Maple Bee — Little Victories

                             ^{Maple Bee — Little Victories} ¬•••   Když Melanie Garside poprvé zaparkovala svoje nové hudební fáro, Maple Bee, to možná zmátlo celý kalašnikovský pás lidí, kteří ji znali z Queenadreena a Mediæval Bæbes. Ale tvořivost je evoluční proces a něco ze své minulé dark sensuality a bohatých vokálů z archivu, nemluvě o její předběžné Maple Bee sólové práci, dává nahlédnout do jejího současného proudu. Informuje, ne však diktuje: Little Victories jistě ukazují, že neexistuje žádný odpočinek na vavřínech, nebo spoléhání na minulých vrstevnicích slávy. Co tady uslyšíš? Prameny zpěvavého singer–songwriterství, rootsy–country a převážně ambientní, pozdně noční pop senzibilitu. Melanie vytvořila nádherné album.
¬•••   Jsme v parallelách? Tak jmenovitě Bush–eska, Tori Amos teritorium a delikátnost Stevie Nicks.
¬•••   ‘Little Victories’ is the latest album from Maple Bee, featuring ten new songs, including ‘Nobody Knows’, ‘Row You Up River’ and ‘Doctor’.Location: London, UK
Album release: June 22nd 2015
Record Label: Xie Recordings
Duration:     40:16
Tracks:
01. Doctor     4:25
02. To All The Lost     4:07
03. Nobody Knows     4:05
04. Blossom Falls     4:02
05. Don't Fly Too Soon     4:29
06. Indelible     2:22
07. Row You Up River     4:01
08. With Your Kiss     4:49
09. Catch The Wind     3:28
10. Almost Home     4:28Description:
¬•••   Fourth Solo album by multi–instrumentalist Melanie Garside. Features single To All The Lost. UK dates being announced for the summer. Folk radio will be featuring the first single through June / July. It has been a long, strange trip for Maple Bee. ¬•••   Born Melanie Garside, she found early fame of sorts with indie noiseniks Tabitha Zu and her sister Katie 'Daisy Chainsaw' Garside's Queen Adreena, as well as Our Lady Of Miracles and Vertigo Angels. She then spent time touring and writing with female classical acappella troupe Mediaeval Baebes, before forming the electro–pop duo Huski. Mel's solo work as alter ego Maple Bee has effectively formed the musical backdrop to these other creative endeavours, providing her with the chance to express and mould her self–penned, self–produced and self–recorded material in a way that is hers alone. Her four albums — 2004's double Chasing Eva, 2008's Home, These Four Worlds in 2012 and now the brand new album Little Victories — have been a form of therapy for her, a series of diary entries that have helped her examine or exorcise the events of her life. Two decades of creative endeavour have passed since Mel enrolled at college in Nottingham and met the musicians with whom she would form her first band, Tabitha Zu, later known simply as Zu. Immediately acclaimed, much of the attention was focused on force of nature Mel and by mid–decade she had signed to Echo as a solo artist and was being touted as the Next Big Thing. However, despite excellent reviews for her debut album, Fossil (produced by Julian Mendelsohn), internal record company politics resulted in distribution problems and the record was quickly forgotten. Under pressure to be the perfect pop star, it was with some relief that she fell in with a more alternative rock crowd when she joined Our Lady Of Miracles, who later became Vertigo Angels, followed by her stints in Queen Adreena and Mediaeval Baebes and then co–founding Huski. There have been times when it seemed as though the fragility of it all was too much. If not for her music and writing, many of the emotional struggles that Mel has endured may never have been resolved.
¬•••   Ten melodic musical tales which dance from the romantic longing of the Stevie Nicks–esque "Nobody Knows", to the struggle with sanity on the modern folk of "Doctor" and "To All The Lost", featuring Maple Bee — a woman on harmonica!
¬•••   Think early Suzanne Vega, stripped back instrumentation and dreamy storytelling, or the contemporary Americana of Natalie Prass.
¬•••   By day Maple Bee is Melanie Garside — a music therapist with a decade's experience of helping give voice to the voiceless.
¬•••   A children's drum drowned in reverb, the pop and snap of face percussion, looped messing–about on analogue pedals — "Little Victories" is choc–a–bloc with this instinctive approach to making music, inspired by the pure expression of non–musicians.
¬•••   From her early years spent on a round–the–world boat trip with her family — listening to the fantastical narratives of Kate Bush and Maddy Prior — to a musical her–story writing and performing in bands Queen Adreena and Mediaeval Baebes, Maple Bee's aesthetic is unashamably other–worldly, spooky. Siren call vocals, the lyrics of myth.
¬•••   "Little Victories" are the journeys we take everyday into the unknown.  Write it on your hand, you won't forget which way to go….
Website: http://www.maplebee.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/missmaplebee
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maplebeeofficial
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/missmaplebee
Mel Garside: https://www.facebook.com/mel.garside.16
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/maple-beeREVIEW
Dave Franklin
¬•••   When Melanie Garside first unleashed her new musical vehicle, Maple Bee, it possibly confused a whole swath of people who knew her from stints with Queenadreena and Mediæval Bæbes. But creativity is an evolutionary process and some of the dark sensuality of the former and the rich vocals of the latter, not to mention her pre–Maple Bee solo work does inform her current output. Inform but not dictate, as Little Victories certainly shows that there is no resting on laurels or relying on past glories being settled for and by taking strands of lilting folk, rootsy country strains and predominantly an ambient, late-night pop sensibility she has created a wonderful album.
¬•••   There are some obvious parallels, namely the Bush–esque Nobody Knows and occasional forays into Tori Amos territory–thought without relying on the vulnerability that she employs, Maple Bee is a wholly more confident prospect, even when pouring her heart out. But if those references serve any purpose it is to highlight the quality of the craftsmanship on show here. Being compared to the two leading lights of the dream pop genre isn’t just an easy journalistic reference, it also points to the fine line between uniqueness and accessibility Maple Bee also walks.
¬•••   But for all this talk of dream–pop and ambience, although chilled and lush in nature, this album is no fey musical will–o the wisp, the songs are robust without being muscular, often delicate without being insubstantial, a masterstroke by anyone’s standards. ¬•••   http://dancingaboutarchitecture.info/
LYRICS DOCTOR
Doctor
1.)    Oh Doctor, where's the medicine?
I need to get back home
I need a rope, but no one's thrown
I need to get back home
And yes — I have tried
I swear to you, I have tried
So hard on my own
2.)    Oh Doctor, hear the words I say
I'll not forget your face, or the words you say
Like static on the radio
A language that only you and I know
3.)    Yes this mountain is too much
But believe me you've got just enough
To keep me okay
To keep me okay
When simply breathing feels too much
It's in your mirror, that I trust
4.)    And to this well I come to drink
A flash, a moment, lost in a blink
A thousand years have come and gone
And time she still won't play by the rules
5.)    To keep me okay
I want to keep you okay
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Maple Bee — Little Victories

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