Here it is!

My new single, Milk and Water is now available as a pay what you like one-track download on Bandcamp.

This will be the last release for a while. Thank you everyone who’s come to any of my gigs over the last 2 years and all of you who’ve bought my music or listened to it online.

Extra thanks to some special people who’ve given me the best advice I could ever ask for. I hope I can live up to their and my own expectations.

After the next few shows I’ll be focusing entirely on what I’m here for in the first place – music. So please bear with me while I work hard quietly away from you.

I promise you’ll get to hear it all eventually! Peace, I’m out.

Okay folks

In celebration of what is about to be The Best Summer Of My Life, I’ve made you a super special totally awesome summer playlist: This Summer Will Be Yours

Enjoy!

(and for those of you not on Spotify, here’s the tracklisting)

–

Girl You’ll Be A Woman Soon Urge Overkill

Atomic Blondie

Yeah Buddy Pulled Apart By Horses

The Boys Are Back In Town Thin Lizzy

School’s Out Alice Cooper

Cool Rider Michelle Pfeiffer

I Lust You Neon Neon

Heart Shaped Box Nirvana

See My Evil Tom Williams & The Boat

There’s A Rockstar In My Room Let’s Wrestle

Life In Paper Fucked Up

Forget The Swan Dinosaur Jr

Times Of Grace Neurosis

Loser Beck

I’ve Been Thinking Handsome Boy Modelling School ft Cat Power

I Will Follow You Into The Dark Death Cab For Cutie

Purple Rain Prince

Come Outside Melodica, Melody & Me

$200 Tattoo Eels

Floor Micachu

Cigarette Ben Folds

Move On Singing Adams

Honey All Over Gruff Rhys

Dumb Nirvana

Angel Sized Something Beginning With L

Mulder and Scully Catatonia

I Will Not Give In Let’s Wrestle

31 Pills Chris T-T

Cover Me Bjork (Dilinja Remix)

Nightclubbing Zombie Zombie

All Of The Lights Kanye West

Learning Curves Lianne Hall

Argh! So much has happened since I did a proper blog I don’t know where to start. With a list of course!

• In October 2010 I had the start of my first ever tattoo. It was finished in February 2011 and is one of the best things I’ve ever done. I love it and I am so grateful to the artist Henry Hate. He is like the Juliette Binoche character from Chocolat but for tattoos. I went in with an idea and came out with my soul on my skin.
• I did my first ever solo tour of the UK. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to book any Wales gigs this time round but I’m hoping to soon enough. I went to Bristol, Cambridge, Glasgow and Ayr. The Scottish gigs were with tour buddy Dave Hughes who is like a cross between Shane MacGowan and Macaulay Culkin and knows more about Bruce Springsteen than anyone I know. I had tonnes of fun and adventures along the way. The new set-up using a small 80s keyboard rather than my big full-size one works much better (even though it does leave me with nothing to hide behind!).
• I have new hair. It is short-ish and blonde. I adore it. The best hairdresser I’ve ever had did it. You can find her on Twitter. If I ever get a world tour, Sapphire is coming with me to do my hair.
• I finally got to the Out Of This World exhibition at the British Library. It is fantastic. The only frustrating thing is not being able to touch and smell the original copies of these wonderful books. I will be going back again before it finishes.
• My favourite wannbe-rollergirl’s boyfriend arranged an incredible birthday surprise treasure hunt for her around the National Galleries and Trafalgar Square. Her closest friends all dressed up as characters from her two favourite stories: Alice In Wonderland and Mary Poppins. It caused a bit of a ruckus when security tried to chuck us out though and we ended up being chased by around 7 security guards. It all ended in a tea party. I was the Cheshire Cat, obvs.

Future things:

• The Very Exciting Thing I am doing is now underway. I still can’t say much about it but as soon as I can I will let you know. At the moment it is just in the research stages.
• I booked my first holiday for about 5 years: In October I’ll be visiting one of my best friends in Bangkok then we’re also going to Bali too! I almost fainted when I read the confirmation emails. I have been ordered I’m not allowed to do any work at all while I’m there. I might have to sneak some online time to dispel any withdrawal symptoms!
• The new single Milk and Water is almost ready. It has been a labour of love.
• The artist development programme I created for Drake Music has finally been given a little bit of money for the first session. I’m really looking forward to it although it means more work for me!
• Lots of changes have happened that make me think East London might not be the place for me soon, I love it here and of course my heart will always belong to London but I’m thinking more and more about moving away. I won’t be going too far and I’m sure you’ll read about this in the forthcoming year.
• And FINALLY I am planning my next party. It won’t be until the autumn and will have a very different feel as well as be a more ‘exclusive’ event. More to follow!

So all in all a transforming few months. Not sure what’s next, which is (as you know) how I like it. Exciting times. #followthesigns

All my music is produced at home. My set-up is very basic and I have limited knowledge about sound engineering. This suits me fine (for now) as I am not rich and I prefer minimal/rough sounds. It also gives me the opportunity to learn more and to retain complete creative control over the final tracks.

I’d like to share a story with you about some work I’ve been doing recently on the new single Milk And Water:

–

The lovely Simon Askew (well-known BBC producer and engineer) has very kindly been offering me some advice about production. In April I sent him links to The Angel EP and also a rough draft of the new single.

Many people have listened to The Angel and I’ve had a lot of great feedback but nobody has said this:

“…The first thing is both that mix and the Angel EP is all in mono! Is this deliberate? If so I think it’s wrong!”

No Simon, no. This was not deliberate.

Full disclosure: I didn’t actually know.

Through several weeks of email exchanges I rewired and panned and sweated and screamed, and continued to hate the massive gaps in my music technology expertise.

Finally ready to export the track to send a new version to Simon, I noticed a small drop-down box giving the options to export in mono, stereo split or stereo interleaved.

That’s right folks, a small drop-down box in the middle of my screen. I had seen this menu on everything I’ve ever mixed for the past 2 years and at no point had I thought: “I wonder what that’s for…”

Seriously. I am an idiot.

Like The Beatles, my recordings up until now have been in mono. This has the potential to go down in history as one of those hilarious early music making stories. Or perhaps not. Maybe I could pretend I intended it that way and release my own boxset.

Go ahead, listen to The Angel EP on Spotify or Bandcamp with fresh ears. Mono.

Me and The Beatles in Mono.

Cool.

[please note the new single will be in stereo, like I'm a normal person]

The incredible joey2tits (Twitter, Myspace) has done a pretty spectacular remix of The Angel.

I am entirely blown away.

I can’t thank you enough Joey.

The angel (joey2tits remix)

Welcome to 2011. None of us have any money and many don’t have access to adequate healthcare, social services or education. But we do have a fresh start. We have each other. And music. There’s always the music.

Aims/Hopes:

Play loads of gigs

Finish the next single and the album

Find Toto

Get taken to Japan [Shut up, it could totally happen]

Visit California and Thailand

Dance more

Live consciously and give to others

–

Playlist (on Spotify)

The Tin Man Grasscut

Second Life Zach Hill

Made By Maid Laura Marling

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here She & Him

Every Exception Has Its Rule Blood Command

Fallen Angel Poison

Seasons of Love Cast of Rent

It Takes Blood And Guts To Be This Cool Skunk Anansie

Sweet Dreams Eurythmics

Shitlist L-7

Dancing In The Dark Bruce Springsteen

I Punched A Lion In The Throat Pulled Apart By Horses

Little Lion Man Mumford & Sons

Cliffs Karen O & the kids

28 Days Later London Music Works

London Is The Reason Gallows

London Loves Blur

Olympian She Makes War

You Don’t Own Me Dusty Springfield

Love The Lie Sage Francis

Pretty Good Year Tori Amos

It Had To Be You Harry Connick Jr

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction Cat Power

Friendship Station Le Tigre

Next Girl The Black Keys

Where Is My Mind? Pixies

Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t've) The Buzzcocks

Somewhere Over The Rainbow Judy Garland

I was so pleased to be longlisted for the Just A Girl competition and although disappointed not to get through, I was touched I was even included at all amongst some real talent. Thank you to everyone who voted and to The Girls Are for their support.

The gorgeous and a little bit wonderful She Makes War (Warrior Grrl) has invited me to play at her album launch on Tuesday 19th October.

It is on a boat, is free entry and is going to be made of awesome. You should all totally come.

____

Also, I’m very excited to announce I will be playing Midwinter Picnic 3 in Brighton on 16th January. The line-up is phenomenal and I am very honoured to be playing.

It is a charity event and tickets always sell out so you should get in there early to buy yours, here.

____

Lots of exciting things have happened since I last wrote anything on here so here’s a little list:

• I forgot to tell you, I finally got to see Fucked Up. Many months have gone by now but they were as brilliant live as people said and I wasn’t disappointed. I saw Trash Talk at the same gig and they were just wonderful (although not so good when I saw them again at Offset). Their bassist is also one of the hottest men in rock music.
• The Scouting Book For Boys came out on DVD, you should all totally go out and buy it or order it on your Lovefilm list or whatever the kids are doing nowadays
• Hackney Family member Chud and I went to see Sage Francis supported by B Dolan at the Scala in London, it was without doubt the best gig I’ve been to. Ever (so far). The only downside was the crowd. The front was full of people just kind of getting it on a shallow level, getting in everyone’s way and generally being idiots.  The people who got it on a proper intellectual level (as well as musically) were standing at the back rather than getting involved. The performances were simply mindblowing and I will never forget the encore with both of them on stage joined by Scroobius Pip.
• I did a thing and another thing.
• Dry the River played the Twisted Licks Pakistan fundraiser. It was a great day, I got very drunk with my friends and the band was awesome. It was lovely to see the boys again after our crazy funs in summer.
• I met one of my favourite people off the internets for the first time. She is amazing and it just goes to show, if you follow your instincts you’re usually right.
• Lexapalooza 2010 was lovely (no surprise there). I saw old friends and new. I also discovered the pure genius of Justice Force 5. This annual festival is in aid of Breast Cancer Campaign, if you haven’t donated to them already, you can contact them to make a donation.
• Some friends took me to the rollerderby. Hot girls, rollerskates, alcohol, cake, complex rules, watching people fall over… what’s not to love? My teams won both bouts, I should’ve placed some bets.

Some very exciting secret things are happening soon and I’m getting to see my heroes Scroobius Pip and Dan le Sac in November… more about all that later!

My two only pieces of sad news are:

I’m not going to Swn Festival this year, I will go to Wales soon for a visit but Swn clashes with the Just A Girl final. I was trying to go to both but it just became impossible.

In November, the Girls of the Penthouse are all moving on. I’m yet to find a new home but I’m pretty sure it is going to be amazing wherever it is. I can’t tell you how happy I am for Clare and Sandi who are both taking the plunge and moving in with their fellas. Love is awesome.

My debut single The Angel EP comes out today. You can buy it online if you’re that way inclined (iTunes or Bandcamp). I had an amazing time last night at the launch party and here are some thank yous:

• All the artists who played: Tunnels, Pagan Wanderer Lu, Something Beginning With L and DJ Schone Mond.
• Everyone at Catch especially Ben who put up with my many emails and Martin who did a great job with the sound.
• Melanie and Ziggy for their help with the poster, which I love and is gorgeous.
• The Girls of the Penthouse and my Hackney Family: Sandi, Clare, Sean and Tom. Hannah, Mike and Chris.
• My In Real Life Family: Flea and Al, Chris T-T and Rifa B.
• Ingie for his storming remix of Android Song.
• Alex CF for his beautiful artwork and suffering at the hands of my evangelical positivity.
• Sarah Harries and Emma Hogan for their friendship, guidance and for going out of their way to help me. This summer has been the best one of my life.

Finally some extra special thank yous:

• Colin and Paula McCracken (or Mr and Mrs Zombiehamster as I know them) for their love and support.
• My Glamorous Assistants: Roseanna, Katharina and Cassie, the three best girls in the world.
• and James Anthony for teaching me about writing and stuff.

I love my life and am continuing to have a proper amazing time; however, I haven’t been on holiday for about 2 or 3 years. I miss the sunshine, sand and cocktails. This has been sitting on my computer waiting for me to share it for a few weeks now.

Here’s some of the music I’ve been listening to while not on holiday: No Summer Holiday

“I left my head and my heart on the dancefloor”

Don’t Fucking Tell Me What To Do Robyn

Summertime Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald

You Won’t B Here Perfume Genius

As Tears Go By The Rolling Stones

Little Girl Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse (featuring Julian Casablancas)

Moonlit Talons Pulled Apart By Horses

Telephone Lady Gaga (featuring Beyonce)

Independent Woman Part I Destiny’s Child

Son Of A Preacher Man Dusty Springfield

Little Lion Man Mumford & Sons

Fingerprints I Am Kloot

Hang With Me Robyn

Small Blue Thing Suzanne Vega

Strike She Keeps Bees

Just War Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse (featuring Gruff Rhys)

Chain Of Fools Aretha Franklin

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