HELLO! HUMANS IS A NEW SINGLE AND WILL BE RELEASED ON NEED NO WATER RECORDS MID MAY. SEE HERE FOR DETAILS
New Single on NEED NO WATER RECORDS
Rozi Plain - Humans
1. Humans
2. End Can Come
1. Humans (RocketNumberNine Remix)
1. Humans (Rome Pays Off Remix)
pre-order now from Need No Water
Get Facebook Buttons
My new album "INSIDE OVER HERE" released on FENCE RECORDS is out and avaliable to buy now. ORDER IT FROM HERE, the Fence Records website or from the best indipendant record shops like these
* unknown pleasures (st andrews)
* avalanche (edinburgh)
* monorail (glasgow)
* norman (leeds)
* rough trade (london)
* resident music (brighton)
* one-up (aberdeen)
* piccadilly records (manchester)
* here shop (bristol)
* cherry picked records (bristol)
Its ten songs long and its pretty good i think. You could also buy it from me in personal person and any of my live shows too(£10 incl.p+P)
Here are some reviews about it.
PLAN B
Put this to your ear: you can hear the sea. The creels and gulls and taverns and harbours and coasts and aloneness that define the maritime: it's all here, quietly, made musical. A conciliatory vista wherein clarinets puff like steamboats and voices curl forth like smoke – where bracing guitar notes trace longing and hope – this album navigates wind-whipped days of staring through steamed-up, brine-smeared windows: of watching worlds inside, and out.
Perhaps it's Rozi Plain's day-job as a ferry worker that calmly evokes such seafaring impressions – as evinced on balmy shanties such as 'Barbs and Velcro', 'Roof Rook Crook Crow' and 'Foot Out'. Or perhaps it's the clement influence of her coastline-fetishising Fence Collective label-mates.
Whatever: this debut from Bristol's Cleaner Records instigator – and Francois / Atlas Mountains collaborator – is unhurried, understated, and ace.
THE LIST
Rozi Plain is a young Bristol-based singer-songwriter, and this debut collection of intimate folk-flecked tunes is gorgeous, original and brimful of character. Plain's sumptuous yet simple voice trips delicately over banjos, clarinet and accordion on tracks like 'Stolen Shark' and 'Forks and Knives', sounding like Kathryn Williams with Adem and Sufjan Stevens as backing band. The sparse, swaying arrangements throughout give her off-kilter melodies room to shine and given a decent tail wind Plain could easily establish herself at the front of the nu-folk pack.
THE SKINNY.
There is a problem when trying to review an album like this, which woos you with its easy charms, which stills your spirit with its banjos rippling like a bubbling stream. Rozi Plain's catherine wheel vocal harmonies set your mind a-wandering and you begin to recline into the sound of her voice and melodies like you would a warm bath surrounded by candles and shared with a lover. Plain, the latest signing to Fife's Fence Records, has made an album of such charm that there lies a problem in critiquing it effectively. Let me bathe in it, instead, let me reflect. Oh OK then, some facts: it was produced by a handful of folk including Fence brothers Kenny and Gordon Anderson, and a few friends from Bristol where she's from; and it's bloody good. There, now let me close my eyes and chill. [Milo McLaughlin].
PLENTY SIDE.
Less is more.
Less is more.
Less is more.
It's always a little mantra I tell myself from time to time. There's no need for any extraneous things to be added to the mix, if you can do what you have to do and say what you have to say without any extra clutter then you're on the right track, for me at least. Bristol's Rozi Plain seems to be following that path. Her debut LP on Fence Records screams "less is more" and is all the more effective for it, especially when you consider the different instrumentation on show. "Let's Go" opens with a wheeze and a hiss, a single guitar and accordion play out a plaintive few notes and Rozi's voice says all it needs said. A statement of intent if you will, "let's go, let's go, let's go", this is how it's going to be and I'm pretty comfortable with it.
The record continues in a similar vein. "Stolen Shark" sees some lovely harmony vocals over a nice fuzz guitar groove, "Foot Out's" smoky clarinet and sax, while downbeat and mournful, complements Rozi's clipped vocal delivery while "Knives And Forks" mixes some neat little Sufjan-esque banjo into a poppy and melodic arrangement. Rozi and her companions on the record have certainly created a warm and welcoming sound and there's little touches here and there that add to the mix and lift it all out of the ordinary, the unexpected beats that kick in during "Barbs And Velcros", the brass and woodwind in the lolling "Roof Rook Crook Crow". And the little things matter, showing us that this is someone who cares about the details, who cares about what we are listening to. Not that others don't of course, but Rozi just seems to ensure it all matters.
And nothing matters more than "360º", the extraordinary centrepiece of "Inside Over Here". A solitary guitar plucks away, Rozi's voice emotive and full of longing, an economic and sparse delivery but all the more powerful for it. Voice and guitar, that's all you need.
Less is more.
Less is more.
Less is more.
A remarkable song at the heart of a remarkable album, three minutes that would bring a tear to the proverbial gless 'e, I could listen to it on repeat for a long, long time (and believe me I have!). The record closes with "Fruit", and another simple yet effective arrangement, the layered vocals and beautiful guitar line and clarinet. Every note on the record is there because it should be there, everything is allowed to breathe and be natural and it all sounds wonderful. Elsewhere in this blog you can read yer man from Fence Records wax lyrical about it and I listened to him as he passionately extoled its virtues. I didn't know it then but he was absolutely right. This is a stunning listen, a stunning 40 minutes or so of music and hopefully Rozi Plain can continue to beguile and charm us in future.
Here is a clip of a film me and francois made:
You can buy my first e.p released on Cleaner Records called
A NOISY NOISE ANNOYS A NOISY SEAGULL
by clicking the button below the picture. (the cover doesn't look like this) (£5 incl p+p)
