Wednesday 4 November 2015

Ditte Elly - Interview Regarding ‘You Find It Easy’ Single [4th November 2015]

[2015.11.04] Tom Hollingworth, for NARC Magazine.

Ditte Elly has been modestly resting her music in the nooks of the necks of North-East music lovers (and others) over the last few years, and it has been fitting rather snugly.

Moving up to Sunderland from Oxford, Elly was welcomed to her new home with the help of good friend Matt Stalker, who not only invited her into his own band, singing and playing keys, but also supported her solo music; finding the right venues for these sensitive songs. This wisdom to carefully choose places that compliment her work, (intimate spaces like the The Old Cinema Launderette, resonant rooms such as the Sunderland Minster,) Elly can, to this day, make the incredible claim that she has “never had a bad gig.”

Music had been in Elly’s life for a long time, but it was when she attended the Catweazle Club in Oxford in 2011 that she felt the attraction to songwriting and performing. This local hotspot offered a place for musicians to perform one song (two, if the host was impressed) to an enthusiastic crowd. Feeling the buzz in her bones from this interaction, Elly set forth, striding into this awakened passion, returning to play with new songs in tow.

Some of these songs culminated in her first EP in 2012, We’ll Meet Again. It was with this endeavour that Elly formed a recording relationship with Newcastle-local, sound-engineer Liam Gaughan. Elly explained that completing an album following the debut took time due to balancing studying Fine Art at University alongside its writing. Finally completing the set this year, the songs were rehearsed over two months with fellow musicians, before the group travelled up to a Farmhouse in Jedburgh, with Gaughan and his portable studio, to reside in each others pockets for a week; living the recording of Elly’s new album. “It was an idyllic setting away from civilisation that allowed you to switch off and concentrate on the music.”

Gaughan’s nature brought the best out of this singer-songwriter. “Liam has incredible patience, and a way to make you feel completely comfortable in front of the ominous red recording light. He doesn't normally work with quiet, folky stuff, he's in a funk band and he does lots of crazy loud rock stuff, but the point is he has this amazing ability to just get the absolute best of songs. He has a great sense of the essence of music, I think.”

Welcoming these new melodies to the world, ahead of the long-play, is You Find It Easy, a sorrowful reflection that highlights Elly’s textured vocal tones, and the sound of her nylon-string guitar playing.

You Find It Easy will be released on 5th December. The full album will follow in the new year, due to be released in the springtime. Live performances allow a special glimpse into Elly’s relationship with her songs. It is her concern for them that is so palpable and gripping to watch. You can next see Ditte Elly play at the Scrumpy Willow Cafe, Newcastle on 20th January.

Monday 2 November 2015

Kate Edwards - Interview Regarding 'Every Key' Single [2nd November 2015]

[2015.11.02] Tom Hollingworth, for NARC Magazine.

For playing music live in Newcastle for the best part of a decade, you will most likely recognise Kate Edwards; either from her singing and keyboard melodies in local pride, Brilliant Mind, or from her own writing and performing (often with other musicians) under the moniker Agerskow. Over the last year of so, Edwards has relaxed her performance schedule to allow natural changes in her relationship with her music to take place, and to hone this new centre from which to work from. Now, she is ready to come out from the chrysalis.

Highlighting this change, Every Key is Edwards’ first release in her own name. Entering a whirlwind of culture surrounding music in the heart of Newcastle at a young age, Edwards has stood strong in that weather, with her sustained passion to play music, rolling with the blessings and the challenges alike. She has melted these experiences into the foundation of her strength, which has now, at last, brought her the confidence to release music as herself, undisguised. Edwards explains how this latest song mirrors some of her own feelings about the searching she has done with her music. “That feeling…” she ponders. “You start somewhere, and you go around the houses, and just experiment; doing this, that… discovering everything, and trying out everything, and then, eventually, you realise, you kind of had it before anyway. It was always there.”

This restoration of self-belief is tangible in the flow of this track. Every Key starts measured and careful, with sparse piano chords, and Edwards’ lilting and crisp voice laying forth the central dilemma, but as it travels, bass guitar and Tom-Tom percussion add a determined heartbeat to the texture and become a thrusting march for our singer. As sustained backing vocals and glissando chiming join the orchestration, the spirit is risen to the finish. Every Key came from a progression Edwards recorded onto her phone and “just sort of forgot about” but when returning to her voice-memo’s she kept stumbling upon it, and realised “that’s really catchy, I’m going to have to develop that more.”

Accompanying this release, is Sticky Strawberry Blood, a wonderful peculiarity which takes full pleasure in suspending its melodies over shimmering guitar patterns, with playful pizzicato violin and percussion tempting the melodies to the tonic at the refrains.

These tracks were recorded by The Mistakable Sound Of - a portable studio, run by Marc Bird, and mastered by Edwards’ brother Alex. In this latest phase of creativity, Edwards’ energy has catalysed the capture of more recorded music already. She has set aside these songs, which explore different moods, for a release next year.

Every Key will be available to download from 4th December, but Edwards will be having an intimate launch for the single at The Ouseburn Farm on Sunday 6th December. Support will come from local troubadour Trev Gibb, and Patrick Lawrence, who is commonly known for playing violin in many bands around Newcastle, but here you will get to hear him in focus.