My first encounter with music came when I was about three years old. I remember hearing Strauss’s Blue Danube on our record player and it was overwhelmingly beautiful to me. So much so that I leapt around the room in joy. Many years later, I discovered – purely by accident – that I could improvise a melody with my voice over a set of chords. I didn’t have much of a voice, but it felt natural. And when I really loved the chords, or certain chord progressions, I felt it with such depth and intensity and joy. At the time I had this tiny, squeaky little voice, full of tension and hard to listen to. I went to a number of voice teachers and they all led me right up the garden path, saying things like “learn to project” and “pronounce the vowels”. My voice got worse. But eventually I found one singing teacher who took a radically different approach to all the others I’d come across. Mary-Jane De Havas had the most beautiful operatic voice and with her it was all about going inwards, finding that place within you, and being yourself. I ended up working with her for four years, during which time my voice moved down a few tones. More importantly, I was hooked into this journey –a journey that was never ending. My voice developed, changing constantly, evolving – it had its own moods and its own life. It was fascinating. But it was me. And such a relief from life in general. I went to Mary-Jane for around 4 years. The other thing that hooked me in was the intensity I felt when I heard certain melodies. It seemed to pierce me very deeply. I suppose that’s the same for most people. (Or is it? I don’t know). It has always been troublesome being a sensitive person. It can even be crippling. But I’ve realised that the way I hear a melody comes from that same over-sensitivity. And I guess that’s been my own way of turning a weakness into a strength. On the songwriting front, I became involved in various collaborations, but in the end I knew I had to do it alone. I wanted something so strongly but I couldn’t verbalise it or explain what it was. And I knew I needed my own equipment, finally ending up with an 8-track machine, a microphone, an effects unit and a keyboard. And something to put mixes on. With these fairly basic tools, I set about writing songs. Most of them I threw away: if I didn’t feel that intensity, they went. Among the ones that survived were The Only Fish, Coal-Marble-Stone, Be My Guru and Photographic. Years passed, the money dried up again and I got another job. By 2009, although I had never quite given up on music, I was worn down, tired, just surviving. But one evening in 2009, I played some of my songs to a friend. She was very encouraging and wondered why I wasn’t doing anything with them. Just that sense of someone noticing and the light came back on. Suddenly I wanted to try something new and the result was War With Love, which I suppose essentially represented a change of tactics. With its backwards vocals, War With Love was designed to attract people’s attention, to get noticed. Once I had it recorded, I uploaded it to my MySpace page. And, although I was just being more pro-active anyway, it did seem to get me noticed. Among those who noticed it was local radio presenter Chris Evans, after I sent him a friend request on MySpace. I think I found him initially through the page of our mutual friend Wim Oudijk. As it happened, that same day I was conducting an experiment by uploading one of my old songs – The Only Fish – and seeing how people would react to it. I got such a lovely warm response from my MySpace friends. And Chris commented: “Mm, more Fish please…” He also emailed me asking for more mp3s. I sent him War With Love and some songs I’d recorded a few years back with a band called WideShot. I knew these songs were good and they sounded professional and tightly recorded – much more so than my own songs. But Chris wrote back saying these were all very well, but he wanted more songs like The Only Fish. Did I have any? I said yes I have, but I’ll have to find them and they’re a bit lo-fi and badly recorded. He said to send them anyway, so during the following week that’s what I did – one at a time. Much to my surprise, Chris emailed me back to say he was going to play Coal-Marble-Stone on The Curve Ball. I was so happy that he’d chosen to play that song, despite its being not of broadcast quality. Many of my MySpace friends listened in to the show online and they all seemed very happy for me. In the weeks that followed, Chris and I chatted away via email about music. It was great to have someone to talk to, and he talked a lot about a singer and composer called Louis Philippe. It turned out he’d sent some mp3s of my songs to Louis, as well as to Nick Butcher of Folkwit Records. Soon after, I got an email from Louis saying that if I ever needed a string arranger or singer (Louis has the most beautiful voice) then to call on him... To be continued.
I've written about your nimi album called " Tell Me One Thing That Is New " 's digital download site in Japan ( MONA Windows & Warner Music Japan ) on my today's MySpace blog just now in Japanese, to Japanese people.
A while ago Chris Evans sent me the message of that link of your album download, but I missed Chris's message because I caught too much ones !!
Hi Louise, I hope you are well and just wanted to say how much I like the new track... you are becoming prodigious!! Would love to see you perform live if and when you feel ready... somewhere quiet and intimate. Perhaps the Curve Ball could get you a support set at the Arts Centre in sunny Wolverhampton. Col
I get a bunch of friend requests every day, and I usually listen to them all, but these songs came COMPLETELY out of nowhere. They actually kind of hit me hard, like something i've been waiting to hear for awhile, and the thing is, it's just Piano and Voice. These songs are really magical. "Coal Marble" "Fish" and "Blinded" especially. I really have no doubts that you will be huge in a few years. Thanks for the surprise today.
Hi Louise, thanks for the friendship. Well, Louise I realy like your music. Don't forget to check out my music, in the month of december new recordings... Greetings from Bruges - Belgium, Francis
Hi Louise, many thanks for your friend request, I really appreciate it. Just checked out your page and I really like your music. Enjoyed your blogs too! Take care.
yes! you've been on my mind so i thought i'd stop in... new one is lovelyyy ...do you want to know something weird? i once wrote a song called 'radium dial"? i thought that was kinda funny :)
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