[Guest Column] Lail Arad // Young & Breaking #6

-

I’m sorry this is a little late. The last days have been a bit of a marathon and finding time to write quietly has been tricky. My journal is neglected too. But now it’s 8am on a Sunday, the neighbours are sleeping (they had a party last night but I was so tired I slept through it!) and I have some time to steal before I leave for the Eurostar (via a father’s day breakfast!).

My album came out online last week. It did feel quite momentous seeing it there on iTunes…and Spotify! We also got the first physical run of CDs (which I’ll be selling at shows) and they look lovely! The artwork was done by a magical illustrator called Sara Fanelli – she’s a good friend of mine and I think you can tell by what came out that she knows me really well. It was exciting to see the lyrics hidden inside – almost like a little book!

So it looks good and plays fine – BUT! When you imported the CD to your computer, the information came up not as my album Someone New, but some heavy metal album called The Stench!!! With some song titles too obscene to mention here! Luckily I can laugh about this now knowing it will very soon be fixed – apparently The Stench has identical song-lengths to mine, and this is what iTunes goes by. Maybe I should contact the band to do a iTunes-exclusive duet…

We had a little launch party at Green Note in Camden. It’s a tiny venue I’ve played in before and really love. The balance of close friends and industry was about right – bring on the bloggers, but only if you’ve got your biased fans wooping you on! It was really a special night, and interestingly I was so focused on other things that I didn’t stress about the usual things like my voice – and as a result it did whatever I asked it to. I’m realising increasingly how much of a better plan it is to be relaxed about things!

And then yesterday I played at Winterwell Festival. I hadn’t driven on the motorway since last summer but it was sort of easy. I had my expert driver friend next to me as co-pilot and my sister DJing from the backseat which helped. I even overtook a few caravans! Not sure about driving, playing, and driving back the same day though, bit draining. But it was great to get out of London. And Winterwell “the biggest little festival” is a sweet way to start the season! Like a practice run.

They had some great people playing – the highlight was a band I’d never seen before called The Crookes, who let two girls paint their faces whilst performing their single. They started the song as blonde 60s-rockers and ended it as foxes – without missing a note! In my set I played on a Wurlitzer for the first time, because it was just there on the stage and looked really chunky and tempting. It had exactly the right number of keys for my songs – I touched the highest and lowest note. I want one!

Right – next stop Paris. Let’s see what The French make of The Stench! I’ll be in France for the France-South Africa match. I hope they win so the city is in a good mood…