Jem - Down To Earth - UK availability.

Several people have asked about this and the best answer I can currently give is 'no but yes'! You probably won't yet find Jem - Down To Earth in your local supermarket, HMV store and the like. If you do it will, more likely than not, cost extra as it is nominally available only on import (and I don't mean from Wales) only! Amazon.co.uk list it, at £12.49 on CD, with a delivery time of 2 - 3 weeks.

Here are two totally legal, and as far as I have found through regular use reliable (although I can't guarantee it) options you might try:

http://caimanzone.co.uk/details.cfm?ASIN=B001CR49IE
It is currently on sale there at £7.94 + £1.24 delivery (in the UK) and, if my recent experience is representative, it will arrive by Royal Mail in 2-3 working days after the one on which you order it.
If you already deal with amazon.co.uk, and would prefer not to use your card with Caiman directly, then you can also get it from caimanzone.co.uk using amazon.co.uk 'Marketplace Sellers' and might not cost you much, if any, more.

I hope this helps...

Jem is Down To Earth again...

Who made up all the rules?
We follow them like fools!
Believe them to be true
Don't care to think them through.

I'm sorry, so sorry
I'm sorry it's like this.
I'm sorry, so sorry
I'm sorry we do this.

Part of the lyric of They (2004).

Some time ago I wrote a post, Asleep Again?, wondering what had happened to the artist Jem. It is now confirmed that her second album will be released by ATO Records, initially in the US, on September 16.

Down To Earth, not to be confused with the 1979 Rainbow album of the same name, is already on order based both on my continued liking for her 2004 début album Finally Woken, which was one of the first handful of albums I ever reviewed and I stand by what I wrote then, and the fact that Lester Mendez (Shakira Dónde Están Los Ladrones and others) has been involved in the production of this album. Stranger still is that, perhaps because Jem is now resident in California, some in the US are portraying her as their new best export to us here in the UK.

It will certainly be a good trick if she can do it, not least because she was brought up in Penarth (Glamorgan) and the other UK female solo artist currently making headway in the US is Duffy, with her album Rockferry, and she comes from Nefyn, a small town on the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd. While their music is very different indeed what we have here is two singers, from almost opposite corners of Wales, neither of whose music is noticeably inspired by traditional Welsh music. It is not that Wales is a vast land but neither is it crowded; at 8022 sq. miles it is about 10% smaller in area but has only 30% of the population of New Jersey.

Asleep Again? What happened to Jem...

Finally Woken (ATO Records LLC/Sony BMG)

and 2004 seems so long ago.

I'm still not convinced that I'm sure what is going on here, as some major label murkiness seems to be involved, but the second album - title unknown to me - was originally due to be released in early 2007 but now "sometime in 2008" is the best I can find... If it ever appears then it is said that Lester Mendez (Shakira et al) is involved which is a good sign and I haven't found anything that indicates she has been dropped by her label.

I still stick by my guns and that is to say that I think Finally Woken sounds as good now as I thought it did then. I would, in fact, hazard a guess owing to its style and sound that was it released new in 2008 it would actually have fared even better than it did in 2004 as it combines cross-genre fascination with organic performance; both of which are fuelling the ascent of live music at the moment.
Her siblings, Georgia and Justin, are one third of indie-punk-hiphop/rap band Weapons and they released their eponymous debut album in September 2006 on their own label, Wicked Old Lady Records, and Jem joins them on track seven, The Thieves, but sadly I have yet to track a copy down.

That said, while looking into all this, I have discovered something else. While the album Pet Deaths seems to be a long time coming in the meantime another South Wales singer-songwriter, Cate Le Bon, is to release an EP on Cardiff label Peski Records on 21st April and only on 10" vinyl:

Edrych yn Llygaid Ceffyl Benthyg.
Sebon.co.uk - Peski009