Trixie Whitley - NoiseTrade Mixtape

Listening To Ladies

I’m currently working through a GCSE English Literature remark which is a drag – not the process itself, because righting wrongs is one of the many positive aspects of the job, contrary to the moronic judgements of it from many who know little – but because at the moment there is so much good music from female vocalists I want to spend time listening to.

There’s Lucy Kruger who released her debut album near the end of September, sounding like a slightly country version of Tracey Chapman; there’s the two Beths, Hart and Orton, who have just released very strong albums [BH on this week’s Later....with Jools]; Tift Merritt’s fine latest; Natasha Khan of Bats for Lashes and her imminent release along with the same from Martha Wainwright, and then there is newcomer Angel Snow whose debut eponymous album introduces another truly strong female voice to wipe away my dismay of all those wispy affected and slurred pretenders out there [a running gripe, and my aural jury is out on Ellie Goulding who I watched on Channel 4 last night, which reminds me to mention the intelligent and lovely singer/songwriter Lianne La Havas who also appeared].

I refer to Snow just before mentioning the main subject of this planned quick post [the marking is on the table waiting, and this was meant to be a brief break], but as I checked my emails I just received another notification from NoiseTrade advertising a free download of Trixie Whitley, the superb gutsy vocalist I reviewed recently in her work with Daniel Lanois as Black Dub. I’m listening now and it contains two songs from her forthcoming album in January as well as live cuts, like another hearing of the superb I’d Rather Go Blind recorded at the Engine Room. Yesterday I downloaded a free ep of live recordings from Angel Snow which adds to my newfound respect for this artist.

So as well as praising all these heard and yet to hear female artists, with Trixie Whitley in particular, I am also praising NoiseTrade and its facility for artists to promote themselves [artists get your name and zip code/post code in exchange so I guess email promotion could mushroom if you download loads - but you can always unsubscribe to these]. I’ve just found their site and will download more – how could you not – and with the Trixie I did give a donation of $6 as they request [they call it a 'tip' which is clever], but there’s clearly no compulsion. I didn’t for the Angel Snow which I will instead be reviewing, and I will see for the others. It’s a great and effective promotional tool at NoiseTrade and a slight variation on the move for artists to self-promote on the internet, often looking for backers in order to actually fund recordings and releases and offering signed copies of releases along with other extras to these backers. You can find NoiseTrade here http://noisetrade.com/?dc=Nbkhzf including the Trixie download.