Ryley Walker

I wanted to introduce you all to a great singer songwriter, recently signed to Dead Oceans, Ryley Walker. 

Though Walker comes from Chicago, his music sounds very British folk inspired. His new album 'Primrose Green' is out this March. His debut album 'All Kinds Of You' was released in April last year, he has been compared to the likes of John Martyn and Nick Drake. He is a very skilled, fantastic guitar player, check out this amazing video of him playing the title track of his new album!

I will post a review of the album when it is released, Walker is touring the US at the moment but he also  plays 4 shows in the UK in April. Check out his tour dates and keep up to date with all things Ryley Walker on Facebook

Let me know what you all think!

Livvy x

COMPETITION CLOSING THIS WEEK | Win: A Performance at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall with Yamaha. LIPA + Paul Carrack‏

I've just found out about a great competition I had to tell you all about! 

CLOSING 10th JANUARY

Rimmers Music, Paul Carrack and The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) are teaming up for ‘Shine In The City’, a pioneering competition for Liverpool’s best young singer-songwriters. The winner will perform their winning original song alongside one of the UK's most popular and critically acclaimed singer songwriters, Paul Carrack at Liverpool's iconic Philharmonic Hall on January 17th.

Here come the entry details >>

Entrants simply need to upload their best original song to YouTube, and send it to Rimmers Music on Twitter, using #ShineInTheCity before 3pm on 10th January. Entries will be judged by an expert panel including Eddie Lundon, (China Crisis), Keith Mullin (The Farm), Grammy-winning (now Liverpool-based) producer Steve Levine and Gary Tate, Managing Director of Rimmers Music, the largest and most popular musical instrument retailer in the North West of England.

Gary comments, “Rimmers is passionate about live music and about the city of Liverpool, and we’re committed to helping emerging artists, many of whom struggle to get their material out to a big audience. ‘Shine In The City’ will benefit them enormously.  This is a great opportunity for singer-songwriters to reach new fans, and performing at a sell-out gig at the Philharmonic with Paul Carrack could lead to very powerful PR and recognition.”

In addition to the performance slot at the Philharmonic,  the winner and runners-up will receive vouchers for Yamaha musical instruments.

Terms and conditions can be seen here:  http://www.rimmersmusic.co.uk/blog/2014/11/shine-in-the-city/

A video of Paul Carrack and Gary Tate describing ‘Shine In The City’ can be seen here: http://www.rimmersmusic.co.uk/blog/2014/11/shine-in-the-city/

This is a GREAT opportunity! If I was more prepared I would have entered myself!! 

GOOD LUCK!!

Livvy x

Uk blog sound 2015 winner!

And the winner is...

Låpsley !!!

Liverpool's Holly Lapsley Fletcher has been named the winner of the Blog Sound of 2015, a poll of 62 UK based music bloggers.

Låpsley was the clear winner of the poll with double the number of points than any other act on the 15 strong long list.

The producer and songwriter became an instant hit with music bloggers when she uploaded her song Station to Soundcloud towards the end of 2013. She subsequently signed to XL records in 2014 and releases her debut EP for the label on January 5th.

Låpsley continues a pattern of female vocal acts topping the poll. Previous winners are Banks, Marika Hackman, Haim and Friends.

The Blog Sound of Poll was set up as an experiment by the Breaking More Waves blog to see if music bloggers would choose different emerging acts to those on the ubiquitous BBC Sound of Poll. 

However as bloggers vote around the same time as those voting for the BBC poll vote there is no way of knowing if they will choose the same artists or different ones. This year 3 of the 15 acts on the BBC list were also on the Blog Sound list. (Låpsley, Shura and Soak).

You can hear more of Låpsley here

https://soundcloud.com/hollylapsleyfletcher

I myself am very proud that someone from Liverpool won! 

Thanks to Robin from Breaking More Waves

Happy new year from me! 

Livvy x

Christmas

(picture from Pinterest)

So, university has finished for Christmas (stupidly early might I add...) and I am now off for the holidays!! First term has been very tough, the commute to uni is absolutely fine as I hardly have any hours of teaching, but the work load got on top of me a little, it is a massive increase from second year, I always had friends tell me 'third year's your hardest' but no matter what people tell you, you can never be prepared for what will happen! I managed it though, I got my work in for the deadlines while enduring the dreaded winter lurgy- throat infection, sinus infection, ear infection and a whopper of a cough...!

January is a scary prospect, 5 months of university and then I'll (hopefully) be a BA Music graduate! What next? who knows, I'm just taking it one day at a time, I'm really the happiest I've been in a long time, so I'm going to enjoy seeing friends over the Christmas period and taking an exciting trip over New Year to one of our favourite cities with my favourite person! 

I've been hearing of loads of new exciting music recently, I will try to feature as many as I can on my blog over the coming weeks/months, and of course in January we will find out the winner of the Blog sound of 2015! James Bay has already won the Brits critics choice award, 2015 will definitely be his year!

I hope everybody has a wonderful Christmas time!

Livvy x

Results of the UK Blog Sound of 2015 poll

As you know, I was asked to take part in the UK Blog Sound of 2015 poll, an alternative to the BBC sound of 2015 poll. Here are the results in a long list, with the winner to be announced in January!! Here they are!

All We Are

Black Honey

Chloe Black

Coasts

Deers

Fickle Friends

Flyte

Halfrican

Honne

Lapsley

Prides

Shura

Soak

Sophie Jamieson

Tei Shi

Have a listen to all the acts here!