New Music 2013 - Part 23 - Karima Francis - Black

I received this in the post yesterday and I couldn't wait to give it a thorough listen or three. The word is that I'm liking it very much indeed.
It seems so long ago that I reviewed Karima Francis's first album 'The Author'. It was back in 2009; it was good and so, if maybe less original, was the follow-up 'The Remedy' in 2012. Beneath the surface lay a major career set back. Not very many would have the strength of character to overcome a rejection like that.

Four years later her third album 'Black' is the result of a successful crowd-funding venture. Karima is supported by an excellent band, the members of which apparently coalesced out of nowhere in the matter of a very few days by dint of good fortune and quick thinking on the part of Karima to get them on-board. It is a record just how the tight unit wanted it to sound, working free from outside interference.

Karima Francis - Black:

• Black
• City Walls
• H.W.T.M.C.
• Believe In Love
• Regrets
• It's Alright Now
• Shout
• Remember Me
• Waves
• Perfect Dream
• Blue Moon

I can find no official release date as yet. 140dB Records is managing this release. What I really want to do now is see Karima and the band play live!

New Music 2015 - Part 18 - Danni Nicholls - Mockingbird Lane

In Spring 2013 UK-based Danni Nicholls and her largely acoustic take on Americana, tinged with country blues, came to my attention courtesy of her first full-length LP 'A Little Redemption' and I mentioned it, as part of the new transatlanticism, here.
That album was crowd-funded and very well received. She has wasted no time planning and plotting the follow-up and in keeping control of the process to herself. 'Mockingbird Lane' has been recorded (in East Nashville, like its predecessor), mixed and mastered and entirely crowd-funded through PledgeMusic. This does, incidentally, show that people are still very much willing to pay for music that they believe in and up-front too.
It is too early for album art or any of that so here instead is the title track 'Mockingbird Lane'.

Recorded live in the most famous garden shed in Somerset and quite possibly the UK. For lots more acoustic diamonds, amongst the dust, inevitable spiders and amazing collection of ephemera, pay a visit to Songs From The Shed.
Thinking about it, here is the title track of the first LP 'A Little Redemption', recorded in the same session.
Astonishing as this might be, all is not lost.

You haven't actually missed the boat - it doesn't cast off until 22 March. You can still grab a piece of the action.
The album was fully released, physically and digitally on 23 October 2015.

New Music - Part 26 - Kevin Devine

Kevin Devine is probably little known, at least to most of us here in the UK. He has used crowd-funding to produce two albums, one acoustic and the other not, that will be released shortly and simultaneously (and that is an interesting concept in itself).
Here is a track, For Eugene, from one of them.
The oh-so-subtle, that you might hardly even notice, backing vocal is courtesy of Isobel Campbell. It is a far cry from her three albums (and an EP) with Mark Lanegan, but equally an extremely interesting call to arms.

I have only become to know of this in the last hour. I'm always really pleased to hear about things like this.