I Think She's Crazy

I am now convinced that the car is easily the most productive place to listen to music. It is like being incased in a tomb of sound, providing you've click clacked front and back, there is no where to run, no mother telling you to clean your room, no sibling to knock on your door and ask what it is your listening to. Admittedly, when driving a car I suppose the road is a consideration if only a minor one though living in Western Sydney, the ability to concentrate on driving a motor vehicle properly is low on the priority list for most residents. So instead I focus on using as few a fingers as I can to hold the wheel and tap away.

Driving to work at 4a.m on my last day of work before Christmas, I threw Alice Russell into my car stereo and I'm not sure what it is I expected to hear. What I am sure of is that my skills of stereotyping artists by their album cover is deteriorating.

There would have been a time when a voice as growling and soul-infused would only have been thought to belong to a 150kg black woman who needs a lil R.E.S.P.E.C.T. That's not me being racist or stereotypical, that's the truth. But it is thanks to the Duffy's, Joss Stone's, Alice Russell's and a few predecessors that nothing is certain anymore.

Alice Russell can take you back to another era yet keep it fresh enough that you are very aware you aren't hearing one of your mother's old records. While she can competently deliver throw backs to times which have past, her cover of 'Crazy' is a perfect example of her original interpretation of the now.

To borrow from the legend Ron Burgundy, on Pot of Gold soul sister Alice Russell takes the basslines for a walk and keeps the symbols splashing. However make no mistake, Pot of Gold is undeniably a powerful vocally driven presentation. The tunes that sit behind Alice Russell's tour-de-force set of bagpipes are at times forgettable excluding the occassional rousing introduction of the brass instruments. Not to say this is a criticism of the music being a hinderance to the overall package but rather that it would be difficult for many instruments to really rise above the instrument that is Alice Russell.

Tour: Alice Russell is touring our shores late Jan - early Feb

29 Jan 2009 Beck’s Bar / Sydney Festival Sydney
30 Jan 2009 Sandwiches Wellington
31 Jan 2009 Sale St Auckland
5 Feb 2009 SoCo St. Kilda Mebourne
6 Feb 2009 Playground Festival Webb’s Creek
7 Feb 2009 The Bakery Perth

Listen: Alice Russell - Turn and Run

Buy: Alice Russell's Pot of Gold