"the colours of another sky"

"MEXICO" - The Staves

Jessica, Camilla and Emily Stavely-Taylor are three sisters from Watford, formed in 2010. They work with Communion Records and ended last year wrapping up a tour with Bon Iver, as well as releasing their debut album.

This is their single "Mexico", wistful and longing for both proximity and distance. Their vocals brush lightly over a simple pattern plucked on an acoustic guitar, lyrics that whisper of the past and the future, "Lover, you may cause me tears". It is bittersweet and lovely, so minimal that it sounds almost just casually sung beside a campfire, with only gentle percussion weaved in, every instrument in the song second nature to their voices.

There is this sense of togetherness and perfect precision you hear when families sing together in flawless harmony, and that isn't missing in the sisters' music; their voices run together perfectly, like streams into a river into an ocean.

Their first album is "Dead & Born & Grown", and was released last year, and you can find more of them here.

BRITs 2013

Hi Internet,

It is a Wednesday. I have wine. And the BRIT awards are on tonight!
















Pop music and the way the media represents it are things that are both interesting and completely hilarious to me. As I am sat home doing nothing and will be "liveblogging" the BRIT awards as it happens on our TV. If for whatever reason that is something you'd enjoy, join me here at 8 when all of the action kicks off and we can discuss everything as it happens, make sarcastic jokes about Coldplay and cry at Adele together.

I'm not exactly sure how this is going to work from a technical perspective but we'll work it out!

Fancy red carpet coverage starts at 7pm on ITV2 I believe, then the show itself will be on ITV at eight o clock. See you all then!

hashtaglizziebrits2013

I'm kidding, don't do that.

Throughout the night, there willl be typos, there will be mistakes, and feel free to join in and comment @lizzie_hudson!
___

8pm - Muse open with "Supremacy", first track on their newest album "The 2nd Law". This is beautiful, explosive and fantastic and loud, an orchestra of around two hundred I believe, visually beautiful and fairytale Gothic as it is audibly. Tonight, they're nominated for Best British Group and Best British Live Act.

8:08 - James Cordon has made his necessary interrupting-Adele joke.

8:09 - Mumford and Sons. It's unfair to make unbiased comments because I've followed this band for two years and just love them incredibly. They're nominated for best British Band, Best British Live Act and Best Album this year and they just deserve them so so so much.

08:11 - Best British Female. My guess for this was Emili Sande but I'm really routing for Bat For Lashes, "The Haunted Man" is just a wonderful album. - Emili Sande! I'm happy about this, she was a massive part of the UK music scene in 2012 and has released some great singles. As long as we don't have to listen to another acoustic version of "Read All About It" with just a piano.

08:20 Robbie Williams performs "Candy". This song is kind of my guilty pleasure, it's just ridiculous and catchy and unashamed pop music, even if the screen is actively giving me a headache. He's nominated for Best Single later on.

Cordon interrupting Adele jokes count - II

08:24 Best British Group. As I said before, hoping for Mumford and Sons but I adore Alt-J, who recently won a Mercury, and The XX and Muse are great. Mumford and Sons! No words, they rock. 10 points for Marcus for pretending to be starstruck by One Direction.

08:28 Best British Breakthrough Act. I voted for Ben Howard to win this, but I think it might be Jake Bugg or Rita Ora? We shall see. I don't know how I feel about Jessie Ware, and wasn't really aware of her existence until a few weeks ago. BEN HOWARD. Big, big smiles and cheers over here right now. "I'm not very good at dancing"- that's probably a lie.

08:38 Justin Timberlake performs new single "Mirrors". This is kind of embarrassing but I don't really... have an opinion of Justin Timberlake? I wasn't a huge fan of him when he was first around, but the verse of this does sounds really similar to "Cry Me A River".

08:45 Paloma Faith's "Fall From Grace" - What I've heard of this album surprised me with how much I liked it, it's much more mature than the last one and her voice is gorgeous.

08: 46 Best British Male Probably predictably, I'm really hoping for Ben Howard for this. Yaaaaaay. He's just fantastic, I saw him in Manchester last year and he's wonderful. I think he's performing later on.

08:49 - Critic's Choice - Tom O'Dell, who to be honest I know nothing about except his single which I heard on the radio this morning, and sounds great. Slightly irritating how James Cordon is making this about Emili Sande, though, as great as she is.

Sharon Osbourne is incredibly annoying.

08:56 International Female Solo Artist I think Taylor Swift has this in the bag, but really hoping Cat Power will win, her 2012 album "Sun" is really great. Lana Del Rey! I don't really know how to feel about her, I thought "Video Games" was fantastic but the album as a whole kind of disappointing after all of the uproar, although "Born To Die" was another lovely single.

09:00 One Direction cover "One Way or Another". It's for Comic Relief so okay then.

09:05 Best British Live Act I feel like I can't judge this as I haven't seen them all, except if Mumford and Sons only win one award I want it to be this one, playing live is everything they are and that they put care into. Coldplay and the Vaccines are great, as are Muse and of course the Rolling Stones, though. Coldplay! I really like them but this award was a no-brainer for me - Mumford's studio recordings are so close to their live show, this award belongs to them. Carey Mulligan and I just pulled the same face of complete disappointment. But I want to write about Coldplay without thinking who didn't win. Footage I've seen of their "Mylo Xyloto" tour has been brilliant, and "Charlie Brown" in particular a big part of my life.

09:14 Best British Single I'm hoping for "Spectrum" - Florence and the Machine to win this category, I'm thinking maybe "Skyfall" will win but both of the Emili Sande songs nominated are lovely. "Skyfall" wins, I loved this - just a perfect, Bassey-esque Bond theme.

Cordon interrupting Adele jokes count - IIII

09:18 Taylor Swift performs possibly the weirdest song she's ever released, "I Knew You Were Trouble". I feel like Taylor Swift's personal life is in the press so much that the media forgets pay attention to what she's writing instead of what she's writing about. It's hard not to miss a time when she was just a girl with a guitar, though, instead of all this. Also James Cordon will make jokes about Harry Styles in a while, promise.

Un BRITs related - Moving on to drinking Bloody Mary, now. I think it's possible Robbie has been also.

09:24 International Group The Black Keys will probably win this, who are great, but as frowned-upon as it is I really am hoping for The Script to win. They've had a change of direction but remain a great band. I love the Killers too, "Battle Born" is a brilliant album. The Black Keys: I'm glad a band that are not already so successful won the award. They are so deserving

09:30 Ben Howard performing "Only Love", sounding beautiful, as is beautiful harmonies from cellist India Bourne. This is so minimal, considering his stage show at times can be big and loud with a full band and percussion, and it could have been easy to compete but this is perfect, no gimmicks (ignoring the falling sugar stealers). Favourite performance so far, hands down.

09:35 Alt-J are so fantastic, and I still think they're to a point underrated because these are the first band of this undefinable sub-pop genre that have gained so much attention. "An Awesome Wave" is such a unique album.

09:37 Best International Male My heart is split between Gotye and Michael Buble - "Somebody That I Used to Know" was a huge part of last year and well, Buble, but predict Frank Ocean who has been winning everything recently. Ah, Frank Ocean. Confession: I haven't even heard "Channel Orange" in full yet. But he seems impossibly cool.

09:49 Mumford and Sons perform "I Will Wait" - I've rattled on about them all evening but they're just a perfect, perfect band. Their live performance is flawless (although I feel like I can't fangirl too much or it'll just be awkward when Marcus and I are married...) and they are incredible, play with the same passion and energy at an awards' show or arena gig as they would in a bar, their studio, you can just tell they adore what they do. Going to say no more and just listen.

09:55 Best British Album Hoping for "Babel", obviously, though Alt-J and Emili Sande both released great albums and there were some good singles from Paloma Faith's new one. Congratulations to Emili Sande, she's excellent, "Next To Me" is excellent as is "Read All About It", and her beautiful rendition of "Abide With Me" during the Olympics.

09:58 Global Success Award I try to just quietly not have an opinion of One Direction because I don't listen to them, but some people do and they make them happy and that's okay. But beating Adele and Mumford. I may have just loudly cried out "For fuck's sake!" in my parents' living room.

10:09 Emili Sande performs her new single "Clown". After everything said, her voice is just excellent. Oh, it's a medley! "Next To Me" is great too. This lady has so much soul. Don't worry, guys, acoustic "Read All About It" might still be on the cards, we haven't heard it on a TV show in at least a week. Oh ok, no. Beautiful performance, though.

I don't really have anything to say in conclusion but this has been sufficiently exciting and hilarious! Thank you for sticking around and same again next year! Obviously have to rush off to afterparties now, if by afterparties we mean drink wine by myself. hope you're all doing well.

Lizzie xx

"our love was made for movie screens"

"ALL I WANT" - Kodaline

Kodaline are from Dublin, currently unsigned and previously made music under the name 21 Demands. "All I Want" is their most recent single, released in late 2012, the first from an upcoming album.

This is one of those songs that fills a gap you didn't know existed. Something that could be just one more break-up ballad, another to the list of thousands of love songs that have been written, it's not. It's special because it is itself. Lyrically, it is simply leaking straight from the heart sorrow and honest desperation.

This isn't the music video for, "All I Want", but that too is just as creative and wonderful. This performance is just four guys, in a big empty room, filling it with the same amount of bursting noise and atmosphere as an entire orchestra, just as acoustic music should be equally able to. The swinging light bulbs and perfect timing of everything make it as visually stunning as it is to the ear, that moment around 3:20 where everything just explodes, stomping feet and beautifully powerful voices shining as bright as the lights.

Bear's Den - Tuesday 12th February 2013 - The Ruby Lounge

Agape - a.ga.pe - Greek noun, one of the "four loves", a sacrificial love felt for one's children, spouse, siblings. A love that is divine and unconditional.

Bear's Den are Andrew Davie, Kev Jones and Joey Haynes: I've written about this band a few times here before, I've listened to "Pompeii" lots over the last few months and can't quite remember where I found it. With the upcoming release of their EP "Agape", I've started to listen to them more and more and went to see them play at The Ruby Lounge in Manchester this week.

Support came in the form of Honey Feet, a band I think are Northern Irish made up of the odd and surprisingly perfect combination of a vocalist/flautist, guitarist and saxophone player. Their music they admitted was "miserable" except it's great, seeming to combine Gaelic folk with jazz and choral blues, elements of joy in there, despite finishing with a song about cannibalism. Joe Banfi followed, a beautiful guitarist similar in style to Laura Marling and Ben Howard, his voice is so strange and the addition of slight reverb effects on the microphone gave it an almost eerie level of distance and grace. He played a quieter, softer cover of Nirvana's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", and original songs, including lovely "Olive Tree" and "Nomads", from a recent EP of his, which is dark and ghostly as it is gorgeous.

Bear's Den took to the stage, opening with "Agape", the lively and reminiscent title track from their newest EP, full of life and heart. Like so many folk-rock bands, blossoming out of this fast developing genre,  Bear's Den are a whole when they play; they're just perfectly in time and in sync, make a lot of eye contact, and just seem to know these songs and each other in and out. It's something you notice in Noah and the Whale, in Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit, and the Mumfords of course, that sense of connection through music.

They are, most of the time, a rhythm guitarist who is also on vocals. Their drummer is also their bass player, sometimes the two at once, and their lead guitarist switches between this and banjo, all of this making extraordinary amounts of noise and atmosphere for three people.

"Isaac", from their new EP, is completely beautiful, a message of devotion. "A father's love must be earned" - it's full of uncertainty as much as it is full of love. Their music is foot-stomping, heart-warming folk, their lyrics rich and riddled with tales. "A Year Ago Today" talks of standing outside a courtroom beside someone, a song about family and pride.

"Pompeii" is about the loss of a family member, talking of both the dark and the light sides of grief. The band seemed genuinely surprised when they announced they were about to play "Pompeii", and the crowd cheered, saying it was so strange to them that people know these songs. Some songs are just meant to be heard and played in a crowd, however big or small as long as people are all feeling it at once, and it was incredible to be a part of that in this little bar, everyone singing like a mantra;

"Don't cry, hold your head up high,
She would want you to, she would want you to."

Bear's Den's EP "Agape" is released this March. There's still dates left for them to play on their UK tour and they're headed to the States to support Mumford and Sons this summer, more information avaliable from their Twitter.

J'ai perdu ma voix, aussi.

For those of you who don't know, I am a street performer. (yes, they don't, in fact, pay me to spend this much time on the Internet). It started out something I did occasionally from the age of thirteen, nowadays I take my guitar to Manchester or Chester and sing a couple of days every week and I guess it's my... job? That word seems somewhat of a hyperbole. But I do it on a regular basis, make around the same money from it as I would waitressing or working in a shop or something (I do sometimes think I'd rather do those things, but to be honest, there's so few vacancies around that I don't have a choice, really.)

Between yesterday evening and this morning, I've caught layrngitis and can't sing. My throat is incredibly sore. Talking hurts, swallowing hurts. I can't smoke, I can't sing. Acute laryngitis isn't serious or anything, it's currently being drowned out with honey and whiskey and lemon, and strepsils and strepsils and strepsils, but it means I can't go out and play music until next Friday at best, and I'm going to run out of money, and this causes lots of problems. I just have to wait it out, it's not like I can just get a shot of steroids.

For some of the dates on her European tour, Amanda Palmer lost her voice. She took is as opportunity  played a show in Paris where, karaoke style, she invited fans upon stage to sing each song, crowd-sourced her own voice as a replacement. Lyric signs were held up, the crowd sang along. This is incredible, inspiring, but I don't think it would work when I'm stood outside a betting shop or by a riverside cafe playing Laura Marling covers.



Just the phrase "I've lost my voice" seems kind of weird to me because it makes me feel like it's a thing. "Vocal cord inflammation" sounds like a fire or a pain but the whole "lost voice" way of putting it is different. I think it's because of The Little Mermaid I picture it this way. I can't even really remember how Ariel "gave" her voice to Ursula but I have a vague memory of seeing some sort of sparkly, misty aura being sucked out of her and put in some sort of box, is that what happens? Maybe I'm thinking of a different movie.

Either way, it's strange to imagine a voice as something you can lose but that whole imagery has made me feel like my voice isn't in me, not right now. Physically, when I talk and the way my chest and throat feel, it doesn't feel like I'm capable of singing or talking at normal volume or ever really was, so it must be outside of my body. Like maybe my voice is just floating around my head in the air and if I grab it with my hands or breathe in really sharply and suddenly I will "have" it again.

I got pretty angry at myself about the money thing, because it's my fault I'm not able to go out and work this weekend, because the voice is such a fleeting and fragile thing to depend on, I could get a cold any time, this could happen any time. But then thinking about it, any kind of employment is just selling bits of our bodies, in a sense we are all prostitutes. People that work in factories sell the use of their hands. People in office jobs sell the use of their minds. People are paid to go on errands, to lift and carry and transport, for the use of their feet or their strength or their driving skills. And we're industries and products within ourselves and that's so weird.

I've consequently been stuck inside going crazy. That probably explains some of this.

I hope you're doing well.

Lizzie x

Recommendations: January 2013

As usual: very, very late. Let's go.

"Sans Fousils, Ni Souliers, a Paris" - Martha Wainwright
You've probably heard of one incredibly talented Wainwright or another, be it this lady or her brothers Landon or Rufus. This album is her live renditions of some of Edith Piaf's works, highlights being beautiful covers of nostalgic and incidental "La Foule" and the famous "Adieu, Mon Coeur".

"Hounds of Love" - Kate Bush
Embarrassingly, I didn't actually own a copy of this album until a couple of weeks ago. I'm not brave enough to write a full blog post review of it, but "Hounds of Love" is just extraordinary and unique, I listen to it about every day at the moment. From the classics, heartbreakingly sorrowful "Running Up That Hill" and title track "Hounds of Love" to some others I hadn't heard before, ghostly "Under Ice" and the explosive "Waking The Witch" it's all so passionate and dark.

Bear's Den
Bear's Den stem from Communion Records, their lead singer is Andrew Davie of ex-Cherbourg fame and their EP "Agape" is due for release in March, their folk-rock is nostalgic and inclusive and just beautiful. I wrote about their song "Pompeii" here a while ago. They're about to embark on their first headline tour in the UK, and are playing shows with Mumford and Sons this summer in Ontario, Ohio, Oklahoma and Florida in the summer, which you can find dates for on their website.

"A Streetcat Named Bob" - James Bowen
This is a book and not music, but it is extraordinary. James Bowen was living off of benefits, a recovering addict and most of all incredibly lonely, when he met a street cat who he took in (or took him in), and changed his life completely. A story of three things I love very much: busking, cats, and the city of London. I believe they're doing a book tour currently.