| Thea Gilmore |
| Ghosts and Graffiti (Deluxe Edition) |
Thea Gilmore — Ghosts and Graffiti (Deluxe Edition)
Review
By Lisa–Marie Ferla, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 (http://www.theartsdesk.com/)
♠ Almost two decades into a distinguished career, nobody would have judged Thea Gilmore for indulging herself with a greatest hits collection — indeed, it’s something that record labels have been bugging her about for years. Album number 15 Ghosts and Graffiti is perhaps intended as a compromise — part new songs and part old favourites, featuring an all–star cast of collaborators and reinterpreted with the same affection and irreverence the singer–songwriter recently brought to Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding and the lost lyrics of Sandy Denny.
♠ Two of the songs from Don’t Stop Singing, the 2011 collection on which Gilmore put Denny’s unused lyrics to compositions of her own, feature among the rich pickings here if you know where to look. The melodies are perhaps folksier than the roots–rock sound Gilmore has grown into, but the lyrics in particular could have come straight from the head of another songwriter who has spent plenty of nights on the road since the age of 18. Recent radio–friendly hits like new single “Coming Back to You” and “Start As You Mean to Go On” — from 2013’s Regardless, and given a second airing here — may be sonically different beasts, but the juxtaposition is never jarring.
♠ Gilmore has never shied away from either the personal or the political in her lyrics: “This Girl Is Taking Bets”, one of her most beloved songs and a proto–feminist anthem, is a case in point. Its reworking here, with guest vocals from the equally righteous Joan As Police Woman, is an absolute treat. Now 14 years old, the song’s strident reworking is no more one of the “ghosts” of the album’s title than the Billy Bragg duet “My Voice” or razor–sharp poem “Don’t Set Foot Over the Railway Track”, recited by John Cooper Clarke over a discordant, minimalist electro backdrop, are ephemeral like graffiti. Not the closing of a book then, but the herald of a whole new chapter.
Birth name: Thea Eve Gilmore
Born: 25 November 1979, Oxford, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England
Location: London, GB
Album release: May 10, 2015
Record Label: FullFill
Duration: 96:31
Tracks:
01. Copper 3:33
02. Start as We Mean to Go On 3:34
03. This Girl Is Taking Bets (feat. Joan As Policewoman) 3:25
04. Holding Your Hand 3:47
05. My Voice (feat. Billy Bragg) 4:05
06. London 4:00
07. Beautiful Day 3:31
08. Coming Back to You 4:19
09. Love Came Looking for Me 3:29
10. Icarus Wind 4:10
11. Inch by Inch (feat. Joan Baez) 3:59
12. Glistening Bay (feat. The Waterboys) 5:45
13. Sol Invictus 2:42
14. Avalanche 4:22
15. Razor Valentine (feat. John Bramwell) 3:26
16. Old Soul 3:48
17. The Cracks 3:49
18. Juliet 4:52
19. Live out Loud 3:35
20. Gods Got Nothing on You 3:47
21. Don't Set Foot over the Railway Track (feat. John Cooper Clarke) 2:11
22. Wrong with You 3:04
23. You're the Radio 3:44
24. Inverigo (feat. King Creosote) 4:23
25. That'll Be Christmas 3:11
℗ 2015 Fullfill
Product Description
♠ "Ghosts And Graffiti" is a retrospective with a difference, a 20 track double album where Thea Gilmore looks both forward and back. It includes all her best known songs on one record for the first time, 4 new songs, and 6 newly recorded versions of songs from her back catalogue. It features a duet with Joan Baez, and a duet with Billy Bragg. It includes a full collaboration with The Waterboys, produced and co–sung by Mike Scott. John Cooper Clarke appears, reading one of Theas poems. Neil Gaiman, the iconic fantasy novelist, contributes the sleeve notes. Joan As Policewoman collaborates on one of Theas defining songs. There are also special collaborations with John Bramwell (I Am Kloot) and with King Creosote.
♠ It´s not often that a 35 year old singer has 15 albums. Thea Gilmore s 17–year career has seen her profile and audience grow with inexorable momentum since her first album. Her newest long playing offering, Ghosts and Graffiti is a compilation with its own twists part new album, part retrospective Gilmore has included four all–new songs that sit alongside six newly–recorded versions of old material, selected jewels from her back catalogue and, just for good measure, a few radio hits are also included. Featuring guest appearances from The Waterboys, Joan Baez, Billy Bragg, John Cooper Clarke, Joan As Policewoman, King Creosote and I Am Kloot, Ghosts & Graffiti is as much an artistic achievement as it is a career celebration. She is the conscience of the music industry, that little voice in your head that proves that beyond hyperbole, there is music that matters and the people that it matters to. That is where true, lasting careers are born and that is exactly where Thea Gilmore shines.
Notes:
♠ She began her career working in a recording studio, where she was discovered by her now long–time collaborator, producer and sometime co–songwriter Nigel Stonier, whom she married in October 2005.
♠ On 14 November 2006, Gilmore gave birth to her first child with Stonier, a son named Egan, having conducted a UK tour in the autumn whilst heavily pregnant.
♠ In July 2011, Gilmore gave birth to a second son, Asher.
Website: http://www.theagilmore.net/
MySpace: https://myspace.com/theagilmore
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theagilmore
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theagilmoreofficial
BBC Live in Session: Thea Gilmore performs two songs live on Weekend Wogan.
♠ http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/4176a7cc-5b9d-46c9-b616-8f2b19f7f92f
Albums:
♣♠ Burning Dorothy (1998)
♣♠ The Lipstick Conspiracies (2000)
♣♠ Rules For Jokers (2001)
♣♠ Songs From The Gutter (2002)
♣♠ Avalanche (2003) UK #62
♣♠ Loft Music (2004)
♣♠ Harpo's Ghost (2006) UK #69
♣♠ Liejacker (2008)
♣♠ Recorded Delivery [live] (2009)
♣♠ Strange Communion (2009)
♣♠ Murphy's Heart (2010) UK #70
♣♠ John Wesley Harding (2011)
♣♠ Don't Stop Singing with Sandy Denny (2011) UK #89
♣♠ Regardless (2013) UK #39
♣♠ Ghosts And Graffiti (2015)
EPs:
♣♠ Instead of the Saints (1998)
♣♠ As If EP (Limited Edition) (2001)
♣♠ The Threads EP (Limited Edition) (2007)
♣♠ Beginners EP (Limited Edition) (2012)
Singles:
♣♠ "Saviours and All" (2001)
♣♠ "Fever Beats" (2002)
♣♠ "Juliet (Keep That in Mind)" (2003) UK #35
♣♠ "Mainstream" (2003) UK #50
♣♠ "Cheap Tricks" (2006)
♣♠ "Old Soul" (2008)
♣♠ "You Spin Me Right Round" (2008)
♣♠ "That'll Be Christmas" (2009)
♣♠ "You're The Radio" (2010)
♣♠ "Teach Me to Be Bad" (2010)
♣♠ "London" (lyrics by Sandy Denny) (2012) UK #86
♣♠ "Love Came Looking for Me" (2013)
DVDs:
♣♠ Harpo's Ghost — 3 track acoustic performance (2006)
Artist Biography by MacKenzie Wilson
♠ Singer/songwriter Thea Gilmore was born to Irish parents in 1979. While coming of age in North Aston, Oxfordshire in England, she ignored the new wave reign of the '80s and instead began to seek out her parents' Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell albums. Later, she found comfort in the work of Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and the Replacements, naturally absorbing the intelligence behind each artist's work. Gilmore began writing poetry and short stories to amuse herself amidst her conventional surroundings, but she needed something more tangible. She left home at age 16 to go work in a recording studio. Gilmore also founded her own Shameless Records and released her debut album, Burning Dorothy, in 1998. The Lipstick Conspiracies and the As If EP followed two years later, and Gilmore's star power started to buzz.
♠ In the new millennium, Gilmore inked a deal with Compass in the U.S. and finally graced American shores with the 2002 release of Rules for Jokers. Gilmore's third album, 2003's Avalanche, was a much more daring effort for her, and the single "Juliet" earned her her first Top 40 hit in the U.K. A year later, Gilmore released a collection of cover songs entitled Loft Music. This self–released effort featured Gilmore's renditions of songs by the Buzzcocks, Paul Westerberg, Jimmy Cliff, and the Ramones. Songs from the Gutter (2005) gathered career–spanning cuts not previously available, as well as other hidden treasures from Gilmore's catalog of unreleased material. In August 2006, Gilmore issued the emotionally charged Harpo's Ghost, her first set of original material since Avalanche.
♠ Gilmore returned with the ultra–polished Liejacker to mixed reviews in 2008, and became a parent. In typical idiosyncratic fashion, she recorded the seasonal holiday collection Strange Communion, issuing it in 2009 and, in lieu of a new studio offering, released the half–acoustic/half–electric live set Recorded Delivery in 2010. In 2011 Gilmore returned to recording with partner and co–producer Nigel Stonier and co–producer/engineer Mike Cave for her 11th studio offering, Murphy's Heart, recorded both in Liverpool and in Ventura, California. The cast of 13 musicians for these sessions was her largest to date. Returning to the studio once again with Stonier, Gilmore set about to record 2011's John Wesley Harding, a complete reworking of the album by Bob Dylan. Gilmore followed this up with Don't Stop Singing, a specially recorded collaborative album with the late Sandy Denny. Two years later, after giving birth to her second son, Gilmore returned with 2013's Regardless.
REVIEW
Thea Gilmore on her 15th album, longevity and Joan Baez ahead of Glee date
By NottmPost EG | Posted: May 07, 2015
♠ In a future edition of Trivial Pursuit there may well be a question: Name the UK artist who first hit the Top 40 with her fourteenth album?
♠ The answer is Thea Gilmore, with 2013’s Regardless.
♠ Although long cherished by fans and critics alike, her 17–year career has been a slow–burner to say the least.
♠ And now comes album number 15; Ghosts & Graffiti, a compilation of sorts featuring four new songs alongside six newly–recorded versions of old material, radio hits and selected jewels from her back catalogue.
The new material is deeply political. For instance, Inch By Inch was written on the day Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 and features Joan Baez.
♠ “With Joan’s presence as an original voice of the counterculture and an active civil–rights campaigner, the historical importance that her input brings to a song about the first black US president is monumental… and that’s before you hear the extraordinary performance she turns in,” says the 35–year–old from Oxford.
♠ Other collaborators on the album include I Am Kloot, King Creosote, The Waterboys, fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman and Joan As Policewoman.
♠ "I found myself onstage with Joan for a series of UK gigs in 2012, celebrating Sandy Denny's life” recounts Gilmore.
♠ “Much as I love and admire her work as Joan As Policewoman I was still taken aback by her musicality, versatility and vocal presence. Her talent has such breadth. Joan blew me away with the energy and honesty she brought to the performance.”
♠ Although a compilation, the 20 track collection isn’t a ‘Best Of’, insists the singer.
♠ “I’m a bit of a 'Best Of’ sceptic and I’ve never felt it was time to look back; I always had new stuff I passionately wanted to get out there. Then I realised last year that I wanted to bring new light to some older songs... colour, and the perspective that just living for a while affords.
♠ “I was so young when I wrote many of them, and I’ve come to see some of the early versions as no longer definitive.”
♠ She adds: “I didn’t set out to make so many albums. There was no master plan, I just had things to say so I found a way to say them. Now I see every record as a snapshot of that particular time in my life. I go back and listen to myself singing when I was 18 and it’s like a haunting; the songs are the ghosts of my past.” ♠ http://www.nottinghampost.com/
____________________________________________________________
| Thea Gilmore |
| Ghosts and Graffiti (Deluxe Edition) |
By Lisa–Marie Ferla, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 (http://www.theartsdesk.com/)
♠ Almost two decades into a distinguished career, nobody would have judged Thea Gilmore for indulging herself with a greatest hits collection — indeed, it’s something that record labels have been bugging her about for years. Album number 15 Ghosts and Graffiti is perhaps intended as a compromise — part new songs and part old favourites, featuring an all–star cast of collaborators and reinterpreted with the same affection and irreverence the singer–songwriter recently brought to Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding and the lost lyrics of Sandy Denny.
♠ Two of the songs from Don’t Stop Singing, the 2011 collection on which Gilmore put Denny’s unused lyrics to compositions of her own, feature among the rich pickings here if you know where to look. The melodies are perhaps folksier than the roots–rock sound Gilmore has grown into, but the lyrics in particular could have come straight from the head of another songwriter who has spent plenty of nights on the road since the age of 18. Recent radio–friendly hits like new single “Coming Back to You” and “Start As You Mean to Go On” — from 2013’s Regardless, and given a second airing here — may be sonically different beasts, but the juxtaposition is never jarring.
♠ Gilmore has never shied away from either the personal or the political in her lyrics: “This Girl Is Taking Bets”, one of her most beloved songs and a proto–feminist anthem, is a case in point. Its reworking here, with guest vocals from the equally righteous Joan As Police Woman, is an absolute treat. Now 14 years old, the song’s strident reworking is no more one of the “ghosts” of the album’s title than the Billy Bragg duet “My Voice” or razor–sharp poem “Don’t Set Foot Over the Railway Track”, recited by John Cooper Clarke over a discordant, minimalist electro backdrop, are ephemeral like graffiti. Not the closing of a book then, but the herald of a whole new chapter.
Birth name: Thea Eve Gilmore
Born: 25 November 1979, Oxford, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England
Location: London, GB
Album release: May 10, 2015
Record Label: FullFill
Duration: 96:31
Tracks:
01. Copper 3:33
02. Start as We Mean to Go On 3:34
03. This Girl Is Taking Bets (feat. Joan As Policewoman) 3:25
04. Holding Your Hand 3:47
05. My Voice (feat. Billy Bragg) 4:05
06. London 4:00
07. Beautiful Day 3:31
08. Coming Back to You 4:19
09. Love Came Looking for Me 3:29
10. Icarus Wind 4:10
11. Inch by Inch (feat. Joan Baez) 3:59
12. Glistening Bay (feat. The Waterboys) 5:45
13. Sol Invictus 2:42
14. Avalanche 4:22
15. Razor Valentine (feat. John Bramwell) 3:26
16. Old Soul 3:48
17. The Cracks 3:49
18. Juliet 4:52
19. Live out Loud 3:35
20. Gods Got Nothing on You 3:47
21. Don't Set Foot over the Railway Track (feat. John Cooper Clarke) 2:11
22. Wrong with You 3:04
23. You're the Radio 3:44
24. Inverigo (feat. King Creosote) 4:23
25. That'll Be Christmas 3:11
℗ 2015 Fullfill
Product Description
♠ "Ghosts And Graffiti" is a retrospective with a difference, a 20 track double album where Thea Gilmore looks both forward and back. It includes all her best known songs on one record for the first time, 4 new songs, and 6 newly recorded versions of songs from her back catalogue. It features a duet with Joan Baez, and a duet with Billy Bragg. It includes a full collaboration with The Waterboys, produced and co–sung by Mike Scott. John Cooper Clarke appears, reading one of Theas poems. Neil Gaiman, the iconic fantasy novelist, contributes the sleeve notes. Joan As Policewoman collaborates on one of Theas defining songs. There are also special collaborations with John Bramwell (I Am Kloot) and with King Creosote.
♠ It´s not often that a 35 year old singer has 15 albums. Thea Gilmore s 17–year career has seen her profile and audience grow with inexorable momentum since her first album. Her newest long playing offering, Ghosts and Graffiti is a compilation with its own twists part new album, part retrospective Gilmore has included four all–new songs that sit alongside six newly–recorded versions of old material, selected jewels from her back catalogue and, just for good measure, a few radio hits are also included. Featuring guest appearances from The Waterboys, Joan Baez, Billy Bragg, John Cooper Clarke, Joan As Policewoman, King Creosote and I Am Kloot, Ghosts & Graffiti is as much an artistic achievement as it is a career celebration. She is the conscience of the music industry, that little voice in your head that proves that beyond hyperbole, there is music that matters and the people that it matters to. That is where true, lasting careers are born and that is exactly where Thea Gilmore shines.
Notes:
♠ She began her career working in a recording studio, where she was discovered by her now long–time collaborator, producer and sometime co–songwriter Nigel Stonier, whom she married in October 2005.
♠ On 14 November 2006, Gilmore gave birth to her first child with Stonier, a son named Egan, having conducted a UK tour in the autumn whilst heavily pregnant.
♠ In July 2011, Gilmore gave birth to a second son, Asher.
Website: http://www.theagilmore.net/
MySpace: https://myspace.com/theagilmore
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theagilmore
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theagilmoreofficial
BBC Live in Session: Thea Gilmore performs two songs live on Weekend Wogan.
♠ http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/4176a7cc-5b9d-46c9-b616-8f2b19f7f92f
Albums:
♣♠ Burning Dorothy (1998)
♣♠ The Lipstick Conspiracies (2000)
♣♠ Rules For Jokers (2001)
♣♠ Songs From The Gutter (2002)
♣♠ Avalanche (2003) UK #62
♣♠ Loft Music (2004)
♣♠ Harpo's Ghost (2006) UK #69
♣♠ Liejacker (2008)
♣♠ Recorded Delivery [live] (2009)
♣♠ Strange Communion (2009)
♣♠ Murphy's Heart (2010) UK #70
♣♠ John Wesley Harding (2011)
♣♠ Don't Stop Singing with Sandy Denny (2011) UK #89
♣♠ Regardless (2013) UK #39
♣♠ Ghosts And Graffiti (2015)
EPs:
♣♠ Instead of the Saints (1998)
♣♠ As If EP (Limited Edition) (2001)
♣♠ The Threads EP (Limited Edition) (2007)
♣♠ Beginners EP (Limited Edition) (2012)
Singles:
♣♠ "Saviours and All" (2001)
♣♠ "Fever Beats" (2002)
♣♠ "Juliet (Keep That in Mind)" (2003) UK #35
♣♠ "Mainstream" (2003) UK #50
♣♠ "Cheap Tricks" (2006)
♣♠ "Old Soul" (2008)
♣♠ "You Spin Me Right Round" (2008)
♣♠ "That'll Be Christmas" (2009)
♣♠ "You're The Radio" (2010)
♣♠ "Teach Me to Be Bad" (2010)
♣♠ "London" (lyrics by Sandy Denny) (2012) UK #86
♣♠ "Love Came Looking for Me" (2013)
DVDs:
♣♠ Harpo's Ghost — 3 track acoustic performance (2006)
Artist Biography by MacKenzie Wilson
♠ Singer/songwriter Thea Gilmore was born to Irish parents in 1979. While coming of age in North Aston, Oxfordshire in England, she ignored the new wave reign of the '80s and instead began to seek out her parents' Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell albums. Later, she found comfort in the work of Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and the Replacements, naturally absorbing the intelligence behind each artist's work. Gilmore began writing poetry and short stories to amuse herself amidst her conventional surroundings, but she needed something more tangible. She left home at age 16 to go work in a recording studio. Gilmore also founded her own Shameless Records and released her debut album, Burning Dorothy, in 1998. The Lipstick Conspiracies and the As If EP followed two years later, and Gilmore's star power started to buzz.
♠ In the new millennium, Gilmore inked a deal with Compass in the U.S. and finally graced American shores with the 2002 release of Rules for Jokers. Gilmore's third album, 2003's Avalanche, was a much more daring effort for her, and the single "Juliet" earned her her first Top 40 hit in the U.K. A year later, Gilmore released a collection of cover songs entitled Loft Music. This self–released effort featured Gilmore's renditions of songs by the Buzzcocks, Paul Westerberg, Jimmy Cliff, and the Ramones. Songs from the Gutter (2005) gathered career–spanning cuts not previously available, as well as other hidden treasures from Gilmore's catalog of unreleased material. In August 2006, Gilmore issued the emotionally charged Harpo's Ghost, her first set of original material since Avalanche.
♠ Gilmore returned with the ultra–polished Liejacker to mixed reviews in 2008, and became a parent. In typical idiosyncratic fashion, she recorded the seasonal holiday collection Strange Communion, issuing it in 2009 and, in lieu of a new studio offering, released the half–acoustic/half–electric live set Recorded Delivery in 2010. In 2011 Gilmore returned to recording with partner and co–producer Nigel Stonier and co–producer/engineer Mike Cave for her 11th studio offering, Murphy's Heart, recorded both in Liverpool and in Ventura, California. The cast of 13 musicians for these sessions was her largest to date. Returning to the studio once again with Stonier, Gilmore set about to record 2011's John Wesley Harding, a complete reworking of the album by Bob Dylan. Gilmore followed this up with Don't Stop Singing, a specially recorded collaborative album with the late Sandy Denny. Two years later, after giving birth to her second son, Gilmore returned with 2013's Regardless.
REVIEW
Thea Gilmore on her 15th album, longevity and Joan Baez ahead of Glee date
By NottmPost EG | Posted: May 07, 2015
♠ In a future edition of Trivial Pursuit there may well be a question: Name the UK artist who first hit the Top 40 with her fourteenth album?
♠ The answer is Thea Gilmore, with 2013’s Regardless.
♠ Although long cherished by fans and critics alike, her 17–year career has been a slow–burner to say the least.
♠ And now comes album number 15; Ghosts & Graffiti, a compilation of sorts featuring four new songs alongside six newly–recorded versions of old material, radio hits and selected jewels from her back catalogue.
The new material is deeply political. For instance, Inch By Inch was written on the day Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 and features Joan Baez.
♠ “With Joan’s presence as an original voice of the counterculture and an active civil–rights campaigner, the historical importance that her input brings to a song about the first black US president is monumental… and that’s before you hear the extraordinary performance she turns in,” says the 35–year–old from Oxford.
♠ Other collaborators on the album include I Am Kloot, King Creosote, The Waterboys, fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman and Joan As Policewoman.
♠ "I found myself onstage with Joan for a series of UK gigs in 2012, celebrating Sandy Denny's life” recounts Gilmore.
♠ “Much as I love and admire her work as Joan As Policewoman I was still taken aback by her musicality, versatility and vocal presence. Her talent has such breadth. Joan blew me away with the energy and honesty she brought to the performance.”
♠ Although a compilation, the 20 track collection isn’t a ‘Best Of’, insists the singer.
♠ “I’m a bit of a 'Best Of’ sceptic and I’ve never felt it was time to look back; I always had new stuff I passionately wanted to get out there. Then I realised last year that I wanted to bring new light to some older songs... colour, and the perspective that just living for a while affords.
♠ “I was so young when I wrote many of them, and I’ve come to see some of the early versions as no longer definitive.”
♠ She adds: “I didn’t set out to make so many albums. There was no master plan, I just had things to say so I found a way to say them. Now I see every record as a snapshot of that particular time in my life. I go back and listen to myself singing when I was 18 and it’s like a haunting; the songs are the ghosts of my past.” ♠ http://www.nottinghampost.com/
____________________________________________________________