Gwyneth Herbert released her new album The Sea
Cabinet, on the 20th May 2013.
The Sea Cabinet, the singer’s sixth album and her first in three
years, was launched with four nights at Wilton’s Music Hall –
the oldest surviving music hall in the world.
Her subsequent tour, her first in four years, will start at Sage Gateshead and culminate in a show
at Snape Maltings, where the whole project was conceived and
recorded. A second tour has already been confirmed for the autumn.
Gwyneth Herbert
may be only 31, but the singer and songwriter had already lived several lives
when she decamped from her Dalston flat for a week in a
Gwyneth emerged
from her week in Aldeburgh with a spectacular concept album: The Sea
Cabinet. ‘The songs weave themselves around the imagined story of a woman
who walks the beach every day alone,’ she explains, ‘picking up all
the discarded and washed up objects and taking them home, logging them with
archeological rigour. She keeps them in a shack: her "sea cabinet."
These items are kind of semaphore signals and each one resonates with the memory
of a secret sea-set story.’
A full decade
after her debut album First Songs, The Sea Cabinet finds
Gwyneth at her most mature as a writer. The songs, inspired by the Suffolk coast, are
timeless and immersive. And the album, knitted together by field recordings, is
as unbroken as a shoreline. The Sea Cabinet calls to mind English
folk artists from Jacqui McShee to Tunng. There
are also touches of Joni Mitchell in Mingus mode, Edith
Piaf and the leftfield pop of Psapp, not to mention Ray
Davies and Mara Carlyle. Gwyneth herself says would put
the record on the shelf marked bluesyfolkypoppyjazzystorysongs – but, as on the
album itself, she’s only half-serious.
‘I like music
that stokes a fire in your belly, starts a storm in your brain, punches you in
the face and tickles you under the chin at the same time,’ she
says. ‘The Sea Cabinet may be a concept album, but I don’t want it to
sound like I’ve got my head stuck up my arse. I want the experience of
listening to it to be fun – because we had so much fun making it. Like the song
of faded seaside hotel The Regal slips into the melodica refrain of I
Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside. It's whimsy that takes itself seriously.’
Album
centrepiece Fishguard Ladies takes its inspiration
from the late 18th century, when, legend has it, a handful of local Welsh women
headed off an invading French fleet by flashing their red petticoats. They were
apparently mistaken for British Grenadiers. Alderney, by
contrast, tells the chilling story of the Channel Island
Gwyneth is
relishing the fact that, in 2013, a musician’s artistic remit can – and should
– extend well beyond the music Gwyneth is relishing the fact that, in
2013, a musician’s artistic remit can – and should – extend well beyond the
music itself. Crowd-funded and self-released, with shows (at The Sage, Love Supreme
and Snape Maltings) that feature prose, multiple voices and live cymatic
projections, The Sea Cabinet is the most ambitious project she has
ever attempted. And she is, she says, more creatively fulfilled than
ever.
THE SEA CABINET:
"one of the most beguiling collections of songs you'll hear
this year" 4/5 JAZZWISE
"a precious find - a fluid fusion of music, art,
storytelling and film inspired by solitary shoreline walks, nautical trinkets
and tales from the deep blue sea." VOGUE
"delightfully whimsical" THE TIMES
"Each of the songs is an impressively crafted,
well-observed and engrossing vignette.... Simply a triumph" 5/5 MORNING STAR
"a cabaret approach to storytelling…a cabinet of
curiosities" 4/5 INDEPENDENT ON
SUNDAY
"a manner of modernised Music Hall, awash with ukelele and
melodica" 4/5 THE FINANCIAL TIMES
"an entertaining and often moving show that opens a new
chapter in her creative story" 4/5
THE GUARDIAN
"an audacious, sometimes riotous sound to frequently thrill
to" MARLBANK
"In its lovingly-produced completeness, this album is a
work of art" CRY ME A TORCH SONG
Tour dates
May
23rd - 26th: Sea Cabinet Album Launch Extravaganza,London ,
Wiltons Music Hall
23rd - 26th: Sea Cabinet Album Launch Extravaganza,
June
12th - Gateshead, The Sage - http://thesagegateshead.org/event/gwyneth-herbert/
14th - Altrincham, Cinnamon Club - https://www.quaytickets.com/cinnamon/Online/default.asp
15th - Wiltshire, The Wiltshire Jazz Festival -
12th - Gateshead, The Sage - http://thesagegateshead.org/event/gwyneth-herbert/
14th - Altrincham, Cinnamon Club - https://www.quaytickets.com/cinnamon/Online/default.asp
15th - Wiltshire, The Wiltshire Jazz Festival -
“Sparky, imaginative writing. A series of twilight
characters is unveiled in melodic, acoustic arrangements, full of shifting
textures and moods, Her singing is classy throughout…” Mojo
“’All The Ghosts’ is the assertion of a highly personal musical
voice, with shifting metres, contrasting backgrounds, and lyrics that actually
mean something.” **** Jazzwise
"There's a lovely sense of britishness about this
girl, not only is she a talent vocally but a strong songstress too." 8/10 Blues & Soul
“Herbert’s most varied and engaging piece of personal
storytelling yet.” **** The
Guardian
“Beautiful, vaguely jazzy, keenly observed vignettes…
super-talented” **** The Daily Telegraph
“Herbert remains tricky to categorise but fantastically easy to
warm to.” **** Metro
"Builds on the charming, lo-fi, folk-pop of her
lauded 'Between Me And The Wardrobe’ - plenty of memorable hooks and
witty one-liners." Time Out
"If
Hanns Eisler had been a woman and written with Ray Davies, he might have come
up with something like this.." Independent On Sunday
“a warm sultry take on acoustic folk and pop." The Daily Mail
"set to be a major sound this summer" Stella
“Full of shifting
tempos and textures. Classic Bowie-like pop, belting blues and gorgeous
jazz. The Times
"delightfully
diverse and unpredictable" ALBUM OF THE WEEK Sunday Mercury
GWYNETH HERBERT – Between Me And The Wardrobe (BLUE
NOTE) 2007:
"Halfway between Janis Ian and Susanna And The Magical
Orchestra"
*****
OBSERVER MUSIC MONTHLY
"Introspective and wistful"
**** RECORD COLLECTOR
"An impressive, at times moving album which defies and
genre pigeon-holing - Ms Herbert could yet be up there with the artists she
truly admires"
JAZZWISE
"Brilliantly original, full of space and isolated
detail."
Mojo Rising
MOJO
"Personal, witty, urbane, unpredictable and full of subtly
poetic narrative that stands up on its own terms without recourse to genre
conventions."
****
BBC MUSIC MAG
"Warm melodies, honeyed vocals and brilliant observational
lyrics."
****DIVA
"Her exquisite, pure toned voice hovers between moodiness
and rapture."
**** CITY LIFE
"Dark and moody balladry gives way to Jacques Brel-esque
excitement throughout"
JAZZ REVIEW
"Herbert’s originals connect more with Janis Ian or Rufus
Wainwright than the standards the subtly intelligent Herbert at first seemed
destined for."
THE GUARDIAN
"The pensive numbers that dominate here similarly come out
of the Joni Mitchell end of the repertoire"
THE SUNDAY TIMES
"Gwyneth Herbert’s guileless, low-budget album has emerged
one of this year’s word-of-mouth hits, with Herbert poised as one of Britain
THE TELEGRAPH
"a set of very personal songs on which she often sounds
closer to Sandy Denny
than Sarah Vaughn. "
THE TIMES
"many of these songs are compacted narrative jewels. Full
of unexpected and highly rewarding details. Recommended"
BBC ONLINE
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