Tag: Indie

Album Review: Laura Veirs – My Echo

Recording her new album My Echo with her husband as the producer, while going through couples therapy which lead to an eventual divorce must have added more than a little tension to this new project by Laura Veirs.

However unlike say the Chicks angry and vengeful divorce epic Gaslighter, My Echo does not take aim at her partner, instead turning the disquieting feelings inwards. She accepts the crumbling reality of life and love, transforming her feelings into a quietly moving collection of songs. Continue reading “Album Review: Laura Veirs – My Echo” →

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Album Review: Fenne Lily – Breach

I first heard Fenne Lily when she opened for Hurray for the Riff Raff a few years back. She was a striking stage prescence: confident, witty and charming in her self-deprecation. Her songs were promising at the time, holding secrets in their quietly faded moodiness.

On her new album ‘Breach’ she proves herself one of the most talented young British singer songwriters we have. Opening song How to Be a Woman is a gentle invitation to her world, don’t be scared of me she sings with a comforting whisper. The little line ‘fuck falling apart’ tells us there’s equal amounts strength and sarcasm in her lyrical armour. Continue reading “Album Review: Fenne Lily – Breach” →

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Album Review: Nana Adjoa – Big Dreaming Ants

The illustration on the cover of this album shows people all crammed into two tower blocks, connected but separate. Dutch based songwriter Nana Adjoa’s new album Big Dreaming Ants is similarly packed with a range of diverse influences including soul, jazz, folk, electronia and indie rock. She references Nina Simone, Wilco, JJ Cale and Jeff Buckley in a recent interview and that’s just the kind of intriguing melting pot which she brings to this impressive debut album. Continue reading “Album Review: Nana Adjoa – Big Dreaming Ants” →

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Album Review: Emma Swift – Blonde on the Tracks

In his Nobel Prize acceptance lecture Bob Dylan discussed how he first began learning old folk songs, eventually internalising them into his own songwriting. ‘You hear all the finer points, and you learn the details,’ he explained. By singing these songs he discovered ‘the devices, the techniques, the secrets, the mysteries’, concluding that ‘songs are alive in the land of the living’. Old songs are meant not just to be heard, but to be sung anew by the next generations.

Emma Swift began ‘Blonde on the Tracks‘, her project of Dylan covers, as a way to recover her artistic inspiration after experiencing depression. Mainly recorded in 2017 these versions were not even intended to be an album but when the pandemic destroyed Swift’s plans for touring she decided to release the recordings. Continue reading “Album Review: Emma Swift – Blonde on the Tracks” →

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Album Review: Courtney Marie Andrews – Old Flowers

I started listening to this album on a cloudy summer’s day, with rain brewing in the stormy afternoon skies. As Courtney sang Some days are good, some days are bad / some days we want what we once had / some days I talk myself into a lie, I smiled in wry understanding. She might have been singing about the break up of a long term relationship which inspired this gorgeous new album Old Flowers but the words meant so much more now. On the cover she’s pensive as the sky darkens behind her; it’s almost like she knew this year would be spent in the shadows of what our lives could have been. As the songs swept their way across my living room in a sigh of sadness I admired their fragile perfection even more deeply knowing what we’ve all been through to get here. Continue reading “Album Review: Courtney Marie Andrews – Old Flowers” →

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