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I'm Amy, & We're The Integrals. We come from Bedford!
'Solitarty Girl EP' - Amy Leeder
Reviewed by Martin Stapleton
Solitary Girl is the debut EP from Amy Leeder without the draping texture of the Integrals. This EP is both thought provoking and a thing of hushed, disorienting, beauty. Her cute lyrical nuggets prick your consciousness. They soothe and are yet haunt at the same time.The three songs are all peas from the same pod as they tell of relationship heartache.
Title track 'Solitary Girl' opens. In this ballad Amy expresses herself in almost trademark poetic manner. Young of years,she puts forward her philosophy of life in an accessable and universal way. This bewitching teenager continues with 'Rough Around the Edges'. It's her tale and ultimate put down to two-timing guys. With real feeling she sings "Is it a dream, I think I'm falling, Is it a sign or is it a warning?"
More so when 'Rough around the Edges' is always having 'One too Many Bevereges'. Her fragile yet gritty acoustic fare covers all emotional bases. There is more of the same with last track,'Apprehensive'. "I guess it's over now", Amy plaintively cries, so stark but yet eerily magnetic. Even when she is seething, it's done in a nice way. As long as we've been treated to Amy's musical work, her urge to frolic with new ideas has to be commended. No idle resting on her laurels, with a youthful coo, it's the combined use of the lyrics that are always foremost in the entertainment, infact very much the sole objective.
What is evident in all of Amy's songs is that her own personality shines through. Using 'Folk' as a very loose musical template, her material seems to shoot off in all manner of directions. Amy's cheeky reaction at the end of 'Apprehensive' perhaps is an indication that she is having the last laugh at the fictitious (or not) characters that she sings of.
This excellent sounding C.D was recorded 'LIVE' with no overdubs by Caz Adcock at the 'Coach House'.
Bedfordshire Times & Citizen, Thursday July 22 2010
Amy Leeder has done it again, and I really don’t know how she hasn’t managed to be signed by now.
The teenage singing sensation, who is making serious waves on the Bedfordshire music scene has returned to our stereos with a new EP.
Entitled Solitary Girl, the three track CD was recorded at The Coach House by producer Caz Adcock.
Miss Leeder honestly has the most sweet and soulful voice. But it’s different and edgy and
When she sings she is singing lyrics that seem way beyond her years and I like it, I like it a lot.
The title trace is heartbreaking but strangely uplifting and definitely a summer track.
Amy Leeder - 'Solitary Girl EP'
Reviewed by Steve Norman
As many regular viewers will know, I'm not the biggest fan of the singer-songwriter genre - something about the lack of booze, pyros, swearing, spandex and so on that doesn't really do it for me as a live music proposition.
So I was intrigued to be asked to review Amy Leeder's debut solo EP, Solitary Girl, by someone who knew this perfectly well, wondering what they knew they had up their sleeve that was going to stop me from quickly entering into the inevitable scathing rantÉ
Well, one thing that seeing these songs played live can't reasonably provide, unless Amy would care to provide a private session, is absolute intimacy, and above all else that's what this EP cries out; the live recording really generates an immediacy, and also a fragility, that shoved my preconceptions to one side within seconds.
Something else I'd never really picked up from Amy's live performances before, probably because I didn't really want to, and was busy moaning about people being on stage with just an acoustic guitar anyway, was the quality of her song writing. There's a real maturity to these three tracks, especially in terms of how the vocals weave around the unfussy guitar lines and vice versa, almost as though neither came first; I'm making the assumption that one did!
Amy's vocal style on this EP, particularly on closer and possibly strongest track, 'Apprehensive', does remind me of The Cranberries quieter moments, with notes being thrown around with equally natural abandon, but without the vilely exaggerated Irish accent, and maybe even a bit more depth at times. There were moments when I was afraid that she was about to go all "cockney street girl" at any second, as is bizarrely the vogue at the moment, but thankfully that never really went beyond a threat, and on second listen (yes, you heard right!), I could enjoy the whole thing without fear!
And enjoy it I genuinely did! Whilst until the day that Amy is spitting into her audience off the stage I'll probably never be considered a fan, but I can recognise what is an outstanding talent today that can only develop into one more outstanding over the next few years, and Solitary Girl' is the ideal showcase. Check it out!
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