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Hannigan talks about life after Damien Rice and going solo

One of the biggest surprises of the last few years musically speaking has been the work of Lisa Hannigan, one-time partner and band member of Damien Rice, and whose debut solo album See Saw made the Mercury Music Prize shortlist in ’09. “Oh! God, that was a total surprise, I really did not expect that… But it helped me enormously,” says Lisa, the day before she flies off to Australia to take part in a number of Nick Drake tribute concerts (Way to Blue: The Songs of Nick Drake), which are being organised by Joe Boyd, who produced all of Nick Drake’s recordings for Island Records.
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The Saturdays new album is out this week & a Brighton show is on the horizon. Jeff Hemmings chats to Vanessa to find out what it’s like to be part of the girl band that’s on everyone’s radar

For those who don’t know, and I freely admit I was one of those, The Saturdays are Una, Mollie, Frankie, Vanessa and Rochelle. We can’t talk about Frankie though – the whole issue of ‘where is Frankie?’ has been kept well under wraps, although it looks like after a two month lay-off (through illness/stress?) she is back on board, taking part in the band rehearsals for the upcoming tour…

Anyway, Vanessa (White) gamely offers me a few minutes of her time, as it’s in the midst of a very hectic pre-tour schedule that involves all day sessions, every day of the week. The new album, the tour, the training, the endorsements – it’s a young girls dream, is it not?

“I always knew it was something I wanted to do from a really early age: from the age of 13 I started doing lots of auditions, and then started seeing labels at 15. But it just didn’t happen then. And then when The Saturdays happened it was really unexpected…” Read the rest of this article »

The Correspondents are Mr Bruce and Mr Chuckles, collaborators in resuscitating a sound from bygone times and mixing it up to make some very contemporary tracks. Jeff Hemmings gets to the bottom line of their bass line

The unlikely duo of Mr Bruce and Mr Chuckles have been enticing all those who witness them to ‘get your brogues on’ – their revamped vintage sounds riding the wave of the fun and fantasy filled electro swing scene, while their records are being released on the local label, Freshly Squeezed. Jeff Hemmings put some questions to the pair ahead of their Concorde 2 gig this week.

Can I clarify – Chucks does the music, programming, etc, and Mr Bruce provides the vocals?
Chucks: We try to, at least!

How did you to get together musically and what are your formative loves, music-wise?
Chucks: We did a bit of bedroom DJ/MC jamming back in our teens. Those were the days. But it wasn’t really until after uni that we both came back to London and started making a few tracks, informally playing at a few mates parties. It all went from there – there wasn’t really any ‘lets make a band!’ moment. Read the rest of this article »

A creative reawakening spurs on their new release and tour

The most well known of the recent spate of bluegrass/country-blues revivalists, Gillian Welch along with partner David Rawlings are however not purists; their mostly downbeat, melancholy music is distinct, is almost poppy in flavour and this has helped them to cross over to the mainstream while still holding on to their cult status. But things have been quiet on the Welch/Rawlings front since their last record, a long eight years ago…
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