Featured Artist: BBC Radio London Introducing

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I'm going to be the Featured Artist on tonight's BBC Radio London Introducing show - it's broadcast from 8pm on 94.9fm if you're in London or any of the following if not: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04jx4wl

Radio London on Virgin TV Channel 937

Radio London on Sky TV Channel 0152

Digital Radio on 94.9FM

Freeview channel 721

Please tune in if you can! 

Recording the interview meant a lunchtime trip to Broadcasting House, which was pretty exciting as it was the first time I'd been there! Here are a couple of photos from the day...

 

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In Session for Roots & Fusion

Earlier in the autumn I went up to Stockport to record a session for Rick Stuart's Roots and Fusion show. Rick and I had been in touch since he started playing some of the songs from These Hours back in the spring, and it was so great to finally get to meet him. It was a really lovely morning, my favourite session so far, and formed part of their special 400th broadcast. 

The session is available online at the link below - live acoustic versions of 5 songs including Renegades, and an interview at the end that I think gives away how much fun we had! 

http://podcast.pureradio.org.uk/index.php?id=2853

Roots & Fusion episodes

I've had songs played on the last couple of episodes of Roots & Fusion - you should be able to listen below or link through to their Mixcloud site. I found a great load of new music that I loved in these two shows and in between the two I'd been up to Stockport to record a session for them, which is going to be aired as part of the 400th show on 2nd November. It was one of the loveliest sessions I've ever done and it was great to meet Rick at last. Proof as ever that music brings you into contact with amazing people. 

FATEA Review

These Hours has just been reviewed for FATEA magazine and the magical link to the review is here: http://www.fatea-records.co.uk/magazine/reviews/AnneSumner/ 

I'm really delighted by this as you might imagine! It was around this time two years ago that I was about to start recording These Hours and I still love how much those songs represent that time - even now, when I'm in the process of starting to record the next album. I wonder how much emotional distance I've really covered in the past two years? This year has been particularly turbulent and I feel like I might be craving the relative certainty of things I've felt before; I know I've grown but perhaps can't see it yet. I guess we'll see how the songs emerge. 

Thanks to all at FATEA for your support. 

 

Recent gigs etc.

I've been having a really brilliant summer out and about gigging and don't often make it back here to wrap-up what's been going on, but thought I would this week! I've been lucky enough to have gigs every weekend since the Calling For Serenity EP launch back in May, thanks to a bunch of local venues and festivals asking me back after last summer, some SumnerAnderson gigs in the mix and just being a bit more in the loop on events springing up around Croydon. Generally I'll try and cram as many open mics/singers' nights as possible in during the week and that's how I get to keep up with friends :D I meet so many wonderful people out and about gigging and the friendships that develop and the conversations that happen are the biggest blessing of all. 

Got a few photos from this week - these are from the Apple Tree in Clerkenwell, which has an open mic on a Wednesday night hosted by the ever-wonderful Romeo Crow, the King William IV on Friday with another very talented host, Gian Luca, and then a really lovely afternoon at the opening of the Mitcham Community Orchard (I've been reliably informed that the collective noun for ukeleles is a "Plink". Yep. A Plink of Ukeleles! There you have it...) followed by the weekly Folk and Blues night at Ruskin House on Sunday. The video at the bottom is from the King William IV night. 

Mostly Folk podcast - @artiemartello

I found out that Artie Martello had played Anywhere With You on one of his shows last week and I've been listening to the podcast this morning - turns out that Artie's soothing voice and chilled-out tunes are the perfect antidote to doing your taxes and makes them far less painful! Thanks Artie. Check it out below via Mixcloud or visit the Mostly Folk website for all the latest. 

P.S. I secretly love doing my taxes but that's because I'm an accountant and it's even more fun than doing other people's! 

Mostly Folk Podcast 192

Artie Martello played a 3-song feature from These Hours in this episode of Mostly Folk from last week. I love the 3-song lineups as way to get into an album a little bit more (plus it reminds me a bit of open mics!) and I really enjoyed listening to the other albums featured here. 

You can follow Artie on Mixcloud, Twitter and he has a particularly wonderful Instagram account following his life up in the mountains. 

Latest Videos

I've updated the Videos page with some of the latest live videos from Hoodoo's and Wandle Park - got a few more to come including some songs that haven't been recorded yet so this it the only way to hear them! Hope your favourites are in here somewhere: 

Solid Ground -

Swim Any Sea - 

Water's Edge - 

I've been enjoying singing backing for Chris Sheffield/The 9 Lives - here's the first time we sang Hold Me at Hoodoo's:

Live this week in Croydon - Croydon Radio podcast

A big thank you to Andrew Chatterton and James Tighe at Croydon Radio for taking up Some Kind of Comfort for their shows last week - you can listen to James's "Live this week in Croydon" podcast below. By complete coincidence I was standing outside the studio as James left after this show (while waiting for my open mic slot at Hoodoo's) and we're arranging a live session so keep your eyes and ears peeled for that! 

Some Kind of Comfort

So good news! The new single Some Kind of Comfort is out and available through all the usual channels - iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc. You can listen to the final edit on SoundCloud below, and there's also a video! The lyrics are here. 

It's my first time releasing a single and I was lucky in that everything came together really quickly on this one, it only took a month from writing the song through recording it to getting it released. Admittedly I have been pushing it and playing it a lot as right from the start this has had special sentimental value to me and it also speaks to what I want to do with my music in general - bring comfort, since it seems there's not enough of that in the world and we could all use a little more. I'm not about to solve the world's problems but if writing a song can put a little bit of peace or love into someone's day, then that seems a good thing to put out there, and the more good things there are, the less room we'll all have for negativity. Right?!

A side note about where I'm at with releases and albums at the moment: I have a vague idea about trying to put a song out every month or so, that seems to fit better with where I am in terms of available time and resources right now. When I was recording These Hours I had a fairly coherent idea of what I wanted to do with the album as a whole and was determined to record in single takes as that was representative of what I was doing live at the time - the songs all kind of held together that way and that was pretty much all I did for a couple of months, rehearse and record and gig a bit in between. Fast forward 18 months and I am working on quite a variety of material, also collaborating a lot and looking forward to getting some different productions done of some of the songs. I'm not convinced about how it would hold together as an album at this point, even if I had the time to dedicate to just doing that - but I do have a backlog of songs, with new material coming through all the time, so working on them incrementally seems to make sense. I'm going to see where it takes me for now...

Hope you enjoy this song and we're starting work on the next one on Thursday... watch this space!

Radio

Some of the tracks from These Hours have been getting some radio play this week so I wanted to say thank you and share the links - both shows were great in their entirety and packed full of gorgeous and intriguing music. 

Roots and Fusion (Pure 107.8fm in Stockport) played These Hours on Wednesday night - the episode 381 podcast is available on their Mixcloud site here. 

Bob Campbell at the Folk Music and Beyond show on KALW in San Francisco opened the show with Tide Will Turn on Saturday afternoon and had this to say about it: 

"This song recalls to me the things that I keep hearing myself telling myself and hoping that an answer will come."

- which I thought was rather wonderful. I'm not sure there are many answers in there and this is not a song I've been playing live at all, but I think I will, as it's definitely something that rings true to me at the moment - 

And the fields will burn, when the wildfire comes
And you're freed from all you let go
Take your leap of faith, believe in the change
And the tide will turn, before you know. 

You can listen to the entire show at this link - but only for the next week until the following show goes out, so don't hang about! I'm endlessly grateful to everyone who takes the time to listen and play the songs, thank you thank you thank you x

Sumner Anderson Launch

Thursday saw the launch of the Sumner Anderson website AND the "Running" EP - 

Working as a duo with Rob Anderson has been a massive focus for me this year alongside my solo song-writing, and I'm pretty sure the story of how this all came about is one I'll be telling over and over - for now you can read a bit about it at the website: www.sumneranderson.com

"Running" is the first of two live EPs we're releasing this summer. If you have a copy of These Hours, you might be interested to hear some of the new versions we've done of some of the songs from there. There's also new material and one or two things from the Wayne Drury Project. 

You can come and see us live TONIGHT! at the Stage Door (Webber Street, SE1 8QA) near Waterloo - event link is here. 

I feel incredibly fortunate to be a part of this. 

Calling for Serenity videos

The Calling for Serenity YouTube site has been updated with a whole hostory of videos since the launch of the Endless Numbers EP last month. I'm posting a couple here but there's a whole lot more where these came from! 

First and foremost here's the official video for the lead single Pi - I love this!

This is the version of Heaven Inside from the first time we ever played it live together (at the St. Mungo'so festival):

 

And here is the full acoustic set that Rob and I played at the launch party, in full: 

 

More details including how to get hold of the EP are on the CfS website: 

http://www.callingforserenity.co.uk  

Everything Forever Lyric Video

I was delighted to hear that Everything Forever was going to be featured on West Norfolk Radio's annual promo CD. Even more delighted to have some CDs come my way which arrived yesterday - looking forward to hearing everything that's on there! West Norfolk Radio have been so supportive ever since the release of These Hours last year and I'm really grateful for all they do. 

I've just released a lyric video for Everything Forever and it's up now on YouTube: 

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