Acoustic-Folk has become fairly popular in recent years, with the popularity of the genre getting more noticed as certain singers are picked as the hip thing to listen to, often times, as radio stations pick up on certain tracks or more often, as popular television shows or movies finding some real gems and dumping them on an unsuspecting public. The following two artists have both really surfaced recently due to the media attention. While this is a good thing, as more people listen to them, it's a bit of a shame that they haven't really come through on their own. However, they're out there, so that's a plus.
Both Alexi Murdoch and Nick Drake have come to my attention through soundtracks. Murdock's song Orange Sky was featured on an episode of House, MD (A show with fine music tastes) while Drake's song One of These Things First came to me via the fantastic Garden State soundtrack. (Incidently, Orange Sky was also in that movie, but not on the soundtrack.)
There's a number of similarities between these two. The first is that they're both from the United Kingdom. Drake was raised in England, while Murdoch hails from Scotland. Indeed, this similarity has been mentioned in various articles about the two. Alexi Murdoch is undoubtably influenced to some degree by Nick Drake.
Their sound is amazingly similar to one another. Solo guitarists, with the use of picking on the guitars is their matching style, and their vocal work is also fairly similar - on the mid-high level. A number of their songs tend to be fairly laid back, calm and soothing, the perfect thing to listen to after a long day. I have a fixed mental image of riding home on the train from Oxford set to Three Hours. Similarly, I have the song Orange Sky rooted in my memories that are associated with my time in England.
There are some smaller differences between the artists - they're not clones of one another. Alexi tends to experiment a little more with some songs, such as 12 and Shine. Nick Drake tends to incorporate more insturments into some of his songs. But for all practical means, they're very similar, which is a good thing, as they have a fantastic sound between the two of them. I'm hoping that someday, I'll come across a Nick Drake cover by Alexi Murdoch. That'd be really cool.
