Find me at Jessamine Grace on Facebook, Instagram and all streaming services. ❤️

Debut album is out!  Tell everyone to go listen, and then go listen again yourself.

Band of Hope & Glory 

Middle England is what you get when a group of misfits are thrown together on a small island that can’t stand itself. Moody, angry, caught between the desire to live life to the fullest and the sense of being beaten down by a world which regards you with suspicion and hatred - this is troubled music for troubled times, made by a bunch of people with little to lose and less left to live for.

Middle England’s music melts down a whole host of musical lineages for scrap. Punk - both the first-wave heroes of the 1970s and modern torch-bearers like Sleaford Mods - fights it out with hip-hop, dub, synth-pop and dancehall in Middle England’s instrumentals. The licks may be sweet and the choruses may be stirring, but there’s more than a pinch of grit in the oyster here.

Atop these grizzled beats, vocalist Lucky Jones delivers lyrics which pull at the threads of the UK’s troubled national psyche. Sometimes he’ll tackle these matters head on, railing against modern Britain’s hate-thy-neighbour culture; other approaches are more subtle, his street-level poetry and introspective flights of fancy offering something like escape from the everyday insanity of … well, of Middle England.

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Life-affirming Mancunian electro-pop"
-  Tom Robinson BBC 6Music
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"That has Manchester's musical heritage running right through it like the writing in rock"
-  Guy Garvey (Elbow)  BBC 6Music

"Lush"
-  John Kennedy  Radio X

Test Card Girl is a solo project by new Manchester indie singer-songwriter Catherine Burgis. Having grown increasingly frustrated with an admin-based existence, and wishing to conquer a life-long fear of singing in public, Catherine embarked on a country-wide tour as a musical comedian in 2018 complete with novelty miniature keyboard. Winning awards (North West Comedian of the Year, Frog and Bucket 2018, Funny Women Semi-Finalist 2019, Beat the Gong Winner, The Arc, Stockton 2019) and growing in confidence as a singer, she performed her first (and last) gig as solo synth-folk artist Test Card Girl in February 2020, with all subsequent gigs immediately being cancelled due to the dawning of a global pandemic.
 
With live performance not possible, Catherine turned her attention to recording and released her first single 'Holds Me Down' in 2020. The single was picked up by BBC 6Music, Radio X, Absolute Radio and XS Manchester and she was named Steve Lamacq's BBC 6 Music 'One to Watch' in January 2021. Catherine was awarded an Arts Council grant to make a further 3 singles in 2021 and is currently working on her debut EP 'Fly' with producer Seadna McPhail at Airtight Studios, Manchester.  The EP is due for release in Spring 2022 and will feature guest performances from drummer Andy Hargreaves (I Am Kloot) and bass player Nathan Sudders (Miles Kane, Guy Garvey, Nadine Shah). Test Card Girl's music ranges from lo-fi bedroom pop to simple indiefolk songs, influenced in equal parts by the standard-issue musical taste of a 90's Manchester teenager; an obsession with the MIDI sounds of childhood keyboards past and finger-picking folk songs of old. In January 2022 Catherine was announced as one of 10 Manchester International Festival MIF Sounds artists​ and will be performing live throughout 2022 (dates TBC).

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