Diane Birch

Having studiously avoided posting any music by new artists in the first four months or so of this blog - mainly because I haven't got any - I'm now doing it for the second time in less than a week. I promise I am not attempting to become cutting edge and that I will not be offering home-made remixes of Val Doonican or anything like that. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Today's recipient of my largesse is Diane Birch, whose album "Bible Belt" was released earlier this month. I like it because it sounds like it could have been made in the 1970s - some of the tunes have a touch of Carole King about them, and vocally she reminds me a little of Phoebe Snow at times (others have said Carly Simon although I don't really see it myself). It is nothing ground-breaking but it's very well done, and she has roped in stalwarts like Betty Wright and Lenny Kaye to good effect.

I'm not going to put anything from the album itself up as it has only just been released, but what I am posting are a couple of tracks from a session she did for Daytrotter.com recently. Both tracks are on the album as well: "Fools" and "Nothing But A Miracle".

http://www.box.net/shared/nh000g3m9j

To hear the full session go to: http://www.daytrotter.com/dt/diane-birch-sxsw-session-like-you-were-walking-onto-a-yacht-concert/20030670-3737980.html

To finish off, here is the video for "Nothing But A Miracle"



Off to Brussels for the day tomorrow. I'm going straight from the train to meetings and back again so no time for exploring, but will try to pop into the record shop at the station to see if I can find another in the series of compilations of 1980s Belgian new wave. But no promises.