"Before I Sleep" - Bo Bruce

Bo Bruce is someone I've written about here a lot; a wonderful singer-songwriter who was ready to give up on the career she'd worked for for years before finding fame through the unexpected route of BBC's The Voice this time last year. She's the best thing to come out of a TV talent show in well, ever, (including the dancing dog on Britain's Got Talent) and I was lucky enough to hear the album I'd so eagerly anticipated for the first time at a listening party in London at the end of last month.

It's been the perfect soundtrack to these last few weeks, and I can just tell already that it's one of those records I'll keep with me for a long time.

"Landslide" is just the perfect opening track, sun-rising from a gentle hum to the bleeding magic of the chorus, a song about the frustration of waiting for the right time. It leads into "Save Me", the first single Bruce released from this album; a gorgeous infusion of the electronic and the organic. Its lyrics are both a cry for help, and accepting of the need for her own independence.

"Alive" was co-written with The Script's Danny O'Donoghue and produced by Henry Binns, an energetic ballad with the most beautiful strings. It's powerfully uplifting; it takes the imagery of a car crash and a storm to illustrate the urgency of love. With has a chorus that sounds in a lot of ways like a Script song, it incorporates the chilled electronia of Zero7 music, a combination that oddly enough sounds brilliant, and be sure to catch the incredibly moving video for this one which is out tomorrow.

"Speed The Fire" features Johnny McDaid's vocals and is another than excels in its use of vivid imagery; a burning house, burning memories and thoughts. Gita Langley's strings, again, add the heart to this song, its choruses rage from the full glow of a choir to more minimal ones, the haunting strength of Bruce's voice alone is a candle in the dark.

The record takes a darker turn as "Telescope" clicks in, very different to the others. It's slow and cool, yet deeply angry, Bo's voice in multiple layers whirring around the ears; a song about the contrast between loving someone and being unable to see the bad in them. It's followed by "Ghost Town", which is eerie and soft, whispers about until that moment when the drums kick in and everything explodes.

"On The Wire" is, I guess, the closest this album has to a big dance track, the significance of drums giving it a feel that's almost tribal, reminiscent of Kate Bush or more recently, Florence. "Holding The Light" draws a great contrast from this, minimal and stripped back to simply an acoustic guitar, the way it was written.

"Lightkeeper" is just a perfect demonstration of the greatest kind of pain turned into the greatest beauty, through it becoming art. It's a comfort song, a hymn. Lyrically it is so powerful - taking something ugly and casting a spell over it with the metaphor of "The heart of their machines", a strong chorus and ghostly faint backing vocals. It follows with "The Fall", where the dynamics of her gorgeous vocals just shine.

There's a bout of faith and positivity with "The Hands I Hold", a co-write with Sia, one of the most hopeful songs about love and friendship I've heard in a long time. "Echoes" was originally much more of a pop song, but its production was stripped back to leave the gorgeously melancholy track that it is. I think "Golden" may be the most perfectly produced track on the record, courtesy of James Flannigan (from The Stiff Dylans!), giving it the odd effect of being joyfully uplifting as much as it's a heartbreaker.

It closes with "How We're Made", the perfect illustration of that struggle to articulate a goodbye; facing loss and facing life. It is beautifully intense, Johnny McDaid's incredible production is reminiscent ticking clock and whirring, spinning instrumental that sounds like machines and magic spells. Of all the ways, the poetic and the lovely, that feeling of loss is depicted through on this record, the most touching and raw lyric of them all is simply
"I just miss you."

This album exceeded my expectations so much; it isn't just the quick-release that Bruce could easily have ejected to get in the charts straight after The Voice, or a vehicle for nothing but her vocals; it's beautifully produced, eloquently written - you can just tell from listening that this record was years in the making, not just the nine months that it took to produce.

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
- Robert Frost


Buy Before I Sleep // See Bo on tour

Bo Bruce at Neil McCormick's Moxafrica Fundraiser - Wednesday 6th March, 2013 - Islington Assembely Rooms, London

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Bo Bruce is someone I've written about a lot on here, but for those of you who don't know, she came in second place on The Voice UK last year. Since, she's broken away from the path of a typical reality TV show runner-up, signing to Mercury and working with the likes of Snow Patrol, Joel Pott and Danny O'Donoghue on new album "Before I Sleep".

This week, I went to London to see her perform at Moxafrica, a fundraiser gig for tuberculosis cures, held by the Telegraph's music critic Neil McCormick. She played alongside acts such as David Gray, The Magic Numbers, and Gabriella Cilmi.

Bo's performance followed those by country band Buckshot Soup and one from McCormick himself, her drifting onto the stage, adorned with trademark bangles and rings. She opened with "Save Me", and the upcoming first single from her new album. It's a heartbreak song, tonight's acoustic performance giving more focus on her voice, soaring falsetto notes, it glitters with Sinead O'Connor-esque lilts and glottal strokes.

Viewers of The Voice UK will remember Bo for her cover of Coldplay's "Charlie Brown", that iconic moment of her twirling in a white dress, in a television studio lit up with the colours of the rainbow, "Glowing in the dark". The original arrangement is colourful and explosive, echoing the tones of "Mylo Xyloto", all keyboards and bouncing reverb. But tonight's rendition was just a piano and acoustic guitar, softer, whispers of what it was. A song like this, about being high, and feeling liberated, produced with layers of sonic joy and lyrics of heartfelt desperation can spin off into so many different directions, and the hint of sorrow gives it another kind of beauty.

"The Fall" is about losing someone, something huge and life changing that will weave its way through the undertones of meaning and honesty in every song on "Before I Sleep". But it means to you what it will: a song about loss, and ultimately survival. I've been lucky enough to witness two performances of this song now: once in a small venue, intimate and full of fans, once in a hall of unknowing strangers who'd come out to raise money for tuberculosis by buying expensive drinks. The effect of stunned silence has been almost the same each time.

The Coronas Danny O'Reilly, and violinist Gita Langley (who recently played with Muse, opening the BRIT Awards) were welcomed to the stage for the final song, "Speed the Fire", another from the album. It's lyrics are nostalgic and hold the bittersweet imagery of everything going up in flames.

"Before I Sleep" is due out on April 29th, avaliable to preorder here.

* Image belonging to Lisa

"my love is in the water"

I don't really know how to begin to tell you about Bo.

You might remember, I went to see her play over the summer, in a tiny venue in Islington, and it was just one of the most magical nights I've experienced. It sort of changed my life. That sounds very teenage girlish, very melodramatic, but it did. I still think about it every single day. Bo Bruce is not the typical contestant that emerges from reality TV contests. She writes from the heart, beautifully and honestly. This is not demonstrated more than in "The Fall", a collaboration with Johnny McDaid, which she released today. It is here.



"THE FALL" - Bo Bruce

It's gorgeous, and I was so pleased to see that the studio version of the song isn't much more than the simple piano arrangement it carried when I first heard her play it. Filmed in the woods in Wiltshire, where she grew up, everything about this song is personal, honest and so incredibly brave, and visually, this music video is stunning, the costumes, the forest and the fire are nothing over-clichéd. Her voice, the way she looks and the way she puts across her thoughts into music are beautiful in all ways.

I am so sorry for the lack of eloquence today.

Bo's album is due out early next year and wrapping up recording at the moment. She is working with heroes and friends old and new, including Danny O'Donoghue, Joel Pott, Johnny McDaid, Henry Binns and many more.

And for now, "The Fall" is avaliable for free download, for limited time, here.

Bo Bruce - Upstairs at The Garage, Islington - Thursday 16th August 2012
Small Warm Up Gig for V-Festival

The first thing you need to know about Bo is that if you're from the UK, you're likely to know her as the girl who came as runner-up on a TV talent show called The Voice, but she's not at all the commercialised sell-out we've come to expect from these things. Bo has been, and will be, writing beautiful songs for years. Her 2010 EP "Search The Night" recently reached #2 on iTunes, showing that she's already developed a fanbase that love her for the art she makes, not just because of hearing her sing some albeit brilliant cover songs on TV.

The Garage is a really small venue in Islington, its upstairs room last night was filled with candles. I arrived stupidly early, having dragged my French exchange sister on a train journey from Cheshire to London and found a place at the very front, about two metres from where the mic stand was poised, deciding to sit on the floor cross-legged and see if the people in the front row did it and everyone else would follow, something I've always wanted to try, and in a sense it almost worked.

Until the support act, Ben Montague, took to the stage, in which the small crowd of around 100 filling up the room. He makes what I would say is folk-pop music, and sang love songs alone with another acoustic guitar player, instead of the full band he normally plays with, but his more stripped back versions of songs had no trouble filling the room. At one point he actually asked the sound guy to turn down the volume, which someone commented was probably the first time a musician's done that on stage. He played brilliantly, the only fuck-up being when he thanked "Jo... wait, Bo!" for having him, and managed to have the crowd singing along during one song.. He's @ben_montague on Twitter, recently got playlisted by Radio 2 and you should definitely check him out.

A while past nine, it was announced that Bo was about to take to the stage and her band entered first: from what I recall a drummer, a guitarist and two keyboard players.* They played the instantly recognisable introduction to David Guetta's "Without You", which was Bo's audition song on The Voice, and she came on and started to sing.

Bo's voice, on stage, is one of the most beautiful and perfect I've ever heard. The only difference between her studio recordings and live performance is the lack of reverb. For those unfamiliar, Bo Bruce has the kind of breathy, "wispy" (a word my friend used to describe her, I quite like it) style of singing that's compared most often to Sinead O'Connor and Dolores O'Riordan from The Cranberries, using glottal strokes and mini-yodels, sliding into tiny gasps of falsetto at the end of a note.

Bo's second song was an original, the thoughtful and haunting "Behind the Gates", followed by "Fighting Arizona" which is also from Bo's EP "Search The Night", an offer of comfort and support to a friend stuck in the cycle of crime and drug addiction.

Then, she sang a gorgeous rendition of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill", this quiet and respectful three minutes of mutual audience understanding where there was no cheering, no singing along, but a kind of silence and communion.

"Black Ice" is beautiful, and admittedly I spent the entire time trying to watch what the keyboard player was doing as I've been sitting at the piano late at night attempting to scribble out sheet music for a whole week now. It's a song about a broken relationship, where Bo's gorgeous vocals soar in her upper range.

Bo announced her "last song" would be "Charlie Brown", and I almost feel ashamed about the fact that it was one of my favourite songs of the night (actually, it was fantastic) because it was a cover. But the Coldplay song suits her so perfectly and it was the point in the night where confidence that had been wavering at the start had truly soared. The room was full of dancing and smiling, I felt this growing lump in my throat because I can't help but say that when she sings "Charlie Brown" it sounds like rainbows. I'm sleep deprived, inarticulate and slightly crazy right now but it does, it sounds like rainbows.

After calls for an encore, she played an absolutely gorgeous new song called "The Fall", with just a piano, which I expect will be on her new album in October. In the area I was stood there were several people in tears.

After the show, Bo was nice enough to take the time to spend a few minutes with each and every person who waited behind and I think of all the musicians I've seen she might be the one that shows the most care and trust in her fans. She hugged and kissed everyone and was lovely to talk to and very grateful (I brought her some cookies).

Everything about her is original and a work of art - the way she sings, writes, looks and moves about the stage, and I really think there's going to be such a wide market for this girl.

One of the only criticisms I have about last night is how few original songs she played in comparison with covers (although I know doing this is what helped her success) and I have a theory she doesn't quite realise how many people have heard of and love the things she writes, too. Having said that, all three of the cover songs she sang last night were completely perfect.

Bo's career is really just beginning to blossom - she has an album release planned for the autumn, and a UK tour in the winter planned. Intimate, tiny gigs are my favourite and I really recommend you go see her whilst shows are still this small.

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*Please correct me if I got this wrong and you were there!