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We’ve had another album review, this time on NetRhythms - and again positive although I’ve had to apologise to the band for being too loud!
A five piece acoustic outfit from Berkshire fronted by Emma Johnson and with instrumentation that includes violin and African drums, their ‘folk fusion’ meld of trad, blues, and world music has seen them regularly performing across the South East and London. They’re now looking to spread the horizons with the release of their debut album. It’s a crowded field out there, but, ahem, all things considered, they have several factors in their favour.
For a start, Johnson’s pure but earthy vocals combine traditional leanings with a contemporary sensibility, so that you’re as likely to hear Jacqui McShee and Sally Oldfield notes as Denny, Eliza Carthy or Rusby. The playing too is strong, exemplified by violinist Gethin Webster’s short intro instrumental Kuebiko (a Japanese scarecrow deity) and the textures he brings to Manipulative Perspectives, Adrian Holden’s intricate guitar work and Phil Daniel’s smouldering ethnic hand drum percussion showcase on The Neverending.
The material stands tall too, with the bruised heart emotions of Self Pity, the heady musical interplay on Clear Your Conscience and the wounded Numb all highlights.
If there’s a reservation it’s that sometimes the percussion overwhelms the more delicate aspects, but there’s no reason to think this isn’t about to see their gig diary and order books about to become increasingly full.
It is extremely heartening to have positive feedback in the form of published reviews. You obviously take praise and criticism from your friends, family and fellow artists but this is endorsement from people who generally have no real idea who you are. They have made a judgement on your music with no other factors influencing them to sway one way or another. With that taken in to account, we can be nothing but delighted at the way the album has gone down since its release. We could however do with an upturn in sales……..
We’re in Reading next Thursday – a free entry gig at The Varsity Bar, which will either be fantastic or truly horrendous (we don’t have much luck with Reading). Why don’t you come along to find out? It’ll be our last gig of what has been probably the most hectic year of our musical lives (however 2010 is looking even more so – watch this space), so be great to see a few heads out for a celebratory pint.
We’re playing with cracking acoustic duo Scattered Few and also for all you people who remember most of us in our old Ecoute days, our guitarist from that time James Fayers (the bloke with the hat) will be doing a rare acoustic set. Nice.
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Reviews
Well, first BBC Radio 2 airplay and now a really good review posted on Folk and Roots - http://www.folkandroots.co.uk/reviews9.html#allthings. We haven’t made a bad start to the album promotion!
It’s a strange feeling, opening up your work for other people to critique. It’s like opening your front door and letting people who you’ve never met before loose in your house, picking fault with things, expressing their loudest opinions about your choice of curtains or the state of your carpets (well, unless of course you’re a Z list celebrity who seem to welcome that sort of thing).
Granted, we’ve made a hugely positive start, but for every positive opinion – there is the likelihood that somewhere down the line there will be a person who isn’t going to like what we’re doing and are going to document that fact. It will be interesting how we react to that. Part of me hopes we take the view that a review is a review, and that one person’s opinion doesn’t mean everyone is going to think like that. That you just need to brush the negative views aside and concentrate on impressing the people that are in to what you are doing. That is the correct way to deal with it.
However, like any act – we’ve spent a considerable amount of time and money creating, honing, recording, mixing and mastering these tracks, and we’re pretty attached to them. Yeah, like anything we could look back and think we could have done this and that better. We’re sure we could have done more in the mixing but time was short. On the whole though we’re pleased with the product, happy it portrays us and the music in a positive light and believe it is a good representation of what we are currently about. So, the fact that someone could slate it is likely to be quite a hard pill to swallow – even if it is just one opinion.
Being a reviewer of folk based artists myself, I know of multiple big names in the genre that have blacklisted certain reviewers (myself not included) after they gave them bad press. However, unless you put your record out there, open it up for critique and take the hit if it is panned, not only do you never improve, you’ll never make any money – as without people commenting on your material whether good or bad, you’ll never get any publicity.
So, we’ll wait and see. So far, we’re very very happy. We’ll hope that it’ll all be positive, but as soon as the first negative one hits the web – we’ll be on here to rant about it! At least then it’ll be out of our systems and we can get on with things……
Gigs this coming week by the way are a short set at The Farnham Maltings tomorrow (Friday) at about 10pm. Next week we are in the capital for back to back gigs at The Station Hotel in Lewisham on Thursday 9th as part of The Icarus Club nights and then the following evening we’re in Leicester Square for a return to The Spice of Life.
Be good to see you at any of those.
It’s a strange feeling, opening up your work for other people to critique. It’s like opening your front door and letting people who you’ve never met before loose in your house, picking fault with things, expressing their loudest opinions about your choice of curtains or the state of your carpets (well, unless of course you’re a Z list celebrity who seem to welcome that sort of thing).
Granted, we’ve made a hugely positive start, but for every positive opinion – there is the likelihood that somewhere down the line there will be a person who isn’t going to like what we’re doing and are going to document that fact. It will be interesting how we react to that. Part of me hopes we take the view that a review is a review, and that one person’s opinion doesn’t mean everyone is going to think like that. That you just need to brush the negative views aside and concentrate on impressing the people that are in to what you are doing. That is the correct way to deal with it.
However, like any act – we’ve spent a considerable amount of time and money creating, honing, recording, mixing and mastering these tracks, and we’re pretty attached to them. Yeah, like anything we could look back and think we could have done this and that better. We’re sure we could have done more in the mixing but time was short. On the whole though we’re pleased with the product, happy it portrays us and the music in a positive light and believe it is a good representation of what we are currently about. So, the fact that someone could slate it is likely to be quite a hard pill to swallow – even if it is just one opinion.
Being a reviewer of folk based artists myself, I know of multiple big names in the genre that have blacklisted certain reviewers (myself not included) after they gave them bad press. However, unless you put your record out there, open it up for critique and take the hit if it is panned, not only do you never improve, you’ll never make any money – as without people commenting on your material whether good or bad, you’ll never get any publicity.
So, we’ll wait and see. So far, we’re very very happy. We’ll hope that it’ll all be positive, but as soon as the first negative one hits the web – we’ll be on here to rant about it! At least then it’ll be out of our systems and we can get on with things……
Gigs this coming week by the way are a short set at The Farnham Maltings tomorrow (Friday) at about 10pm. Next week we are in the capital for back to back gigs at The Station Hotel in Lewisham on Thursday 9th as part of The Icarus Club nights and then the following evening we’re in Leicester Square for a return to The Spice of Life.
Be good to see you at any of those.
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