[Fiona Sally Miller] has a poignantly effortless approach to songwriting, combined with a delivery best suited to such a situation. Andy Betts - NARC Magazine
"They're just little stories and they just happen" Fiona Sally Miller says of her songs.
"Generally, I don't feel very good at expressing myself … I stumble a lot over words and can be painfully honest and hurt people … but songs just occur."
Originally from Horsham in Sussex, Fiona's musical influences started with her mother. "She was a nursery teacher who made up songs for kids, and she had a massive Tamla Motown collection".
Although she had saxophone and clarinet lessons as a child, it was only when she started to steal her brother's guitar in order to put her poems to music that Fiona felt she'd found a voice.
"Indie happened in my early teens" she remembers, "but it sort of passed me by. Ocean Colour Scene and Northern Uproar … awful music!" she splutters.
Her songwriting got another boost when she bought the sheet music for Radiohead's Pablo Honey and found herself unable to play it. Writing her own material was much easier.
A brief dalliance with design at Falmouth College of Art failed to work out, and for a couple of years she drifted through Europe, working in ski resorts, youth hostels and hotels, with a notebook and pencil, and "just writing".
Perhaps this gives Fiona Sally Miller her sense of geography. Her need for place. "When I play a song" she muses "I have to locate it somewhere. I write quickly in images Otherwise I can't play it very well."
Why does she sing? "I don't think I have a choice to be honest" she answers. "Without sounding pretentious, singing and writing songs sort of takes over".
Her first album will feature more textured settings of her well-received demos. There are also a number of new songs.
While up to now she has worked primarily with guitar and piano, her "music is not instrument specific. I'd like to work with cellos and ukuleles or whatever. And the more I think about it the more I want textures".
Her first album, Out of the woods and into the trees, is due in 2009, and a limited and beautifully packaged seven-inch vinyl single will be available later this year.
In the meantime, do yourself a favour and catch Fiona Sally Miller live.
A BRAND NEW VIDEO!
Were delighted to present the brand new video for Fiona’s track ‘Im Gonna Miss Your Smiling At Me Like That’. Directed by video maverick Mat Fleming, it’s cross processed super 8 (64t). That’s reversal (slide) film developed as negative which gives it a delicious grainy quality.
Please check out www.fionasallymiller.com for more, or let us know what you think by leaving us a comment below.
hullo fsm i'm coming to see you tonight and i'm also the first person to hereby comment which is deeply exciting... bringing cranleigh fc hooligan's club to the riot x x x x
