White Hinterland

There was a positive review a month or two back in the NME for an album by White Hinterland. As I try to find some good new music regularly and the review sounded like I would like the album, not just basing it on the score out of ten, I picked up Phylactery Factory. What I didn't expect was to hear such a beautiful, soothing voice coming out of my speakers when I played the CD. The review probably mentioned the wonderful vocals, and there is little that can enthrall me as thoroughly as an elegant woman's singing voice, but it is rare to find music that immediately demands I stop everything and just listen to it, basking in the encompassing atmosphere filling my room.

The music and songs on Phylactery Factory both work with and accentuate the glorious vocals, and the whole album is a joy to listen to from start to finish. Finding White Hinterland is the best reminder of why I try to buy new music, because there are true gems waiting to be discovered that are unlikely to be thrown in to the spotlight directly.

Having a look through the band's website I poked my nose in to the White Hinterland discography page, wondering if there was perhaps a previous album I could also enjoy. It seems that there is a previous album, released under vocalist Casey Dienel's name, called Wind-up Canary. Sadly, the album does not appear to be available this side of the pond, but with the internet at my fingertips it is relatively easy to find a US merchant willing to sell me almost anything. As it turns out, and unsurpisingly so, my US-based merchant of choice for CDs and the occasional DVD, Newbury Comics, has Wind-up Canary in stock.

Now I just needed to convince myself to place an order, and I often procrastinate about spending money. However much I adore the White Hinterland album and want to hear more I can still somehow manage to talk myself out of buying another CD, so have managed to put off the purchase. This doesn't always happen, but it does sometimes and I can't really work out why it happens when it does.

Stacia mentioned recently that the MST3K film had been rereleased on DVD. Being a fan of the show and having seen the film at some point and finding it to be as polished as a film version can be expected to be, as well as owning some of the collected box sets, I decided to get myself a copy of the film on DVD whilst it remained available. I headed over to Newbury Comics and ordered a copy. It was only a few days later that I realised I could have ordered the Casey Dienel album at the same time and not paid any more for postage, which seemed like a good opportunity missed.

This missed opportunity luckily stayed with me. Yesterday Modey Lemon announced the release of Season of Sweets, their fourth studio album. I have been a fan of Modey Lemon for years, owning all the albums and having seen them many times at gigs, and am interested to hear what the new album is like. Again, I headed to Newbury Comics and ordered the Season of Sweets CD. This time I remembered also to add a copy of Wind-up Canary to my basket before checking out. This promises to be quite a treat, getting both the Modey Lemon album and more of Casey Dienel in the same package! I'm quite looking forward to it.

Edit: as a poetic postscript, I had forgotten that the Mary Timony Band had released a new album as well. Well, it's now a year old, but I hadn't got around to picking it up yet. Needless to say, I hadn't added that CD to my order with the other two CDs, where the shipping policy of Newbury Comics allows three items for a single international shipment at a single rate. After I remembered I wrote to Newbury Comics asking if it were possible to add the Mary Timony CD to my order and within the hour I got a reply informing me that my order had been updated as requested. That's good service. Of course, I may get hit with customs charges now where I would have been better off paying for a separate package, but that's okay.

Posted in Audio, Video |
Tags: casey dienel, mary timony, modey lemon, mst3k, newbury comics, nme, phylactery factory, season of sweets, white hinterland, wind-up canary