Friday 12 September 2014

My third album - listen for free


Album Release


After all the hard work and preparation, and moments when I thought it would never happen, my third album is finally out. Here is the description posted on Bandcamp, CD Baby and other sites:

This 2014 album from British singer-songwriter Hollie Sue is influenced by soul, jazz, blues, and folk. Expect sultry, heartfelt vocals and thought-provoking lyrics, accompanied by a rich varied tapestry of instruments including piano, ukulele, guitar, double bass, gentle drums, percussion, strings, and breathy vocal harmonies.

There are emotional piano ballads like “Invisible” and “I’ll Stand Alone” written with lyricist Joy Bowes, soulful numbers such as “Give It Time” and “Sweeter Milk”, quirky folk-pop songs like “Break Into My Heart” and “Who Are You?”, and more. This mammoth fifteen-song album reveals layers of angst, nostalgia, love, idealism, and spiritual searching.


The Island Album Cover
The Island Album Cover

You can stream the album for free here, and if you like it you can always buy a digital copy for yourself or as a gift for a friend, for only £5. Digital copies from that link include full artwork and lyrics PDFs.

If you prefer your music on CD, you can get one from my website for £6 including lyrics booklet and postage.
(£7.50 for orders outside the UK).


For 15 songs you can't say fairer than that!

Album Launch Event


Again lots of hard work has finally paid off - the launch performance went well with two mini-sets from acoustic support act Alistair J. Pearson and two longer sets from us (us being Brian Morrell on piano, Craig Smith on drums, Jonny Stott on guitar, and yours truly on vocals and ukulele).


Soundchecking before the album launch
We didn't take any photos on the day apart from this one while soundchecking; we were too busy! But HD Video Services made a professional video which is being edited at the moment, so when it arrives we can take screenshots from that.

Although it wasn't attended as well as I'd hoped, for various reasons, we all had a good time and we're looking forward to seeing the video, and also hearing the full-quality audio which was recorded straight from the mixing desk.

I'd like to thank everyone that came along, everyone that helped on the day, and those that supported the event even if they couldn't get there (you know who you are). I'm also grateful to the church members and minister for letting us use their beautiful venue, to Jonny for bringing his PA for us to use, and to my parents, step-parents and auntie who all helped in various ways. Thank you to Alistair who played and sang beautifully, and to my band-mates who did a great job.

Throughout all of this we didn't forget about our friends Baz and Jo: you were and still are in our thoughts and we have fingers, toes, and everything else crossed hoping that things will improve for you.

30-challenge update

Continuing with my 30-challenges-by-the-time-I-turn-30:

1. Build a new recording studio, with help from an online fundraising campaign - In Progress
The studio computer has now been built!! This is due entirely to the generosity of people who contributed to the online funding campaign - thank you to every single person who donated or helped to publicise the campaign, and to Richard whose practical help has been extremely valuable. At the end of this month we will be able to get Cubase software and a USB mixing desk/interface, which will be enough to get started with. Later we can replace other things bit by bit which will do for a little longer, such as headphones and microphones. See the campaign here

2. Do an album launch gig to release my album "The Island" - DONE! (See above)

(no updates on challenges 3-11)

12. Make my own version of the Doctor Who theme tune - DONE
I didn't advertise this one in advance, as I wasn't sure if my old failing studio equipment would be up to the task. Well, the system crashed a couple of times and I had to bang the desk more than once to make it work, but it managed to crank out this one last tune for me:




It's already had 48 views and it's only been up for a couple of days!


Here's a new challenge I might work on once the studio is up and running:

13. Make a dance remix of one of my songs! - To Do...