Blue Moon Playlist Review Club - Season 2 - Episode 27 - Out on blue 6 - Gone Too Soon (pg 438)

The playlist is now up to date and if you’ll indulge me, I’m going to close it with a story of an artist reinvention/renewal that’s a bit more pointed than what has gone before. It seems like a dark story but with a hopeful outcome.

Some of you may be familiar with the singer/songwriter Thea Gilmore who is pretty well known in folk circles. She released her first album at age 17 and by her third album Rules For Jokers she was getting significant mainstream attention.

At age 16 she did a work experience placement at Fairport Convention’s studios, where she met the musician/producer Nigel Stonier who was 23 years her senior. Stonier became her musical mentor/partner and they entered into a relationship whereby they ultimately married. Together they worked on something like 18 of her albums and had two children together. The first addition to the playlist is “You’re The Radio”, a track from her 2010 well received pop folk album Murphy’s Heart and is indicative of her then output. She continued to release albums in this vein until 2019.

Then, in 2021 she issued two albums simultaneously. The first, “The Emancipation of Eva Grey”, was released as the artist Theo Gilmore and somewhat strangely the second was eponymously titled under a new identify of ‘Afterlight’. So far, so odd; but things were about to get a bit dark.

The Emancipation of Eva Grey appeared to be an atypical album of 1930’s style jazz tracks about love, with Noel Cowardesque lyrics. Tracks such as “Where You Are Is Where I Am” seemed to be a happy tale of togetherness; however, it transpired the songs were laced with a grim irony. Because the accompanying 'Afterlight' album clearly and brutally tells a story of a relationship based on coercive control that leaves someone bereft of their own identity. The opening track is spoken word and sets the tone, it’s called Of All The Violence I Have Known, I haven’t added it to the playlist but here’s the video for anyone interested.



It became apparent, through the content and press releases, that the two albums were designed to not only draw a line under her previous body of work but also that part of her life and apparent identity. Throughout her ‘first’ career she was projected as a wise cracking, tough and sardonic streetwise type but this was a façade. Upon the release of Afterlight, she described herself as slightly broken, muddled, fragile and scared but that was much better because it was the first time as an adult she had her own sense of who she was.

Fast forward to 2023 and she released a new album not only as Theo Gilmore but tellingly the first ever, after 20 albums, that was eponymously named. She wrote, played and produced pretty much everything. The opener is another spoken word track called Nice Normal Woman, the final track on the playlist. As the album progresses you can hear many elements of the ‘old’ Gilmore (and she has made a point of never disowning those old records because for better and worse they were who she was) but musically it is clear the ‘real’ Thea Gilmore has at least some different sensibilities.

Having had her life ‘managed’ from the age of 16, she has talked very openly and frankly about the challenges of having to now find her own identity both as an artist and a person despite the fact she is a forty something woman with two children and a huge back catalogue behind her. The closing track of the 2023 album is yet another spoken word track, but one of hope as she writes her own prescription for how she and all of us can move forward.

So I’ve been very cheeky and added three tracks to the playlist:
  • The first an upbeat folk pop track suggesting that all is well with the world.
  • The second a seemingly fluffy 1930’s style diversion that actually signified the unravelling of everything that it turns out really wasn’t well with the world after all. Listen to the lyrics with the knowledge of what was going on and they take on a completely different meaning.
  • The third a defiant electronica backed monologue from someone moving on and taking control of their life.
Three very different tracks that actually tell a condensed story of a human life (to date).

The very haunting - She Speaks in Colours from her self titled album should be enough for some to further explore this very talented artist somewhat. It certainly did for me. Music is so rich and diverse an indie but far more so folk numpty like me can be unaware of such talent for a very long time.

Cheers to TS for bringing her music and life story to this forum.
 
The very haunting - She Speaks in Colours from her self titled album should be enough for some to further explore this very talented artist somewhat. It certainly did for me. Music is so rich and diverse an indie but far more so folk numpty like me can be unaware of such talent for a very long time.

Cheers to TS for bringing her music and life story to this forum.

I think somewhere I posted the video of her performing She Speaks In Colours to Ellen's family for the first time. Incredibly poignant stuff, no wonder she doesn't make eye contact with them till she's finished.
 
I think somewhere I posted the video of her performing She Speaks In Colours to Ellen's family for the first time. Incredibly poignant stuff, no wonder she doesn't make eye contact with them till she's finished.
Apologies if you did TS and I didn't see the post , I am not able to spend as much time as your good self on music threads but when I do I always enjoy reading the informed often poignant as well ( positive sense ) remarks you make along with Coat , Fog , Rob and many others and much of the music you post.

Your taste is wide and to me very interesting as you cover many genres and styles.

I only recently ( last 12 months ) as alluded heard Thea for the first time as I can recall albeit maybe heard a track or two of her in the wee hours on Rage the music video show here in OZ that often plays music not heard on radio some of which is really worth a listen to without follow up.

As a result I listened to some of her earlier albums and I have to say I liked most of it.
 
Apologies if you did TS and I didn't see the post , I am not able to spend as much time as your good self on music threads but when I do I always enjoy reading the informed often poignant as well ( positive sense ) remarks you make along with Coat , Fog , Rob and many others and much of the music you post.

Your taste is wide and to me very interesting as you cover many genres and styles.

I only recently ( last 12 months ) as alluded heard Thea for the first time as I can recall albeit maybe heard a track or two of her in the wee hours on Rage the music video show here in OZ that often plays music not heard on radio some of which is really worth a listen to without follow up.

As a result I listened to some of her earlier albums and I have to say I liked most of it.

Hope I didn't come across as berating you for a lack of forensic attention to the threads!! :-) was just really just a plug for what I agree is a simple but beautiful song (and performance) that I think deserves to be heard for a variety of reasons. As for me, I need to get out more!

I think she is one of those artists that is a bit underappreciated for a variety of reasons. She did a long podcast interview that's on Spotify when the Eva Grey/Afterlight albums came out which is very frank about her life but she also talks to the fact that really she's never been interested in having hits but just in making music and this in itself was a source of tension in her relationship(s).

She plays to relatively small audiences and I suspects she likes it like that, though I think she is getting more confident as a solo performer. Not much use to you but she's play a few dates in the north west in August and I'm hoping to catch one of them if I can.
 
In my opinion Depeche Mode only really did one album that moved away from their roots/ ideals and predicted pattern and that was Songs Of Faith and Devotion. Especially since it followed their magnum opus, Violator. Very easy to pick a song from that album so I won't. Instead I'll pick a side project of dear old Dave.

Soulsavers feat Dave Gahan - Longest Day
and going back to February for "Associated"...
5 very mellow songs there mate. Is that River Song mixed with The Rolling Stones?

Anyhoo...

Soulsavers featuring Dave Gahan - Longest Day

Now I figured out my deja vu on this track... At least you nicked from yourself! ;-)
 
Thea Gilmore - all in and listening to the 2023 eponymous album now. Amazing. "Hope and Fury" is fantastic.

Another strike of music listening gold in this thread. Thanks, @threespires!

A future Album Review I'll be fully prepared for? ;-)

Glad you're enjoying it, it's a very good album even before you get into the context of it.

I will do a folk orientated album choice at some point but my next one will be a 20th century classic (imo!).
 
Hope I didn't come across as berating you for a lack of forensic attention to the threads!! :-) was just really just a plug for what I agree is a simple but beautiful song (and performance) that I think deserves to be heard for a variety of reasons. As for me, I need to get out more!

I think she is one of those artists that is a bit underappreciated for a variety of reasons. She did a long podcast interview that's on Spotify when the Eva Grey/Afterlight albums came out which is very frank about her life but she also talks to the fact that really she's never been interested in having hits but just in making music and this in itself was a source of tension in her relationship(s).

She plays to relatively small audiences and I suspects she likes it like that, though I think she is getting more confident as a solo performer. Not much use to you but she's play a few dates in the north west in August and I'm hoping to catch one of them if I can.

Absolutely not TS , its just my inability to be able to listen to all the music , good , not so good or indifferent that is shared on this forum and others and on occasion my own frustration at not being able to.

I am certainly glad to have come across Thea albeit only very recently despite her 26 year odd career and extensive catalogue.

I would certainly get tickets to a performance of hers if she came out to Oz again.

I didn't know she toured here in 2010 for example.

I went to see Lucinda Williams last year at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre and gained a new appreciation for contemporary folk and country rock from a 70 year old which ain't too bad IMO.

Looking forward to your next choice I hope I haven't played the album before despite it being a classic as you term it.
 
And that shows my age as I had no idea I'd done that!
It will move from my "new" to my "enjoyed again" list. I actually thought Spotify jumped to another playlist when I first heard it, thinking this one was completed. All good, mate. For a few days now, I was racking my brain on when/where I first heard it, and then a hunch told me to search here...

I had swore someone had stolen from YOU until I saw who the thief really was and had a good chuckle. ;-)
 
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