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Miranda Quammie And The Perfect Press Release

• 26th Feb 2013

It’s always nice when a beautifully textured piece of paper bearing a well written press release drops from an envelope with a personalised, polite and friendly hand written note accompanying it that includes links to high resolution press shots and even streams of the music. If only all artists were as clued up and considerate as Miranda Quammie, who this week’s editorial is dedicated to. Of course, all this is inconsequential if you press play and don’t like what you hear – something which thankfully this time was not the case.

‘Tempest’ is the debut release from Miranda Quammie and is the kind of album that restores your faith in young songwriters and new British talent. There’s a brooding, Victorian fog which rolls across the verses and accompanies the Celtic imbued accordion on The Deluge And The Dust which showcases true song writing craft perfectly. Both evocative and emotionally charged, it’s patently obvious that Quammie has put in the time and learnt her art – undoubtedly a gifted musician and a unique voice with an ear for an unconventional melody and folk hooks.

There’s so much going on sonically on this record that sometimes it’s nigh on impossible to peel back the various layers and identify exactly which instruments are contributing which delicious ingredients to this bubbling broth of creativity, but the point is that the challenge is a pleasure – a testament to the coproduction on the album by the artist herself. Lyrically there’s a pleasing depth and broad range of subject matter, some of which (and the most engaging) sees Quammie examining her own sense of Englishness based on her dual heritage – an interesting juxtaposition with the innate English identity threading through the hefty folk influences evident on RAMS Interlude.

If there’s one minor complaint it’s that the seventeen tracks on offer here are a little overwhelming as one release, but it would be incredibly churlish to complain about a surplus of talent and exceptional music on a release as good as this, and if you’ve got the time to immerse yourself in ‘Tempest’ we can guarantee you’ll come away feeling richer as a result.

The amount of emails we get at Glasswerk edges into several hundred a day, not to mention the avalanche of physical submissions we receive for both new and established artists. Sifting through this lot inevitably means that we overlook things we wish we hadn’t and simply don’t have time to review everything we are sent, so if you want to ensure your music is getting looked at and more importantly listened to (en entirely different kettle of fish) take a leaf out of the talented Ms.Quammie’s book.

One of those special discoveries we’re glad to have not overlooked due to a bad submission.