Underskog

Berlin baserte Devon Sproule slapp sitt første album som 16- åring og fikk fort oppmerksomhet i pressa, i 2003 havna hun på Rolling Stone’s Critics Top Albums Of The Year.

Musikken beveger seg mellom Folk , Country og Jazz .

http://www.devonsproule.com/home/

“I’ve been packing dirty clothes, sleeping in my coat, / Eating in the car, living in a bar. / Goodness, ain’t that the way?”

It seems Devon Sproule (pronounced like “rock ‘n ROLL”) inhabits a hall of 1,000 people just as gracefully as she does a dive bar. Live in London, the 28-year-old’s first live record, includes a 10-song CD and 8-song DVD: 18 performances that showcase Sproule’s equally powerful and nuanced style. “Sproule’s songs ooze the atmosphere of balmy Virginia days,” wrote The Observer. “She grew up in a commune in the state – and her sunny outlook is infectious.” Scattered between songs on the DVD are video clips of Devon and the band in their tour van, backstage goofing off, dancing, drinking, ribbing, & lamenting petrol put in a diesel tank.

“I asked God for a good man. / But I forgot to say, / ‘I wanna see him everyday.’”

The plot thickened last year when Sproule’s husband, songwriter/guitarist/producer Paul Curreri suffered a throat injury that forced him to cancel his own tours, making him available to join Devon’s band on guitar. “To be honest, getting him in the band even temporarily was a bit of a hard sell. Injury aside, he just really prefers doing his own thing. He’s proud of me but he digs that we’re not a duo, even though we’re married and both musicians. Still, he had just produced my record.

Don’t Hurry for Heaven and written and played most of the parts that weren’t bass, drums or pedal steel. It just kind’ve made sense for him to come on the road. And we ended up having a hell of a good time. He liked to tell people that he got to ‘sleep with the boss.’”

On many of the tracks, Curreri shares sonic space with pedal steel guru BJ Cole. “Plea for a Good Night’s Rest,” the solo opener from Sproule’s 2003 record Upstate Songs, grows from a delicate cradle into a billowing heart-to-heart between Cole’s steel and Sproule’s voice. “Ain’t that The Way” puts the entire band to work as singers, carrying the counter melody sung on Don’t Hurry by fellow-Virginian Jesse Winchester. Curreri momentarily shrugs off his throat woes to duet with Sproule on the desert-bluesy rendering of Black Uhuru’s “Sponji Reggae.” Throughout, Coventry-based rhythm section G Vaughan (drums) and Andy Whitehead (bass) provide a solid, ingeniously subtle support. At one break between songs, Sproule and Curreri thank a friend in the audience for a bottle of Kenyan beer left on the stage (the couple collaborated with musicians in Nairobi last summer as part of a project called Chemirocha, exploring the connection between African Benga and Western country music).

For the folkies who saw Sproule’s first tour of the UK, supporting Woodstock legend Richie Havens, Live in London is just as much a showcase for Sproule’s idiosyncratic, highly original songwriting as it is a platform for her compelling band, which also includes viola and violin from Vince Sipprell and Emma Smith (Elysian Quartet).

Sproule’s previous UK release, Keep Your Silver Shined, proved an indie hit for her Coventry-based label Tin Angel Records (Black Carrot, Danny Schmidt, Baby Dee, Mantler, Polarbear, DON’T MOVE!, and more). The album topped year-end lists, & landed her a spot on Later…with Jools Holland. Paste Magazine called it “The sexiest, sultriest southern album since Lucinda’s Car Wheels on A Gravel Road.”