I went and saw some extraordinarily beautiful music in London last night, over the course of just one evening I got to see four acts, all previously featured on this blog in the same town, that's the beauty of living near London and I think it's probably something I take for granted most of the time. I'm a lucky so-and-so to be here, the London music scene, in my opinion, is the best in the world.
In reverse order, my night ended with an astonishing set by Sea of Bees, almost a year after the last time I saw Jules (the first with a full band) and her new album sounded amazing (more on that to follow), supporting were one of my tips for 2012 and an act featured many times here before, Stealing Sheep. I think it was the fifth time I've seen the girls and it was easily the best, they've grown in size, the songs sounded bigger and better than ever and I'm very much looking forward to their debut full-length due over the summer.
Before heading to Hoxton I stayed in the train station of my arrival, St Pancras, not for a bit of shopping nor to admire the trains, but to see a gig... Amongst the rather unusual surroundings of Eurostar departures and thousands of rushing commuter's two singers were stealing the hearts of the few people willing to take time out of their schedules and take a minute or two for themselves. Karima Francis was the second of the two, the first time I've seen Karima and her voice was every bit as captivating as I expected, previewing tracks from her album due over the summer, she's going to be a star. The main point of this waffling, badly written transcript through my night was to introduce Rachel Sermanni, the first act I saw yesterday. This was just a half hour set before a full show later in the evening at The Lexington (if I could have cut myself in two I'd have gone to that as well) but her gorgeous, soothing tones and exquisitely crafted song-craft aptly backed by a trio of beautiful fiddlers and delicate key strokes was enough to start the night in glorious fashion.
For those of you still yet to fall for the undeniable charms of Rachel's beautiful, poetic music her new single "Eggshells" is the perfect place to start. Well when I say new, I've actually got a demo CD of "Eggshells" which is a couple of years old now that was sold at gigs a while ago, this, a completely updated recording shows the signs of Rachel's progression since, the effortless ability to control her voice, the soft and delicate delivery of Rachel's vocal is simply beautiful whilst the irresistible string instrumentation remains restrained pulling on your heartstrings, the sound you hear after listening to "Eggshells" is that of you falling in love.
"Eggshells" is due for release on May 14th on gatefold 7" and CD and is available to pre-order here and if you head to Rachel's website you can download for free an acoustic version of the track.
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