Out Along The Bend reviews

We've had a great review in from David Kidman at FATEA of our SumnerAnderson duo album from last year, Out Along The Bend - read the full review here: http://www.fatea-records.co.uk/magazine/reviews/SumnerAnderson/

There's a second review in Folk London, by Nygel Packett from The Goose is Out. He says that Swim Any Sea "is the kind of song that just gets inside you and once it has it doesn't want to leave". Check out the current June-July issue for more (I was pleased to see there's also a great piece on the Orpington Folk and Blues club!)

Thank you to all those who have given their time to review what we've made, it's really appreciated and we love to hear your feedback!

There are a handful of CD copies of Out Along The Bend available in the Store if you'd like to get one of your own to keep!

Just A Story - live video

The lovely and ever-hard-working (seriously who in London is doing more for live music right now?) Romeo from UK Open Mic has started making each night's videos available online - that's a lot of footage of a lot of great musicians! We'll usually hit up one of these nights most weeks at least and with two to four songs a session (sometimes more!) there are quite a few songs floating about by now. I wanted to share this one of Just A Story as I don't play this one live that often (and almost never in a jam with a conga! - big thanks to Freddy Macha) although it's always been one of my favourites. I liked how this worked out. 

Check out the list of UK Open Mic regular venues here - they're great places to play and catch a great mix of live music around London. 

Water's Edge Lyric Video

Here's the lyric video for Water's Edge - 

Wish You Were - video and Soundcloud update

Stephen Nurse and I recorded a new version of Wish You Were (originally on These Hours) and we've posted a video version from one of the gigs we played at Orpington Liberal Club to YouTube. We've also uploaded the EP version to Soundcloud ahead of the EP release at the end of this month. This is one of six tracks that make up the EP, there's another song from These Hours, one cover and three new songs. Wish You Were is the first song we picked when we started jamming together live. I love these expanded versions with Stephen's melodies and improvised lines. Watch and listen below - a big thank you goes to our friend Polly for capturing the video. 

Some more radio

Hi folks! Here's a collection of links to some programmes where my songs have been played lately - many thanks to all of these presenters and compilers and to everyone who is helping these songs pass from hand to hand and ear to ear. 

A final reminder that the session with Doug Welch at BBC Radio Kent is still on the iPlayer but it's the LAST DAY! So may disappear at some point tonight. This is the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04nb0q8

There are eleven hours of great, great music there to get stuck into!

If you're a hosting a show of your own and would like a download link or a physical CD sending you then it's a simple matter of filling out the form below: 

BBC Kent session tracks

The tracks featured in the BBC Radio Kent session from 15th January are now up on Soundcloud - a big thank you to Doug and Dave for letting me have them to take home!
There is one more unbroadcast recording to come but I'll save that as a surprise for later! 

BBC Radio Kent Folk Show Session - 15 January 2017

Here is the link to Sunday's session with Doug Welch at the BBC Radio Kent Folk Show: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04nb0q8

It'll be there for 30 days (well 27 now!) so listen as many times as you like! Many thanks to Doug and Dave for being so welcoming - it was a really pleasant, relaxed evening. They even gave me copies of the recordings to keep! 

Kent I will be coming your way soon - I'm hoping to pop down to Ron Truman-Border's guest show at the Orpington Liberal Club on the 27th.

Mixcloud links

2017 has been great for airplay so far. Here are some mixcloud links to shows who have kindly taken up tracks - thank you! Always such lovely words from Rick at Roots & Fusion and great to be picked up by Chelmsford Community Radio - I grew up just down the road from there in Great Baddow so that area is full of childhood memories!

Swim Any Sea on the FATEA Showcase Session Download "Mirror"

Back in the Autumn last year I was offered the fantastic opportunity of a spot on the FATEA showcase sessions - a downloadable album of songs from a wide selection of current artists, which runs for three months (in this case to the 31 January, so get to the link and get your free copy before it runs out!) 

The current session is called Mirror and is available for download here: 
http://www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk/

It's packed full of great tracks on here from a real range of styles - I find myself going back to this over and over as the variety is fascinating and the quality of the musicianship is great, it's been a real inspiration to me. Personal favourites were Ruth Theodore's Buffalo, Bel Blue's Wild Dog Rose and Fara's version of The Games People Play. Also in great company with Ange Hardy and Lukas Drinkwater who have just won FATEA's award for Band/Duo of the year 2016, and Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage - I saw them supporting Sarah Jarosz at the Union Chapel late last year and my favourite song of the set, Lady Margaret, is on the Mirror Download. 

To mark the download I've made a lyric video for Tide Will Turn which is now up on YouTube:

2016 Releases

Here's a run down of releases this year that I've sung on: two singles of mine, the Sumner Anderson duo album we recorded in the spring, and some featured vocals for Devon Sol and the Calling For Serenity collective:  

RENEGADES - iTunes // Amazon Download

SOME KIND OF COMFORT - iTunes // Amazon download

SUMNER ANDERSON - Out Along The Bend (album) - iTunes // Amazon download

CALLING FOR SERENITY - ENDLESS NUMBERS EP - iTunes // Amazon download

DEVON SOL - YOUR LOVE MADE ME LIE - iTunes // Amazon download

I've contributed to a couple of other projects that are due for release early in 2017, along with hopefully a new album of my own in the works - better get to it! I've written 15 songs this year without about the same number underway. 

BBC Radio London Introducing interview

Here's the link to the Introducing Featured Artist interview I did at BBC Radio London - 

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

The interview starts about 17 minutes in and covers some background into how I got into performing and my songwriting process and you can hear Renegades straight afterwards. 

Always lots of great new music packed into that hour every Saturday and I'm very grateful to Gary, Ollie and Jess for giving me the opportunity to be a part of it. 

Featured Artist: BBC Radio London Introducing

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...

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. 

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Roots & Fusion - 397

Listen out for Roots & Fusion this Wednesday evening... Heading up there very soon to do a live session and put faces to names, really looking forward to that!

BBC Radio Oxford

Dear poor neglected blog! I realise I never shared with you the photos from my session with Nick Piercey at BBC Oxford. I have the amazing Chloe Ray to thank for capturing the photography and owe a sincere debt of gratitude to her, Mark Flanagan, Nick himself and Georgie at BBC Oxford for guiding me through my first ever live radio session. We had a lovely, sunny, boiling hot day for it! 

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! 

BBC Introducing Mixtape link

Solid Ground found its way into the BBC Introducing Mixtape, broadcast on Radio 6 on Monday morning. You can listen on the iPlayer via this link until around 16th August and read more detail on all the artists at the Fresh On The Net page.