Another crowdfunding request arrived in one of my inboxes yesterday (I have multiple identities and secret lives, but there’s no escape from news). This one was from Laura Moody, whom regular and assiduous ‘Misfit City’ readers might remember from her low-key guest appearance at the Liam Singer/Foxout!!! gig which I reviewed in summer 2013.
As well as being a superb cellist (with fistfuls of classical and extended techniques) Laura’s also an extremely good singer-songwriter responsible for a self-titled three-track EP released back in 2009 and which I really ought to review sometime. It showed her sweeping her multi-textured cello playing and her stunt-kite vocals into the service of some extraordinary songs. Complicated, tuneful and wood-noisy, they quivered with a thoroughly female complexity dealing mostly with the passage through womanhood (brains tussling with sexuality, daughterly angst, the farcical behaviour of older men) and brimming with an exuberant, theatrical wit. Here’s what ‘The Irish Times‘ said about Laura some time ago:
“…for enjoyable astonishment, nothing quite beats the singer-cellist Laura Moody. She plays lyrically; then as if it was a box for sound effects. She sings her own almost-pop songs, gurgles, hoots, wails, taps her throat with the bow. Yet it’s all seamless, as if she, the cello and the music are a single organism.”
I can second that, and here’s some more evidence.
While I’m dragging my feet about reviewing that EP properly, you can listen to it here. Meanwhile, there’s a follow-up coming soon, and here is Laura’s crowdfunding request:
“Dear Friends,
Well, it seems spring has sprung in more ways than one for me and I have really exciting developments to report! My debut album is very very nearly finished and I have a launch date for your diaries – 26th June this year at Wiltons Music Hall! I can’t wait to welcome you all there for what I think is going to be a magical evening at the most beautiful venue in London. But before I can do any of that I’m afraid I need to ask for your help…
I have launched a crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo to help me raise the money I need for the final stages of production and release. I really hope you’ll take a look at the video, the rewards on offer and consider getting involved. I am going to be releasing on my own label – the newly christened Surbiton Lagoon Records – but what this campaign really means is that you wonderful people will essentially be becoming my record label, the force that makes getting my music out into the world possible.
Some of you might have noticed on Facebook or Twitter that I rather nervously launched the campaign late on Friday afternoon. I figured that not much would happen until this week when I would have a chance to contact all of you properly about it. However… things kind of went a bit bananas with people pitching in to get me to 10% of my target by the end of the day and 30% by the end of the weekend. I am completely stunned and deeply moved by the enthusiasm and generosity everyone has shown. If you have already contributed to the campaign I really must thank you so, so much.
Thank you again for your time, support, encouragement and patience with getting this album out. It’s so close now and I’ll be keeping you updated as to how this all goes.
More soon
Laura xx
PS I will be supporting my friends Dollyman at the Hackney Attic in London this Friday. If you’re free please do come along for some songs and a drink to celebrate a great first week for my campaign!”
While I know Laura, I don’t know Dollyman, but for what it’s worth ‘Time Out’ described them as “fractious Mingus-informed punky jazz quartet offers broken themes full of menace and mischief. Possibly what Tom Waits’ band might sound like after he’s popped out for a smoke,” – all of which sounds promising.
Laura Moody online:
Misfit City 