a few big acts and… you know, there are too many to mention. We’ll whittle it down to a list of our must-see acts at Glastonbury this year, with a few recommendations from some of our very favourites…

1. Emmy the Great (14:00, Oxlyers In West, Friday) - Winner of our inaugeral Hg Music Prize, Emmy the Great’s debut album was an album that flickered between beautiful sounds and stark, sad lyrics. Her second album, Virtue, was released just this month and is in many ways the more thoughtful of the two records – Emma-Lee Moss’ imagery is grand and verging at times on a sort of apocalyptica (though we aren’t sure if she’d necessary agree with that diagnosis). Catch her set in hope of hearing the two dramatic stand-outs from the record – ‘Trellick Tower’ and much-less-like-The-Darkness-than-the-title-suggests ‘Dinosaur Sex’.

Emma-Lee Moss’ Recommendations: “I am looking forward to Wild Beasts, Lykke Li, Summer Camp, Guillemots, Wu Tang Clan and above all my major grown up heroes Suzanne Vega and Billy Bragg.” – Wild Beasts close The Park stage at 23:00 on Saturday, Lykke Li plays The Park at 20:00 on Sunday. Summer Camp and Guillemots sandwich themselves around Emmy the Great on Oxlyers In West on the Friday, and Wu-Tang Clan play the Pyramid Stage at 15:00 on the same day. Moss’ heroes headline their respective stages – Bragg closing Leftfield at 21:00 on Friday and Vega finishing up the Acoustic stage’s festival at 22:30 on the Sunday.

2. Bright Eyes/Fleet Foxes/Mumford & Sons (from 17:35 on The Other Stage, Friday) - Last year our festival hit its folk peak with the double whammy of Laura Marling and Midlake on Saturday night at The Park stage. This year it’s the turn of the Other Stage to folk us all up. With Connor Oberst playing his last festivals as Bright Eyes this summer, it might seem cruel to put him on so early in the evening – but he is followed by two of the poster boys for modern folk. Robin Pecknold’s Fleet Foxes will showcase the best America has to offer, with majestic harmonies and their new albums really-quite-like-Paul-Simon lyrics. Immediately after them Marcus Mumford and his (not actual) Sons take to the stage, in what will best be described as a ‘romp’. Three very different examples of folk, each as good as any other, over the course of four and a half hours. Not to be missed.

3. Stornoway (11:00, Pyramid, Saturday) – Potentially the most exciting thing about Glastonbury this year for us will be seeing two former Six Albums guests playing the festival’s main stage on the Saturday. Rumer makes her appearance at half three, but not before Stornoway. Their debut album, Beachcomber’s Windowsill, was one of our favourite records of last year (our ninth, if we’re keeping count), and if anyone should be given the duty of coaxing the sun out on a Saturday morning, we reckon Stornoway are the boys for the job.

4. Emily and the Woods (16:00, Acoustic, Saturday) – We love Emily Wood. Over the past year she’s been gracious enough to headline our Folkroom gigs on more than one occasion, always using her last performance as a benchmark she has to top. Incredibly versatile, we’ve seen her perform live with a half-band, a full electric set up and – best of all – completely and utterly unplugged, her audience enraptured around her. Though she didn’t win the Emerging Talent Contest this year, we’re ecstatic to see she’s playing the Acoustic stage and will be dragging most everyone we know to see her. And probably a few we don’t know. We will literally be dragging people up from the Theatre Fields to see her. So if you go, and there’s a surprising amount of trolls and stilt-walkers present, you’ll know we’re there too.

Emily Wood’s recommendation: “Beyonce is totally amazing… She has it all. The voice! The tunes! The moves! Wow- I seriously can’t wait.” - Beyonce headlines the festival on the Pyramid Stage, Sunday night at 21:45

5. Elbow (20:15, Pyramid, Saturday) – We’re actually just doing you a favour here. No, really. There isn’t a single band in the world today who know how to use a festival audience better than Elbow. Take their appearance at the Reading festival in 2005, in which they asked the crowd to partake in a ‘Mexican crouch’, and to point at the sky as if they had ‘just seen a massive alien’. Footage of these actions were used in their music video for ‘Leaders Of The Free World’. Almost ten years ago the band recorded thousands of Glastonbury revellers singing ‘We still believe in love, so fuck you’, and used the cast of thousands first as a choir on their song ‘Grace Under Pressure’ and then as the inspiration for their second album title… Cast Of Thousands. The sleevenotes for that album feature credits for anyone and everyone they could get the names of at that performance. Their last appearance at Glasto culminated in a mass string section, formed of ‘anyone we could find’ gathering on stage for the most audacious performance of One Day Like This yet seen. With recent performances with the Halle Orchestra and in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Elbow are a band that – in the live arena, at least – are impossible to second guess right now.

6. CocknBullKid (13:00, Oxlyers In West, Sunday) - Anita Blay, aka CocknBullKid, might just have released the most underrated album of 2011 so far. Intelligent and soulful pop music that almost nobody seems to be listening to. She’s only recently been announced for the festival, but anyone catching her at the odd little live-music venue in the heart of the Dance Area will be in for a treat. ‘Hold On To Your Misery’ is potentially the year’s best pop song. If ‘Asthma Attack’ isn’t. Or ‘Yellow’.

Anita Blay’s Recommendation: “Beyonce of course! I’ve been a fan, ever since Destiny’s Child released ‘No, No, No’. I have all her albums and think she’s an incredible live performer. I’m literally dying with anticipation!”

7. Laura Marling (15:00, Pyramid, Sunday) – It’s possible that the festival’s iconic Pyramid Stage has never been as eclectic as it will be on the Sunday of this year’s festival. It’s also quite probable that Laura Marling will never find herself acting as one of Beyonce’s support acts ever again. It’ll be interesting to see how she’ll fare on what could fairly be described as the biggest stage in the world – it will be the biggest crowd Marling has ever played to, and that isn’t including any television audience sitting warm at home. There was a time when Laura Marling was renowned for shuffling quietly offstage mid-performance, such was her shyness. Her set at The Park last year was both commanding and arresting, though, and we’ll be there for what might just be her crowning achievement.

8. PAUL BLOODY SIMON (16:30, Pyramid, Sunday) – The half of Simon and Garfunkel that actually mattered, Paul Simon is the undisputed Once In A Lifetime act of Glastonbury 2011. The same title held by Stevie Wonder last year, or Leonard Cohen back in 2008, Simon has made a name for himself unlike almost any other in the 47 years that have passed since he and Art Garfunkel released Wednesday Morning, 3am – an album widely regarded as being We Write Lists’ fifth favourite Simon and Garfunkel studio album. We are, of course, dreaming of a reunion with Art – but we’ll settle for a mix of S&G hits, tracks from Graceland, and eighteen consecutive performances of ‘Me and Julio Down at the Schoolyard’. Yes, that’ll serve us nicely please.

9. John Grant (18:30, The Park, Sunday) – Every time we see John Grant’s name, we see a flash of warm pride remembering his appearance on Six Albums last year (it’s still one of the most interesting reads the series has seen). You see, back then we heard his debut solo album, Queen of Denmark, and we really liked it. Now though – now we love it. We hold it close to us, both sonically, sentimentally and physically. We can’t sleep unless we’re hugging the vinyl tight to our chest. Intense and witty, Queen of Denmark is an incredibly emotive album that is also surprisingly funny throughout. Better still, his slot on The Park stage come Sunday night is just long enough that, if he wanted, he could perform the whole damn thing in order. (Please do this, John, and we will forever be your bessies).

10. Bellowhead (15:30, West Holts, Sunday and 21:00, Leftfield, Sunday) – Though Bellowhead are playing two sets at the festival this year, it will be their second set that you’ll find WWL at. We’ll be eschewing Beyonce’s headline set for their two-hour headline slot at Leftfield – likely to be the biggest, most unashamedly fun party that the festival has to offer this year. There are hundreds of trad. folk acts across the UK right now, but Bellowhead’s popularity is born out of the sheer zeal of their performances. Nobody has ever left a Bellowhead show with anything less than a massive bloomin’ smile on their mug. And our mugs will never turn down a massive bloomin’ smile.

Pete Flood of Bellowhead’s Recommendation: “Robyn Hitchcock is performing the whole of Captain Beefheart’s brilliant Clear Spot, an album that rocked my teenage years, at the Spirit of 71 tent – I think he’ll be just the man for the job.” Robyn Hitchcock plays the Spirit of 71 stage at 18:45 on Sunday.

There are, of course, dozens of excellent bands playing the festival across the weekend, and these are only some of the acts we’ll be catching. If you’re lucky enough to be going, keep an eye out for The Worry Dolls, The Portraits, B.B. King, Caitlin Rose, Johnny and Jenny, I Am Kloot, Twin Brother, Beth Rowley, Tame Impala, Dry The River, DeVotchKa, Aloe Blacc, Janelle Monae, Thea Gilmore, The Low Anthem, Sea of Bees, Dan Mangan, Cocos Lovers and Eels. Happy festivalling, y’all!

Last week, while we were holed up in Birmingham seeing how much steak we could get on company expenses, Glastonbury announced their Emerging Talent longlist – 123 acts chosen by 40 of the UK’s finest bloggers. Naturally we took interest in the announcement – we were lucky enough to be one of the judges – and we especially glad to see some of our favourite new folk acts (including several Folkroom players and a future Six Albums guest) popping up in the other judge’s choices. So congratulations to Emily and the Woods, Laura Hocking, Gibson Bull, Tristram and Dems, who aren’t so much folk as mega-awesome. We picked three of our own choices – our favourites from the many acts we had to whittle down. Let us take you through the three acts we chose, and explain our choices:

The Sunshine Theory (http://thesunshinetheory.bandcamp.com/): We loved the understated melancholy of The Sunshine Theory’s music, the way Tom and Sam compliment each other and their ability to sound at once familiar and new. Check out ‘Dancing For Two’, and you’ll see what we mean!

The Fallen Drakes (http://thefallendrakes.bandcamp.com/): Amongst the hundred and fifty-odd acts we listened to over the judging period, none compared to The Fallen Drakes in terms of professionality – a sound so at ease with current pop-rock trends, an understanding of the business and the most stylish EP cover we’ve seen by an unsigned act in a long while.

Lund Quartet (http://www.lundquartet.com/audio.html): Jazz is a hard thing to get right. Believe us, we’ve tried. Still got the kazoo to prove it. But Lund Quartet know what they’re doing, and tracks like ‘Lonn’ mark them apart from many of their contemporaries.

Check out the full longlist here before the shortlist of 8 is announced in the next few days – those eight will compete live at the Pilton Working Men’s Club with the winner opening the Pyramid Stage at Glasto this year!

Three and a half weeks ago we invited Emily and The Woods along to headline our fortnightly gig, The Folkroom. It’s a half hour slot, we said, but if you run a little over we won’t worry about it. An hour after Emily first took to the stage she stepped humbly down, and barely a soul in the venue could believe they had just spent sixty minutes in her company – time flew, and we only wanted more of her beautiful, intelligent and desperately soulful folk. This is how the music of Emily and The Woods plays out – it is engaging and it is honest, a step away from other Female Name and the Noun(s) acts that swamp the scene at the moment. Indeed – it really is Emily and The Woods, the latter being her family name, and her band formed of her father and brother.  We urge you here at WWL – implore you, even – to give Emily and The Woods a listen – she’s the best new folk act we’ve heard for quite some time.

Sigur Ros – Takk This album used to make me cry every time I listened to it. In fact I still can’t get over its beauty, which really is so full of emotion. Takk directs your thoughts away from this world; toward something more beautiful, seemingly grander in size and scale. I have felt so inspired listening to Sigur Ros. It’s perfect for plane and train journeys; utterly transporting and all encompassing.The mystery of the arrangements mean that each song stands alone as masterful. Also, I don’t understand the words which I think makes this album seem even more meaningful as you can interpret things just as you feel them!

Simon & Garfunkel – Sounds of Silence What a classic! These two men taught me pretty much all I know about harmonies, and also a great deal about the construction of simple songs, catchy and timeless songs. ‘Kathy’s Song’ is amazing.

Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks If there had been no Blood on the Tracks there would certainly be no Emily and the Woods. I listened to this album and decided to play the guitar so I could set some of my own songs to music. I think that’s pretty much all I can say without filling up a whole page of writing about this record! Blood on the Tracks makes me think of being a teenager and going to school on rainy London mornings… in a good way. Discovering Bob Dylan through this album evoked a passion for the kind of lyrical music that I still love today. ‘You’re a Big Girl’ is one of my favourite songs of all time.

Joni Mitchell – Miles of Aisles I agonised about which Joni Mitchell album to list because a number of them are so significant that I can’t not cite them as favourites! However, this live recording from 1978 has got the most brilliant track list which includes all of my favourite Joni songs. For me her writing and composition are second to none. I used to hate her voice and now I find it to be of unparalleled beauty which works so completely with her song writing; both so poetic and honest at once. This album features fantastic versions of ‘Jericho’, ‘Cactus Tree’ and ‘A Case of You’. The record features her band from the album ‘Court and Spark’, and the ability of these musicians to use jazz influences to support her music whilst revealing the immensity of their own talents is inspiring. I just wish I’d been there when it was recorded!

Erykah Badu - Baduizm I became obsessed with Erykah Badu when I was about 11 or so and carried on listening to her (as well as Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill and Mary J. Blige) into my early teens. Each of those women has enormous vocal range, and in many ways, for me exemplifies female power in music. I am so inspired by Badu’s ability to go almost anywhere with her voice, which is achingly cool, gravely and subject to supreme control and skill. I am sincerely influenced by this woman, even if you wouldn’t guess it by listening to my music, and I think Baduizm was one of my first musical loves.

Bright Eyes – Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground This album, like most of Conor Oberst’s work is imaginative and interestingly produced (‘Don’t Know When But A Day Is Gonna Come’ begins as a sparse and stark song but erupts in a complimentary, but unexpected direction). He uses an array of sounds, effects and instruments which provides either a real contrast, or support, to his distinctive voice and poetic lyrics. I love the mood of this album; it’s downright mixture of themes, ideas and melodies. The songs are dark, and he speaks of bleakness in a modern way with passion and completely pulls it off.

Emily and The Woods are based in London, and are ruddy spectacular. Check out her music and buy her EP over at the Emily and The Woods MySpace page. Then sit back in front of a warm fire with crumpets and tea, and enjoy an evening of cosy music and warm beverages.

Tomorrow night will mark the fifth fortnightly Folkroom, hosted by We Write Lists. We’re terribly excited about the line-up this week, and you should be too, seeing as entry is free! In a new feature, WWL is going to bring each Folkroom’s headliner to the site and ask them ‘What do you love about live music?’

This week’s headliner is Emily and the Woods, who have been haunting our ears with their music in the past few months, and who thoroughly deserve your attention. We’re predicting that before long you won’t be able to catch them in free gigs like ours, and recommend you all make your way down to Acton Street in London tomorrow for their set! So, Emily…

What do you love about live music?

“I have grown up going to gigs. My teenage years were spent in London listening to music. Devotion to certain artists came, in part I think, from early years spent watching my dad play and I still find a certain, unique solace at the back of a venue. The strength of sound and the unpredictability of playing live, both watching and performing, is valuable for reaching people of all ages. It’s uniting and collaborative, requiring something from audience and performer and can result in something unforgettable!”

Emily and the Woods headline tomorrow night’s Folkroom, and finds support from the likes of Joe Innes, The Owen Miller Band and Gibson Bull. For more details check here.