Album review: The Hypnotiser by Cash Savage and The Last Drinks

If Australia had a Wild West, this album from Cash Savage and The Last Drinks would certainly qualify as its soundtrack. The Hypnotiser is the dark heart, the broken soul, the cry in the night and the stumbling down the road of Australian country blues. Australia is an untamed land in so many ways - there is the desert and the coastline that no one person can ever hope to know in their entirety; there are the droughts and flooding rains. Australia is wild and its people have their wildness, even if we tend to coagulate on the coast and conduct ourselves in a generally orderly manner. But that wildness is part of our story, stretching back tens of thousands of years. It is the role of art and artists - not government or educational institutions - to explore it, and that is exactly what Cash Savage and The Last Drinks do on The Hypnotiser.

The rumbling, thrumming bass, often ethereal, wailing guitars and primal drum beats form the perfect accompaniment to Savage's voice, which is in itself hypnotic. Savage is a circus ringmaster and Janis Joplin; she is a preacher and a pugilist. She is the voice of temptation and also of redemption. The closest reference point I can think of in the canon of this country's music is Hat Fitz and Cara's Wiley Ways.

Some of the songs on this album sound shambolic, but on closer inspection this seems to be an effect calculated to convey the ruin or chaos (or both) of the song's narrator. For there is nothing messy about the way these songs grab hold of the listener and shake you until you are paying very close attention. As Savage commands in the title track, 'I am the water's edge/Come swimmin' with me, baby/I am the gospel choir/sing it with me, baby'. It is hard to resist this invocation whether you're listening for the first time or the twentieth.

The Hypnotiser by Cash Savage and The Last Drinks is out now. 
cashsavage.com.au

Interview: Candice Russell

Candice Russell is a singer-songwriter from Oregon in Pacific Northwest of the USA. She's young - 21 - but the maturity of her voice and assuredness of her singing belies her years. Candice has recently released her debut album, So Much More, and I had the opportunity to ask her some questions by email. 

A lot of people have lovely singing voices - and a lot of those people will dream and talk about having a career in music but it won't ever happen. What has been the difference for you: at what point in your life did you decide that this was the path you would take? 

I’ve always been the kind of person that if I want something, I’m going to work hard to get it. I wanted to be singer and musician ever since I was a little girl, so I have worked hard to achieve that dream!

Do you believe you would have written songs even if you hadn't had the voice to sing them, or do the songs flow from your voice? 

That’s a hard question to answer. I think it’s probably a little more difficult to write songs if you can’t sing, but if I wasn’t a singer, I’m sure I would have found another way, if not songwriting, to express my emotions and creativity.

As this if your first album, you possibly had lots of expectations about what the process would be like - but also no expectations, because you'd never made an album before. How did you even go about planning for something so new, and so huge?

It’s one of those things that sort of came together as it went. I wasn’t sure what to expect at all. My producer, Dave Lubben, was such a huge part in the album becoming what it is and he tried to help prepare me for what to expect the best that he could, but in the end it’s just something that I had to experience for myself. It took a lot of hard work. There were fun days and there were emotional days, but I’m so happy with the way the album came out in the end.

What was the recording process like - is it hard to always access the heart and emotion you need for a song if you have to do a few takes? 

The recording process was a great experience for me. I found that I actually enjoy recording. You have to sing the same line over and over again to get the best take, so sometimes it can be hard to keep the emotion and energy in what you are singing, but my producer kept reminding me to have passion in my voice. If you don’t mean what you are singing, no one will believe it! So even though it got repetitive at times, I didn’t mind doing a lot of takes because in the end I wanted the best possible product for my album.

Do you practise much - guitar or voice or both?

I sing ALL of the time, I sing even when I don’t mean to! So yes, I practice voice quite a bit. I probably don’t practice guitar as much as I should to be honest, guitar is something I’d really like to get better at, so right now I am taking guitar lessons and working that. No matter how good you are at something, you can always get better.

Do you enjoy live performance? Not everyone does ...
I love performing! I’ve loved performing ever since I can remember. It can be stressful leading up to a performance because of all the preparation and emotions that come along with it, but once I hit the stage all the nerves go away and I know I’m doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. 

You play your grandfather's guitar in concerts - do you come from a musical family? 

My dad’s side of the family is very musical (although my mom is musical as well). I grew up around music, that’s probably one of the reasons I love it so much. My dad would always play guitar and sing to me. My grandpa won a singing contest when he was in the army and I’ve been told that I am related to Jane Russell, who was a singer and dancer in the movie “Gentlemen prefer Blondes,” alongside Marilyn Monroe. So I guess you could say music runs in my blood.

Your bio mentions that what's important to you are 'faith, family and friends'. As a person of faith, have you ever felt that the music industry might prove challenging ground?

I don’t categorize myself as a Christian singer. I want to be a singer in a secular industry who is a Christian. My faith is important to me and I will always live that out. You can hear it in my songs if you really listen, but I’m not the kind of person to shove it down other people’s throats. I want to be a pop singer. I feel like that is my calling. I will just have to take everything step by step and make decisions as I come to them along the way.

Is there much of a country music scene on the West Coast - specifically, in Oregon?
There is a country music scene in Oregon for sure, obviously not as big as in some other places in America, like in the south, but there are some big country music fans here.

What are you plans for the next few months?
My plans for the next few months are to perform where I can. I am traveling to Canada soon to sing at a charity event for an organization called “You Can Free Us,” which I’m excited about. I will also be posting videos on my youtube channel, so be watching my channel for new videos!

So Much More is out now.

www.candicerussell.com

Interview: Sara Storer

Sara Storer is one of our most beloved country music artists - a multiple Golden Guitar award winner and perennial fan favourite, she has written and performed some amazing songs. Sara took a break, though, as her children started to arrive. She is now the mother of three boys and she lives in Darwin. Just before the birth of her youngest son, Sara wrote and her recorded her new album, Lovegrass, which she launched at the Gympie Muster this past weekend. Ahead of the launch, and her appearance at the muster, I spoke to this delightful country music icon.

I started by asking Sara how she would prepare to play at the Muster when she's in Darwin and, presumably, her band are not.

'It’s always a tricky thing,' she said, 'but I’m getting there early and we’re all going to catch up prior to the Muster for a rehearsal, which is a must especially when I’m releasing a new album and playing the songs with the band for the first time, really. We need a little practice run otherwise we could end up a train smash.'

At the time of speaking to Sara I had not heard the album, so I asked her to describe it for someone who had never heard it, using any terms she liked - not just descriptive terms for the music.

'There’s a lot of energy,' she said, 'and it’s quite uplifting. And I always knew that this album would be a happy album because of how I feel where I'm at in this stage of my life. I’ve met Dave, we’ve had three children within five years and we’ve settled in Darwin, and just really happy. And I knew that there’s not too much to complain about. As in, sometimes when you’re in a bad relationship you tend to write sad songs and they can be great songs, but my album of course has happy love songs. 

'I knew that I’d have to go searching for other things to write about,' she continued. Other people’s stories. There are a few stories on the album, there’s a few theme songs back to my roots, which is rural life and farming; so there’s a harvest song, there’s a rain song, there’s another farmer song, which I’m very passionate about because that’s my upbringing and that’s what my family still do. I find people on the land are very strong and hard-working people, so I love to write about them. I’m really excited about this album - there’s such a lovely energy to [the songs] I can’t wait to get out and sing them on stage.

The conundrum that a lot of singer-songwriters face when they're happy is that they feel like they have to draw on the darker side of life to write songs. I asked Sara if she found that happiness in her home life has pushed her to write differently, given that she can't really draw on darkness any more.

'I think that happier songs are harder to write but I  think just writing the songs – it had been such a long gap for me, such a long spell between my last album and this – that I was just happy that the songs were coming again and coming to me in a relatively short time, which was great. Once I got that first song, the excitement and the relief that I still had that in me sparked off the next song. 

'I wouldn’t say that being happy makes you write differently – I still write those stories, I’ve still got to hear or see or feel something myself, and if it doesn’t come from me, it’s got to come from someone else and it’s got to be a true story, because I just find that that’s what makes a song stand out compared to other songs. As soon as you try to make up a song it gets a bit clichéd and it’s just not right. 

'So I love writing other people’s stories as well. I just have my ears wide open, basically, and every time I heard something that moved me and that I could turn inot a song, I did. And it was a great seven months. It was just like one [song] after another.

'I always do it – after every album I always say, "That’s it – there’ll be no more songs. I can’t do that again." And then all of a sudden they’re there, on paper, and you’re, like, "Oh right! I can go and record now."'

Sara had, of course, produced several albums in a row before she took a break, and I wondered if it wasn't that after that peak of creative activity that she must have when she's writing songs and then recording them and then performing them, there’s a necessary fallow period. She has also had the big energetic peaks having children.

'That’s very true,' she said. 'You do – you have these humongous peaks of things going on in your life – it doesn’t necessarily have to do with music, it’s about having family and all those things, and you tend to write – once those highs are over, whether you release an album or singing all the songs for the first time, and then they go through the awards of whatever, and then there’s that clearing process, and that’s when you should be writing again for the next album. So you sort of go into that lull and if the songs don’t come in that time, that’s when you start to panic and to worry. 

'But I didn’t have time to panic and worry – I was pregnant and having another baby, so I was still on a high with the family, because my personal life was running at a crazy mile an hour and still is. I had Billy six months ago, so I got that album out just before he was born. But I think in the back of my mind, even though my family life was wonderful and it was all going great, it had been just that bit too long musically between albums and it was really starting to eat away at me and I had to get in and be serious and say, "You either  get this done or you somehow have to put it behind you – you just can’t keep thinking about it every day and doing your head in." 

'It took a little trip to Tamworth and I just came back really inspired – 2012 after Tamworth, came home and wrote a song straightaway and that’s pretty much set up the flow of songs. It tumbled out then, which is great.'

In terms of which songs - which stories - she chooses for an album, I asked if her selection process was a matter of instinct.

'It’s hearing a story that you know probably hasn’t been said before ... It's like you can have – this is a really stupid way of looking at it it, but you can have apple pie every night but every now and then apple pie is really, really good. It’s the same with songs: you’ll just know a story hasn’t been said that way before, or you haven’t heard it said the way it is, and it can even be someone saying it from their own words and it’s really just a simple line that has never been put into song before. You hear lots of lots and stories – I think it comes down to knowing, to a personal vibe that you know that’s going to make a beautiful song.'

In her songwriting Sara has tackled big themes and issues - for example, in the song 'Tears'. When asked if she feels she has a responsibility,  almost, to address those sorts of subjects in her work, Sara said, '"Tears" was just – I was moved on the day and thought, "I’ve just got to write a song about that". It wasn’t for any purpose; I hadn’t been thinking about it for ages. I was actually watching TV and saw her on TV and was really affected. Most of the songs will come like that – just moved at the moment.

Sara is known as a singer-songwriter but it seems as though she also naturally inhabits the mantle of 'storyteller'. When asked which occupation she'd put on her passport – storyteller, performer, singer-songwriter – she said, 'I find I’m a bit of all of those. "Singer-songwriter" has that nice individual sort of sound. It sort of keeps you separated from everyone else – it gives you your own identity, saying that. Once you start putting yourself into a genre you then become like everyone else. 

'I love "storyteller" because I do love writing a song that tells a story as well. 

'The other one you mentioned was "performer" – some people can write great songs and they can really go unnoticed if you can’t get up there and perform it as well. You’ve got to have a bit of stage presence and I’m always working at that. And I’ll tell you who’s brilliant at it – Beccy Cole, she’s an amazing performer. And it’s always something I worry about – I get up on stage and think I sound boring. But it’s true – you’ve got to have a bit of the X factor otherwise you can lose a crowd. So it’s always very important. Little bit of that on top, like salt and pepper, is good in the mix.

'I think the storytelling is one of my strengths and I do like a little yarn in between songs. Sometimes I think anything can happen with my show – I forget lines, so there’s always that unexpected thing – maybe that’s what keeps people listening. That’s how I got through it when I first started – I was so nervous, and I didn’t know what to say, what was the right thing to say, so I just had to be me and sometimes I think that really worked.' 

By any measure, it is safe to say that is has definitely worked, and country music fans will welcome Sara back with wide open arms as she releases her first new album in over three years and her first original album since 2007.

Lovegrass is out now from ABC Music/Universal.

Album review: Same Trailer Different Park by Kacey Musgraves

Although mainstream American country music has plenty of 'young people' it wasn't until listening to Kacey Musgrave's debut album, Same Trailer Different Park, that I realised there aren't that many 'young voices' – by which I obviously mean young songwriters. Those songwriters would exist, of course, but they're not necessarily appearing in the mainstream (yet).

Musgrave is clearly in the mainstream - she has already been the subject of a profile in The New York Times Magazine, her album is on the Mercury Nashville label, a division of Universal, and she has a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell – and thus her cultural context is more Carrie Underwood than Gillian Welch. Accordingly, her album has to be somewhat listened to in that context. And in that context it is remarkable. 

Same Trailer Different Park is a collection of well-constructed songs that tell stories of small towns and small dreams, of disappointments and heartbreaks that perhaps don't break as hard as they should if they'd actually meant something. It is, in its way, a manifesto of a young thinking woman's life - these are her experiences, this is what she has learned, this is what she plans to do again and what she plans never to do again.   

If we pitch this album next to two other releases that have come from young women this year – Melody Pool's The Hurting Scene and Katie Brianna's Dark Side of the Morning – then it is not as intriguing, not as dark nor as joyful, not as lyrically complex, not as interesting. But in Australia, 'mainstream country music' arguably encompasses a much broader range of voices, both melodic and lyrical. In Australia, Kacey Musgraves would not be remarkable. Which, to reiterate, is why context is important.

That isn't to say that there's not a lot for Australian country music fans to like about Same Trailer Different Park – Musgraves's voice is endearingly sincere yet knowing, and her songs have the dismayed wistfulness that can be often be found in young adults who are finally realising that life isn't perhaps all they were led to expect it would be. 

It is also a very accomplished first album. No doubt Musgraves had all the assistance that a big label can offer, but there are plenty of artists who have that and don't produce an album of this standard. It makes me excited to see what she comes up with next, and I'm certainly playing this album regularly. 

This album – along with the others mentioned above, and more still, like Catherine Britt's Always Never Enough – is also a sign that country music as a genre is in the hands of very talented, steady, clear-eyed singer-songwriters who have stories to tell, a conviction that there's an audience for them and the ability to bridge the two. Fans of the genre could honestly not ask for anything more. 

Same Trailer Different Park is out now through Mercury/Universal. It is also available on iTunes.

http://www.kaceymusgraves.com

Album review: The Great Country Song Book by Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey

This album had its genesis in a tour undertaken by Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey about two or three years ago. I saw one of the shows on that tour and it was one of the best gigs I'd ever seen. Troy and Adam were having so much fun - it seemed as though, in covering other people's songs instead of playing their own, the pressure was off and they could be two musicians - and friends - together.

The idea for the tour was genius: two of Australian country music's biggest names playing the mainly American country music songs they loved. Some of the songs were obscure - in fact, many of them would only have been known to people who had the same extensive knowledge of the genre as Troy and Adam. But that didn't matter, because the two men revealed themselves to be great performers no matter whose songs they were singing and the music flowed easily all night.

That same spirit of collaboration and pure joy in music is evident on The Great Country Song Book, which now stands as a record of that genius tour idea. There is a great range of songs to satisfy anyone who loves any kind of country music - there is Slim Dusty's 'Lights on the Hill', Johnny Cash's 'I Walk the Line' and Glen Campbell's 'Rhinestone Cowboy' mixed in with some Lefty Frizell, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams songs, amongst others.

This is undoubtedly an album that many Australian country music fans will buy simply because of the two names attached to it, but it's also worth buying for what's on the album itself: the sound of two of our greatest singer-songwriters relishing the chance to sing classic songs written by others and the opportunity to let themselves just be singers and fans. There is a lot of joy on this album just as there was in the show that night - and, no doubt, it won't the last such collaboration from Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey. After all, when you're onto a good thing ...

The Great Country Song Book is out now through Liberation/Sony Music.

Troy and Adam are touring together - for dates visit:

www.troycassardaley.com.au
www.adamharvey.com.au

Interview: Jasmine Rae

Melbourne performer Jasmine Rae has released the first single from her forthcoming album – and the single, 'If I Want To', shares its name with the album.

'We chose the title of the album after we knew it was the single,' Jasmine said when I spoke to her recently. '"If I Want To" is one I’m very proud of. I wrote it with Bob DiPiero, who is a hit songwriter and I can’t believe he wanted to write with me, it was just fantastic. So it’s a song that’s quite different to what I’ve done before and this album is something that I’ve always wanted to do, just the sound of it. I’ve always wanted to write most of my material and that’s why I thought [the album] should be called If I Want To, and the track is one that I’m very proud of as well.'

I asked Jasmine about making the video clip for the song and whether or not it was strange to do something to different to writing and performing.

'Videos are the best,' she said. 'Everyone else on the video would totally get a headache from playing the same song over and over again' – and apparently this song was played about 20 times during the shoot – 'whereas I’m, like, "This is my song, I dig this" ... It’s actually photo shoots that are the most awkward: "This is not musical at all, what am I doing?" So the video flows very well. The guy in the video was actually 6’4” so that was a little bit different because I'm 4’6” … Actually, I’m 4’9”,' she said, laughing. 'I was standing on a box for the whole day so that was the awkward part but the music part and the acting part was all good.' 

Jasmine travelled to Nashville to write not only the single but other songs for this album.

'I wrote half of the album in Nashville,' she said. 'Writers over there, they do it like a 9 to 5 job. They’re so efficient and passionate; you can bring an idea that’s a little bit jumbled in your head and they say, "I know what you mean", and they help you sort it out. It’s not like they try to write the song in front of you – it’s very much a collaboration, bouncing ideas off each other. I kind of was scared when I started co-writing over there, thinking that they’d just write the song and say, "There you go", but that’s not how it is – it’s very open, you can talk about ideas.'

When I asked what she thought of the pace of writing in Nashville, Jasmine said that her ideas 'come to me at very much not 9 to 5 times. They come to me in the shower or when I’m driving. When I don’t have a pen and paper – that’s when they come. So finishing off [a song] in a 9 to 5 way is totally fine. Whenever people are able to get together with me and finish them off, that’s great – I just like the idea that it’s finishing off an idea that’s been in my head for a while, so it’s good working like that.'

Not only do the songs come at different times and in different places, but they also come in different ways. When I asked if it's lyrics or melody that usually comes through, Jasmine said, 'Sometimes it’s just lyrical. It’s different every time, which is why this question’s hard! Sometimes I’ll get a pre-chorus or just the first line of a chorus. I wrote most of the lyrics for a song called "Just Don’t Ask Me How I Am" but in a poem form that I’d been chipping away at for months. So it happens differently every time, which I think is why I love it so much, and sometimes ideas that I think, "This is gold, this is it", end up being completely nothing and an idea that I think, "I’ll just scribble that down even though it’s not the best", ends up being the main song.

If I Want To is Jasmine's third album and it sounds as though the experiences for each of those albums have been quite different.

'The first album – I’d won a competition called Telstra Road to Tamworth at the time, now called the Telstra Road to Discovery, and the date that my album was going to be released we already knew by the time I won the competition. So it was nine months of "We have to get this album out". So there were a lot of songs that were picked for me that I didn’t get to write – they were great songs, but I didn’t get to write the whole album … and it was very much taking the advice of people because I was very green and we had a deadline. 

'The second album we got to take a lot more time. I wrote half of the record. And then this third time around I had a little bit of time to spend with my family and then I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this record, and I wanted to write the majority of it, and so I spent a year and a half writing it, and have been across all of it. So it’s been the same team but very much a different way [of doing it] and I worked with a different producer.'

In between albums two and three, however, Jasmine's life changed in a profound way: she took time off to care for her father, who had cancer, and he subsequently died.

'Music was the only way I was able to deal with it,' said Jasmine. 'It was just very natural for me to just write it all out. So making this album and writing and being across this album was something I felt I had to do – it was very much a calling. It was the only thing I knew how to do at the time. Everything else is very blurry at a time like that. So have it finished [feels like] a big achievement.'

The album features a very moving track called 'First Song' and I took the opportunity to ask Jasmine about it, as it suddenly seemed as though it may well be about her father.

'It’s about my dad,' she confirmed. 'My dad and I were very close and great friends and did everything together. I’d never, ever written a song that he hadn’t heard. He’d heard every line that had ever come to me. I’d sing it to him and say, "What do you reckon of this?" To actually think that I would start and finish a song without him ever hearing it, I was devastated – I thought, "I don’t ever want to write because I don't want him to not hear it". That lasted for a whole week and then the week after I thought, "He would have wanted me to write because this is my calling. So I have to write this first song." And so that was the hardest. Then after that the rest of the album just flowed. I knew exactly where it was going after that.'

Jasmine's voice sounds different on this new album – not necessarily more mature, but there is a different tone to it. Given what happened in her life around the time of making the album, it seemed as though those experiences might be reflected in her voice.

'The voice is an amazing thing,' she said. 'It is very much connected to all of your emotions and that’s why I find it so fascinating. So, yes, I’m a different person to who I was before any of that happened. I stopped everything so I could care for him and he wanted to be at home. It just puts everything in perspective. I know what’s important now and I didn’t really know that before – I was stressing about whether my arse looked big in jeans and stuff. None of that stuff matters. When something like this happens you think, "Now I know what’s important". I’ve also used a different producer on this album as well so he would have been looking for different parts of my voice to bring out, so that’s why the album sounds a bit different as well.'

Jasmine also said that as she has written all of tracks bar one, 'they sit in a different place for your voice when you actually write it for your voice.'

When asked whether she had been performing recently – and whether or not that might have acted as some kind of solace for her in the wake of her father's death, Jasmine said, 'It has been really difficult not performing for a little while because I love it and it keeps you kind of in check. You know what you’re doing – "I’m a musician, I perform". Whereas when you’re not performing every week you wonder, "What am I doing? I’m sitting at home writing songs all day." Everyone else goes to work and it doesn't feel right. So I can’t wait to get back into performing, but you definitely need to take time off between albums for the band to learn the new stuff and just step it up a little.'

Jasmine and the band will have their next big outing at the album launch on 3 August at Rooty Hill RSL in Sydney, where she will be supported by Buddy Goode. In the meantime she has been listening to new American singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves – but, by the sounds of it, not to too many other new American acts: when in Nashville, 'you talk to everyone and they’ll tell you who the hot artists [are],' she said, 'then you go on iTunes and you can’t buy it because you have Australian iTunes!' 

One performer whose albums she definitely has is Dolly Parton. The last time I spoke to Jasmine she was about to go to Dolly's concert in Melbourne; it turns out she not only went – to three shows – but met Dolly. 'I got my photo taken with her,' said Jasmine. 'And I went there with my dad, so that was awesome.' 

Jasmine's single 'If I Want To' is out now and the album of the same name will be released on 2 August from ABC Music/Universal. The album launch is on 3 August at Rooty Hill RSL and then Jasmine will appear at the Gympie Muster and other festivals. For full details visit:

www.jasminerae.com.au 

Album review: Dark Side of the Morning by Katie Brianna

There is always something incredibly touching about the sound of someone laying bare their heart in a song or on an album. From the first verse of 'What it Means', the first song on Katie Brianna's new album, Dark Side of the Morning, that is what we hear: her heart, plaintive and yearning. What that immediately signifies is a brave performer - a brave songwriter, too - who is prepared to show all of her cards right from the start.

It's a dangerous gamble: the performer can't control the listener's reaction. Being so exposed to the listener may go wrong, especially when we venture into the second, title, track and there is that heart again, coming through the arc of Katie's voice. But it doesn't go wrong. The vulnerability that is on display from the start of this album is also its strength - and the strength of its creator. When an artist makes such a gamble - to show her entire hand - she shows us that she has nothing to hide and also, perhaps, that part of her knows that we will like what we hear. So there's an audaciousness there, too, and it starts to emerge by the third track, 'Oh Night', and by then we are definitely on the ride and there until the end.

The musical influences on Dark Side of the Morning are strongly alt-country and Americana but there are some traditional Irish sounds there too. Country music is a genre steeped in traditions; to acknowledge them in a substantial way - within the structure of a song rather than throwing out a random sound or bar here and there - is a mark of respect to the artists who have come before. 

This album seems like a work of respect and tradition and of a young woman who is finding her own musical path through them. By understanding where she's come from, Katie can better chart where she's going. Leading her through is her distinctive voice, which is full bodied and sure. It is a voice that could have found its way to jazz, yet it sounds perfectly at home in country music. 

Dark Side of the Morning is an accomplished piece of work. It is hugely interesting - to me, at least - that in a short space of time we've had Melody Pool and now Katie Brianna, both women in their early twenties, releasing very sophisticated albums, both as independent releases. I don't know whether they have both chosen to be independent artists or if events just turned out that way, but if anything independence has allowed them both to choose the best people to work on their albums, with the attendant outstanding results. 

Dark Side of the Morning is a debut album that promises much about its creator - and because she has taken her time to craft it and release it, I have every confidence that it is the first step in a long career. I genuinely cannot wait to see what she comes up with next.

Dark Side of the Morning is out now.

www.katiebrianna.com