Friday, October 01, 2010

Wind-Up Doll With No Place To Be

Musical bible Illegal Tender first introduced me to eighteen-year-old London singer Spark earlier this year. At the time, there were scant details about her and just a few demos up on her Myspace.

The track that grabbed my attention most was one called 'Revolving', with its lyrics about wind-up toys and layered vocals. Boutique label Neon Gold seemed to take a shine to this track too and, now that it's been given a lick of production paint, they're set to release it as a limited edition single.

I had the pleasure of meeting SPARK (aka Jess Morgan) when she supported Marina and the Diamonds in Dublin back in May and she seemed slightly overwhelmed by the level of interest she had been receiving all of a sudden. Let's hope she's come to terms with the attention in the meantime because this track looks likely to send the hype machine into overdrive.



The track has also been given a gorgeous string-laden 'reworking' by the ever-dependable Monsieur Adi, which I think I might even prefer to the original arrangement.

Spark - Revolving (Monsieur Adi Rework, Allegro in C Minor)



I know for a fact that there are a clutch of pop gems in her arsenal yet to surface online but, until they do, I'll gladly make do with grimy b-side Wrap and this charming rendition of 'Damage Done' for The Mahogany Sessions that I stumbled upon over on Breaking More Waves:

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Up To All Sorts

Once upon a time, receiving blog-mail used to make me embarrassingly excited.

Unfortunately, these days, most of the messages I'm sent are generic send-outs from music PR folk or mass-mails by DJs who have obviously never read my blog but would have me believe that they're sat at their computer all day, refreshing every 5 seconds, hoping for new posts.

Thankfully, every now and again, sifting through the spam pays off when you stumble upon a worthwhile recommendation. Take London singer Antics, for example.

With shades of some of Yeasayer's recent output, the Battersea boy's disco-tinged electropop is very much 'my bag' and, even if the production is a little rough around the edges, there's more than enough invention and variety in the few tracks on his Myspace to warrant earmarking.

His track 'Headspace' is especially fresh and available for free download here: