TURNING up at the most rock and roll of all interview venues – the Leeds Travel Lodge – I find a subdued bunch of Aussies quietly munching through a pre-show breakfast.

For Cloud Control, who have only recently relocated to our fair capital, it’s just another city on a tour that has seen them play to rave reviews, including a particularly well attended show at hipster hangout, XOYO.

Singer and guitarist, Alister Wright – that’s Al, to you and I – bemoans the hole forming in his shoe as I ask about their recent move.

“We’ve been homeless for about a month but we’ve finally found somewhere.” He pauses before randomly venturing: “I’ve started drinking Black Skull too, it’s pretty cheap.”

I ask whether that’s the equivalent of a trampy bottle of White Lightning, but the joke is perhaps too inherently British. Give him a few months and he’ll be at the Offie chugging it down like all good 23-year-olds.

I change the subject and Al gives me a history lesson on the band-  a collaboration between himself, bassist Jeremy Kelshaw, and brother-sister duo, Ulrich (drums) and Heidi (keys and vox) Lenffer.

Cloud Control, playing Holy Trinity Church, Leeds

He says they’ve followed a “pretty standard band trajectory”, forming from the seeds of nothing at a Battle of the Bands competition in 2005, when Heidi gave them two weeks to “get their shit together” and write and play some songs.

To cut a long story short, two years later and they’d released an EP.

“We squeezed everything we could out of that,” says Jeremy, 25. “We’re slow to release stuff but there was never a time when there wasn’t a gig on the horizon. It took ages to find our feet stylistically.”

The comment seems rather bashful, given that after releasing their album, Bliss Release, this time last year, saw them win the Australian equivalent of the Mercury prize.

But until now, only their homeland press has been privy to the delights of Cloud Control.  With a UK release coming out next month and the wonders of the internet, the mutterings on this side of the hemisphere from those well versed in underground trends can already be heard singing the band’s praises.

That being said, the boy-girl vocal harmonies and psychedelic thread to the band’s makeup has already lent itself to some pretty lazy comparisons to ethereal rock and twee male/female pairings – a point that sparks a touch of debate.

“Those kind of references are funny- getting compared to Belle and Sebastian because of the vocals,” says Al. “It’s a different attitude to the music, different type of melodies.

“Then some journalists will come interview us and say ‘oh you’re definitely influenced by the Mamas and Papas’. I haven’t ever listened to the Mamas and Papas,” he shrugs.

“We’ve never thought to emulate any one band,” agrees Jeremy. “I think that’s the trap you fall into – we almost did that at the beginning, sounding like Interpol and the Arcade Fire.

“None of us are these prolific singer-song writers, none of us had written songs before but then you have to find some balls and play your own music.

“You’ve got to take those comparisons with a pinch of salt,” he adds with conviction.

Al would have us file away Cloud Control in a somewhat haphazard manner, between Led Zeppelin and Aphex Twin of all things, but this is down to defiance rather than stylistic comparison.

The sold-out crowd at Trinity Church just two hours later was certainly in favour of the band’s blend of (dare I say it) psychedelic synths and pitch-perfect duetting, but that’s not lazy , it’s simply the truth.

Consciously or not, the band’s overarching sound skates close to sun-drenched Californian nostalgia.

There’s an undertow of melancholy to the recordings, but onstage there’s a bouncy energy that defies the self-professed age of the more subdued numbers such as Meditation Song #2 (Why oh Why).

Al casually drawls his way through a clutch of star tracks, nailing the harmonised yelps of Gold Canary, before letting loose for Ghost Story: the vocal equivalent of a hard slap in the face.

Fleshed out with tambourines and proggy keyboard interludes, the quartet finish a tight and captivating set with a frenzied version of sure-fire single material, There’s Nothing in the Water We Can’t Fight.

The only thing missing from the set is visuals – a point Al makes prior to the show.

“I love having heaps of smoke and being shrouded in it, it’s like visual version of reverb” he said. “There was one gig in Australia where I couldn’t see my feet, it was a white out.

“It’s nice to place music uninhibited like that.”  He pauses for a second. “Maybe we should just start playing naked?”

Words, pics and opinions:  Lauren Potts

www.laurenpotts.wordpress.com

Live at Leeds was last weekend, and the world of ace bands planyed.  So Balladette Lauren Potts took the opportunity to speak to soe of them, hurrah for us! First up, she met Roman of Breton, here’s what happen:

Roman on stage, Live At Leeds (taken by Lauren, multi-skills)

TYPE ‘Breton’ into Google and you’ll be hard pushed to find much more than a reference to 60s surrealist poet, Andre.

And believe it or not, that’s about as close as you’ll get to pinning down the South East London musicians of the same name.

Search engine elusiveness aside, Breton is less pretentious than the sum of its parts, and given they hail from rough and ready New Cross, it’s safe to say the genre-bending four piece are at least aware of the connotations.

Like all good surrealists, they work against the popular grain and run in the opposite direction of “generic”.

In cherry-picking their hip-hop influences and weaving them into their own curious style of dub-step laced beats, the band have earned themselves a recent signing to Fat Cat Records and an upcoming stint in Sigur Ros’ Icelandic studios to record their long-awaited album.

Lead singer, Roman Rappak, tries to explain the very complicated process of how Breton came to be.

“Our music is a combination of all these disparate elements that when they’re put  together, your brain will pick up on,” he said. “Like when you get a bass line and put it into a new context… it’s like the basis of all art.

“It really excites me when you take something and jumble it all up until it looks like something else.”

He pauses for a second.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I promise not to get any more pretentious than that. These are the ramblings of someone who’s been in a van for six hours drinking Lucozade.”

That, and a self-confessed childhood case of attention deficit disorder, seem to be at the root of Breton’s eclectic musical background. 

Roman – a former film and sound design student – insists they’re not your run of the mill indie kids toting a Casio under each arm – this is brooding electronica borne of misspent youth at New Cross’ finest illegal raves.

 “When I was 14, 15, it was really difficult to go see bands,” says Roman, 27. “We couldn’t get in anywhere, so there were a lot of raves and parties around South London that were illegal, where no one gave a shit how old you were, and that’s where the hip hop influence came from.

“When Breton got together, Adam [Ainger, 26] and I had been playing for a couple of years together in New Cross. We were coming from a very poor part of London where we didn’t have that opportunity to be the indie kids.

“It’s a luxury to say “I’m in this scene or that scene”, but in South London it’s really scrambled. There’s awful punk and dub-step bands and always someone else verging on the same level of shitness, so you can get away with murder there.

“That’s the wonder of New Cross, there’s no structure.”

The band formed a couple of years ago, recruiting Ian Patterson, 26, who according to Roman, bought in a much-needed ‘boot camp’ work ethic, and Daniel Mcilvenny, 21, who Roman describes as both a “ray of sunshine” and a “genius”.

They found themselves providing music to a well known, but unmentionable, sports brand, putting out some remixes and recording costly EP, Counter Balance, in the most obtuse way a band could ever find to put their name on plastic.

“We put that out as a joke,” reflects Roman. “It was like, how do you put a record out? I was a complete novice at it. I only started really getting into the music when I could download everything – you can download someone’s whole back catalogue, 25 years of someone’s history, in a second.

“But there’s a massive romance to vinyl so Ian found this guy in a shack in New Zealand who makes vinyl by hand – you have to send him a CD, and this guy will listen to it and he etches it into the vinyl.

“It was a really swift turn around…of four months. Just as we were giving up, 20 limited run copies of this vinyl turned up. We put them in Rough Trade and it sold out thankfully… it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Breton seem to like making things exquisitely difficult for themselves so it feels like a good moment to bring up their astonishing lack of online presence –  a strange marketing strategy for any fledgling band.

“There’s two schools of thought on that,” says Roman. “It’s the end of the MySpace generation, now it’s about tweeting which sandwiches you like and what you’re doing in the studio.

“I find it really dull, it suggests that people can’t Google that shit themselves.  If people are into what we’re doing, they’ll find out.

“But on the other hand, our record label is like, “where the fuck is your Facebook page”, so there are arguments about it. What you find out on the internet, some of it’s true and some of it’s just made up. People should just work it out.”

In retrospect, turning into social media whores would be a strange move for the DIY band, whose raison d’être is to be as different to their contemporaries as possible.

Their schedule is hectic, with their diary filling up with yet more obscure antics such as going to the Czech Republic for the sole purpose of recording some violins.

“I’m going to do the strings for the album, then I’m going to beat box the orchestra so I’ve got loads of samples that never sound good when I try to play them,” Roman tells me on the sly.

“Then we’re going to play a massive set to launch the album which will probably bankrupt us because we going to get this production company to do projection mapping and get a live orchestra.”

Big plans for Breton – that’s if you can keep tabs on their whereabouts – but after seeing them live, it’s worth tracking them down.

Onstage, they resemble hooligans about to rob the nearest Maccie D’s –  a hoods-up affair compounded by playing in complete darkness.

But they’re far more accessible than one imagines, bringing together visuals and vibrant sounds in an innovatively kinaesthetic manner.

Unexpectedly, the guitar licks bear more than a passing resemblance to the staccato work of The Foals, but it’s a passing flirtation with a popular sound as their material descends into a dark fusion of ambient noise.

Stand out tracks come in the form of Governing Correctly and December, though those with more appreciation for 90s hip-hop production will probably prefer the edgier sounds of The Well.

Catch them live while you can.

Our favourite Portuguese Pop-Tropical Princess (with more than a spoonful of Folk in her cup), We are thrilled to have Joana back on Ballad, bringing you what has coloured her world recently…

“Hey Hey Julie!”

Folk! Folk & more Folk! That’s probably what caught my attention first time I heard about…”Julie and the Carjackers”! And combined with the beautiful aesthetics of vintage photographs of balloons, they became part of my music and wonderland.
They sound vintage, they sound new and fresh!

João Correia (guitar / vocals), Bruno Pernadas (guitar / banjo), Inês Sousa (percussions / vocals), Mariana Pais (bass / vocals), João Gil (piano / keyboards / vocals) & António Vasconcelos (drum/ vocals)…are the heart of “Julie and the Carjackers”, they make it beat fast and gave color to my world! Joca and Bruno came from a Jazzy musical background but gave life to a folk project along side with the rest of the team that joined them.
An EP has already been released, there’s a single coming out on “FNAC new talents” and September will be the big deal…their first album will be launched! And I´m jumping around like a kid waiting for it. I´ve heard it, it will sound very “folk/pop/tropical” …hum…Beatles, Beach Boys, Chico Buarque, Les Baxter e Chordettes, says Joca, are an influence… need I say more?

“No-U turn” is my favorite track, you can hear it on their Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/juliethecarjackers) …let yourself get lost on it with eyes closed and open ears to an amazing melody and whistles…on waves of a lovely home made look-alike song.
Besides the great great music, I liked them even more when I discovered by an e-mail I sent them that the name “Julie” came from the imaginary…there’s no girl with that name in the band…and carjackers…well they don’t really know how it came about …and I really really love that! It’s what I call living in a Wonderland…just like Alice did on Lewis Carroll tales.

Oh hear it, dance around, and just get lost in a magical world full of simplicity and vintage beauty!

More about Julie and the Carjackers:

http://www.myspace.com/juliethecarjackers

Watch their video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJIWm1TC120

and you can dowload their EP here :
http://www.optimusdiscos.com/discos/julie-the-carjackers

Much Love and Lots of Music

Joana Lourenço

http://theselittledetails.blogspot.com/

theselittledetails@gmail.com

http://twitter.com/#!/lourencoJoana

May is the season for city music festivals, and they’re mint because you get good music, under a roof with proper sound equipment, and you can sleep in a bed in the evening.  SO if you’re not partial to camping (and I personally am not, not at music festivals, I generally would prefer to go back to nature for natures sake, somewhere pretty and not covered in piss) then here is a guide to some neat city festivals to get along to this May.

Live at Leeds…

Not a lot of people know this, but The Who once played a gig in Leeds, and recorded it and called it, imaginatively, Live at Leeds and then released it – their first live album. So thats a bit of history and heritage for you.  The city generally has a good rep for local music, probably owed to the rather large student-like population, and being home to one the best art schools AND music schools in the country.

Over 100 bands play the fest, and at £17.50 for a ticket to all shows, this is as ‘bargain-ous’.  Who can you see?

New Muso’s will like: Cloud Control // Anna Calvi //James Blake // Breton // Trophy Wife // Mazes // Dutch Uncles

Indie-pop-Skids will like: Frightened Rabbit // Times New Viking // Glasvegas // Pulled Apart By Horses // Slow Club

The local cuts:  Aviaries // FILMS // Just Handshakes // Milk White White Teeth // Honour Before Glory

On the edge: Kong // Tall Ships // Castrovalva // Wot Gorilla? // Runaround Kids // Blacklisters

Friendly faces of Cloud Control

Camden Crawl…

I did a vague bit of research on Camden Crawl (search engine and gave up).  Basically it’s been running forever and in the 90s ofcourse Camden was supreme of indie places to be and now all of those types still live there, but are 10 years older and still hanging out with guitars.  It’s neat little blue-print of how to live well, although I suspect all those people made actual money from music in the 90s.

Anyway, the whole area is designed for a city fest, and the tickets for the weekend are about £70.  “Ouch!” I hear you say.  But check out the bands to see why the tax is so high.

New Music-kids will like:  Visions of Trees // Dry the River // Cloud Control // Spectrals //D/R/U/G/S // Eagulls

Indie-Skids will like:  Miles Kane // The Phantom Band // Villagers// S.C.U.M // St Etienne // Danananackyroyd

Popsicles will like:  Toddla T // The View // Those DancingDays // Little Comets // Frankie & the Heartstrings

If you like chaos: Gallops // Holy State // Hawk Eyes // Kong // Cerebral Ballzy // Divorce // Bo Ningen

And now Villagers

The Great Escape…

Hurah! Who cares about background info, any excuse to go to Brighton is enough!  But also, as well as being beachy and ‘colourful’,  and having arcades (where this here writer made 28p on her last visit) of awesomeness, it is also  close to the capital and sports a collection of musical spots where top-of-the-12-ring-range bands furnish their wares.  And for this weekend, 12th – 14th May, they conveniently all appear to be parking up their booty in droves about the town. Tickets are £50 plus extra for the big ‘dome’ shows.

New Music-kids will like: Breton//Chad Valley//Dog Is Dead// Factory Floor // Mazes //Cults // Braids

Indie Skids will like:  Sufan Stevens (Dome) // Little Dragon // Okervil River // Gang Gang Dance

Enjoy living on the edge:  Hauschka // Gallops

Popsicles:  Friendly Fires (Dome) // Katy B // Frank Turner // Guillemots

And finally Cults…

Creeping out from under the radar Laura J Martin has been earmarked as ‘One to Watch’ for quite some time. Delighting crowds with her joyful blend of flute and mandolin, she has a steadily growing fanbase that includes BBC 6 Music’s Marc Riley and DJ/Bestival organiser Rob Da Bank.

Described in her blurb as ‘folkie weirdie beardie (without the beardie)’, and ‘niceness squared’, Laura is sweetly modest and glosses over my foolish mix up between Mark Radcliffe and Marc Riley (a Freudian slip from growing up in the days of Mark and Lard!). “I played on Rob Da Bank’s Campfire Special last year, and most recently, performed a live session on Marc Riley’s show on Radio 6.  Both brought me a lot more recognition and gigs”. She adds: “God bless Marc Riley!”

Encouraged by her producer pals Mike L and Kidkanevil, she started making music, resulting in her lilting flute-laden debut single ‘Doki Doki’, released in 2009. Pushing the boundaries of folk swiftly away from the realms of Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons, her songs have bright, airy feel, infused with her love Japanese culture and folklore. Describing her time there she says, “The lights, the food, the toys and the culture.  I was there for a year and would dearly love to go back.”

Living in Japan for a year in 2006 she got involved with the Toyko ‘Death Jazz’ collective, Soil and Pimp Sessions. Playing an energetic blend of Jazz and Funk they allowed Laura to expand her already eclectic influences. In previous influences she has name checked artists as far flung as Woody Guthrie and the Wu Tang Clan. She attributes the Oriental feel of her music to “a love of kung fu films and admiration of (Argentine composer) Lalo Schifrin”.

Her time in Japan also inspired the charming retelling of the story of female Japanese arsonist Yaoya Oshichi in “Fire Horse”. Yaoya fell in love with a boy following a great fire at her temple. The next year she lit another, hoping she would see him again and was punished, burnt at the stake for her crimes. Laura’s reasons for finding the story are no less dramatic. She says, “There was an actual arson attack on the flat where I lived in Japan. This led me to research arson in Japanese culture and there it was – the story of Yaoya Oshichi”

In live shows Laura plays around with a mixture of loops, flute and mandolin, interweaving sounds in increasingly intricate combinations. Skipping and stomping round the stage she captivates the crowd with her infectious energy. Having played recently alongside Euro’s Child and Norman Blake amalgamation, Jonny, she is also set to support Misty’s Big Adventure, Bonobo and Hannah Peel. She says, “I try to keep my recordings as close to something that I could perform or recreate live, and I hope they still hold energy.  I find the process can be more measured than performing live.  I like the fact I can get other musicians on board when recording, particularly for drums, percussion and bass, which are elements I don’t currently recreate live (being minus a band!)”. She adds, “Piano is one of my main instruments – for practical reasons I haven’t had it in my live set as yet, but one day eh?”

Despite her apparent folk aesthetic Laura has worked widely with hip-hop and dub step producers including The Simonsound and Kidkanevil, featuring on his album, Kranium Rock. She explains, “I think the folk element is largely down to my choice of instruments, vocals and maybe the some of the more narrative lyrics but I also get a kick from making beats”. Adding that she enjoys the ‘intimacy’ and ‘lovely audiences’ of folk venues.

Awaiting the release date of her debut album, she has recorded a single in collaboration with The Simonsound on Battered Ornaments (Finders Keepers) due out at the end of April. It features a remix of single ‘Spy’ and a co-written B-Side ‘Inside Your Bones’.

So far the album is under wraps, but Laura has offered a few sneaky hints, “I loved collaborating with Buck 65 – he performed on my track ‘Kiss Bye Goodnight’. Also the track, ‘Black Caravan’ – which I am thinking of naming the album after…”

Never one to rest on her laurels, Laura already has work in progress with Kidkanevil and recording sessions planned with Euros Child, as well as touring dates with Jonny and The Simonsound over the summer, including performing at Glastonbury. You can also catch her at Soundwave Festival in Croatia, Lounge on The Farm and Toweresey Folk festival in Oxfordshire.

So we end the interview with a few recommendations, with an equal blend of the new, classic and the delightfully odd. Her music selection just about sums Laura J Martin right up. A bright new talent who just keeps getting better, can’t wait to hear what she does next!

“Definitely, Tune-Yards.  I am also going through a dirty rock phase and can’t get enough Heart and Fleetwood Mac and the likes these days.  I do also love Os Mutantes and always have time for Neil Young, David Bowie and Serge Gainsbourg”.

Listen to Laura J Martin HERE!

Kate Parkin



Oh my, I am beginning to freckle from that fair British sun for the first time in years.  So it’s time to go to the park, with your cucumber and elderflower juice or maybe some Pimms, or if you’re me, Pimms in a can, or even better, G&T in a can, yes, something classy like that.  And to accompany this, take a listen to Ballads ultimate summer Sunday song – perfect for morning, noon or night, and also pretty good on other summer days that happen to not be a Sunday.  This mainly reminds me of being 18, out of school AT LAST post A Levels, mooching around my home town (in the valleys of Yorkshire) with buddies, so young, so fresh faced, so already had wonderful taste in music (with a little help from my friends).

Enjoy!

Review: The Babies and The Jesus Loves Heroin Band, Brudenell Social Club, Leeds 18/03/11

Transporting us back to the heyday of 60’s garage and the badlands of rock and roll The Jesus Loves Heroin Band emerge from the gloom. Hiding a Dylanesque drawl under headily distorted guitars it’s a sound that belongs in dive bars and gun toting Tarantino films. Interspersing county tinged psychedelica like ‘Don’t Wait For Me’ with brooding instrumental interludes they slowly captivate the crowd. Jesus Loves… are a band worthy of your affections.

The Jesus Loves…

On stage nearly an hour late The Babies literally just turn up, plug in and play. Made up of Vivian Girls front woman Cassie Ramone and members of fellow Brooklyn bands, Woods and Bossy, they are so free and easy together they look like family. Casually swigging beers proffered by helpful fans they shamble round to the bouncing strains of ‘Breaking The Law’ (sadly not a Judas Priest cover) like a latter day Bonnie and Clyde. Suffering slightly from their lack of sound-check their voices are held momentarily captive under sprawling feedback.

The Babies

Once loosened up though, if you close your eyes during ‘Somebody Else’ it could be an early Pixies strutting on stage. Perfectly capturing a spirit of pure, distilled summer The Babies are one of the stealth hits of the year.

Kate Parkin

I do not remember when or how I started listening to Sean Riley and the Slowriders … it’s strange because my musical memory is quite vivid, but it was easy to find the answer … the empathy I felt for this band was so instantaneous that the music has consumed me completely. It was like a summer breeze that still last in winter time.

Sean Riley & The Slowriders are my “Roadtrips” Soundtrack. They have a special meaning when me and the boyfriend get on the car like two free spirits driving without a route … two free souls that just found their matching soundtrack.
With an unique and unmistakable voice, Sean Riley (Afonso Rodrigues – Voice, Guitar, Harmonica, Organ) and the Slowriders, Bruno Simoes – Bass, Guitar, Melodica, Filipe Costa – Organ, Piano, Guitar, Bass, Drums, Harmonica, Filipe Rocha - Drums, Upright Bass, Glockenspiel, gave rise to thisproject that already has two albums out.

The album – “Only Time Will Tell” features 12 songs, a few of the numerous compositions presented to the Slowriders by Sean Riley  during pre-production”.

Their Music, make ​​me travel in a dream land of Folk sounds that remind me of Bob Dylan but above of all it just match with my person and personality, heart and dreams. Lyrics like …  “Pretty girlcan´t you see, they’ll never be free … Well pretty girl can´t you see They’ll never be us “ andmessages like: ”your home is WHERE your heart is” are strong and bring me down to earth and nature in this digital world we live. Sean Riley and the Slowriders bring back the old good sounds,give color to life and call for summer festivals.

A

Must Hear!

More about Sean Riley and The Slowriders on web:

http://www.myspace.com/seanrileymusic

Much love and lots of Music

Joana Lourenço

http://twitter.com/#!/lourencoJoana

http://theselittledetails.blogspot.com/

Meet Cults, a band that have been teetering about musical radar for a while, seeping up to the forefront on late night drinking endeavours of playing ‘Youtube DJs’. And guess what? It’s soul music, yes really. But by white people, oh me. Hailing from New York, their soft 60s sound, with chimes and xylophones, ethereal girlish lyrics (as in sweet, but a bit moody/grumpy too, not to offend anyone, I am pretty much basing this on my own character) across piano samples and turned out guitar, Cults are perfect ‘morning sun’ walking, erm, around music. You can practically hear the day starting in these tunes, and no matter how grumpy you might be, it will make everything better – for example consider programming ‘Go Outside’ into your alarm clock, its catchy but not so upbeat you want to punch it in the face and speaks of excitement of wanting to get out and, well, not waste time being inside – and in your case, in bed.
Have a look, listen to Go Outside

‘Most Wanted’ brings in more samples, and has a Ben E. King feel, where ‘The Curse’ brings out added depths of Cults, the ‘we’re not actually all that nicey nice’ thing, it’s about loneliness and heartbreak, and there isn’t a happy ending, it’s the kind of song you might have heard in a Shangris La album.

The Cults 7” is out on Forest Family Records, find out more here!

“A Jazzy Waltz”

“Voice, guitar, paper and pen”… 23 candles on a cake, dreammy sweet jazzy vocals, cherries and cupcakes, paper dresses, the 50´s, beautiful songs, and a new album coming out…This is Luisa Sobral, actually, this is just part of this wonderful young lady.
I fell in love with Luisa´s “wonderland jazz world” when I discovered a song called “I would love to”…

“I don´t like to go to fancy places…but if you ask me too…I would love to”,

I still love to sing it out loud when I´m driving alone.
«The Cherry on my Cake» is just the begining of a real life musical fairytale, each song has it own taste…just imagine a cupcake store full of colorful delicious flavors, where you can´t pick only one because…well you just love them all! That´s how I see Luisa´s melodies, lyrics, harmony, rhythm…her songs,her world.

“She embraced such artists as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzerald, Chet Baker, and many others and with them in her heart she set off to the Berklee College of Music, in Boston, USA, to study music. In her 4 year stay in Boston she was nominated for the «Best Jazz Song» at the Malibu Music Awards (2008); «Best Jazz Artist» at the Hollywood Music Awards ; «International Songwriting Competition» (2007) and «The John Lennon Songwriting Competition» (2008).(…)But Her musical identity would further develop in New York, where she moved after finish her degree”

I usually write long long articles about my favourite musicians, but with Luisa…the empathy I feel for her takes all the words from my mind, all I see is pictures, colors and dreams…ohh…an hour later words still missing… all I can tell you is that I´m feeling like a kid on christmas eve, anxious to open (…well taste!) my so desired gift…«The Cherry on my Cake» the lovely name of Luisa´s album, a name that her mother “dreamed on once in a lullaby”.

find more about Luisa Sobral online:
http://www.myspace.com/luisasobral
http://www.universalmusic.pt/artist.php?id=384bc141b95fb452910a08fedfc2d892

much love and lots of music!

Joana Lourenço ♥

http://twitter.com/#!/lourencoJoana