Sometimes a song is more than just a song. Sometimes a song can be a mirror to the world, or to the hidden selves we are or want to be. 

Lily Kershaw's debut album, Midnight In The Garden, explores emotional landscapes and heart clutching melodies that say the unsaid things we struggle to say ourselves. The album takes root in the titans of folk music…those classic songsmiths who weave tapestries of sound with fingerpicking and tales of often unspoken truths. 

In song, Kershaw is an old soul, but in person, she's a kinetic 22 year-old, a "nearly life-long Los Angeleno," she says. She's ebullient and lively, quick with a joke and an infectious smile. Raised adjacent to the Hollywood machine, Kershaw offers an antidote to the long-mythologized Los Angeles glitz; she's authentic, and honest, self-effacing and, above all, she is herself. She may not tell you this, but she's conduit, a nexus of the experiences of the world around her. She feels the weight of the world, she says, but through song, she wears it as an emblem of who she is. Like the day-glow dreams of Los Angeles noir, she reveals the darkness that coexists with sunshine. 

"It's all about death," she laughs, while describing her music. "I’d love to say most of my music isn't about death or heartbreak but, well, it is."

It comes as no surprise then, that in 2012, her single "As It Seems" provided the backdrop to the long-running CBS drama series, Criminal Minds. Her voice lilts and flows, as the guitar leans gently into minor keys, and she sings: 

Well I knew what I didn't want to know, 
and I saw where I didn't want to go, 
So I took the path less travelled on, 
And I’ll let my stories be whispered when I'm gone. 

The song caught fire, broadcast around the world. "People wrote to me saying, 'This is the song I want to play at my funeral,' it was unsettling at first," she says, "but it felt good to know that my song connects with people." 

Almost a year later, her song "Ashes Like Snow" appeared on the show with similar effect, wrapping audiences up in the meandering piano and her skyward arcing vocals. It was a song born from serendipity, nearly ten years in the making. "One day when I was at my parents house," she says "I found this poem that I had written right at the time of the September 11 attacks, when I was just a young kid. I took some of those words and added the perspective from where we are today, in the long aftermath of war and struggle, looking back." 

Kershaw is a compulsive creator, she jots down melodies and lyrics as she's wandering through her days. She sings melodies into her phone while sitting in traffic or secretly hums a tune into a voice recorder while out at shows, capturing any inspiration that she can channel back into her music. Her debut layers lush instrumentation over the stark skeleton of her sketches, sauntering between swaying somberness and playful uplifting anthems. Like the subtle beauty of a black rose, Kershaw's music shores melancholy with a sense of hope and catharsis. And like she sings, her stories -- her songs -- are whispers or echoes, messages in bottles, cast out into the world. 

Midnight In The Garden is set for release in September 2013 via Nettwerk Records. 

A great song should lift your heart, warm the soul, and make you feel good.

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London three-piece SYKES make alternative electro-pop championed by Indie Shuffle, NME, Q Magazine and now play-listed at BBC Radio 1. Their blend of nostalgic synth lines and soaring melodies have seen them headline notable London venues, perform on the European Vans Warped Tour and support Charli XCX, Bleachers and Kodaline.

General Manager: 
hello@5bam.com
Bookings: 
mel@xraytouring.com 

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram -
@sykesband

www.facebook.com/sykesmusic

'Big Hurt Boy' is out now: https://linktr.ee/donovanwoods

Donovan Woods was in on the joke when he named his latest release. Riffing on a lyric from a Martin Simpson song (“Never Any Good”), Big Hurt Boy is a six-song exploration of how our failures — and our fixations on them — not only shape but enlighten us.

“I write about them again and again, just hoping people will still be interested,” the acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter says. “So the title is poking fun of myself, that I’m theoretically this big sad guy who keeps getting dumped and writing fucking songs about it.”

Or you could think of it this way: Woods’ deep curiosity about the human condition is why we so clearly hear our own stories in his. The details differ, the characters change, but at their core, Donovan Woods songs are for and about everyone.

That’s particularly apparent on his new EP, which will be released March 18, 2022. Trying to capture more of an “undone” quality, Woods wanted his latest songs to “get back to the feeling that my early recordings had.” You hear that in the spare, subtle ache of “No Time Soon,” an acoustic monologue Woods describes as “the story of my whole life.”

“These are smaller, less polished songs than the ones I’ve been putting out recently,” says Woods, winner of the 2019 Juno Award for contemporary roots album (for Both Ways) and whose global streams have surpassed 210 million.

Still, Big Hurt Boy brims with some of the luminous production touches Woods has been adding to this repertoire lately. He wrote the album opener, “I Won’t Mention It Again,” on banjo, which fades into a spectral backdrop of electronic textures and layers of lush harmonies. 

A co-write with Peter Groenwald, “Leave When You Go” simmers with an R&B vibe backed by sensuous vocals from indie-pop artist Ralph. “A Picture of Us Smiling at a Party Five Years Ago,” which reunites Woods with Katie Pruitt (who co-wrote and sang on Woods’ “She Waits for Me to Come Back Down”), untangles how our memories are often preserved by photos. “It’s about nostalgia, which is just a memory that doesn’t have any of the stress or dread or anxiety that the real-time experience had,” Woods says.

“I Hope You Change Your Mind,” co-written with David Hodges, is such an understated tearjerker that you don’t even realize the relationship is over until the last line. “That song is about that back-end portion of a relationship when everyone knows the score but no one wants to say it,” Woods says. “It’s loving someone so much that you’re not sure how to be mad at them, so you twist yourself into knots.” 

Big Hurt Boy is the follow-up to 2020’s Without People, Woods’ celebrated album he made in isolation at the height of the pandemic. Whereas those songs were recorded in a makeshift studio at his Toronto home, with collaborators working remotely, his latest release harnesses the electricity of a roomful of musicians laying down tracks live in the studio, a first for Woods.

As an in-demand songwriter whose work has been recorded by the likes of Tim McGraw (“Portland, Maine”) and Lady A’s Charles Kelley (“Leaving Nashville”), Woods has been venturing beyond the singer-songwriter scene where he first cut his teeth. Equally at home in folk and country, he has worked with songwriters such as Tom Douglas, Lori McKenna, Brandy Clark, Ashley Monroe, Dustin Christensen, Femke Weidema, Steve Robson, and Ed Robertson (Barenaked Ladies).

Each of these collaborations has highlighted a budding truth about Woods: As respected as he is as a solo artist, he’s evolving and upending our expectations of how his music sounds. His songs have grown more dimensional, emboldened by new sonic landscapes, reminding us that classic songwriting transcends genre.

Singer/musician type now living in NY, hailing from London (UK).

Contact
Band // info@paulcookchronicles.com
Management // info@judestreet.com

"Unstoppable" - BBC Introducing 
"The audience were mesmerised" - Cornwall Folk Festival 
"Expect to hear more from them" - Geoff Lakeman
"An emerging folk act that certainly have our attention" - Ear To The Ground Music

“Angelic, atmospheric, relaxing and inspiring”
-Ear to the Ground Music

Cornwall based indie duo, Our Atlantic Roots (Mac and Laura Johnston), bring an uplifting blend of American & British alt-folk, with harmonies that are rich, dynamic and unite beautifully. Mac’s guitar playing is full of character and accompanies lyrics that are both poetic and direct, hopeful and authentic. The married duo present a blend of the cultures they are individually from, by merging various genres characterized by their country and folk roots. Their popular 2019 release ‘Little Bird’ now has well over a million streams on Spotify alone and has helped build a growing fan base throughout the U.K. and beyond! Our Atlantic Roots are releasing a brand new EP in October 2022 🎶✨👏🏻

Doesn't matter if she's analog or digital

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