A Heidi Berry thread

Great idea for a thread... Below The Waves was a favourite album of my late teenage years..

I bought after hearing North Shore Train on Doing It For The Kids and fell in love with the song.. Yes, its the same version on both records.

It was a while before I heard her first record, Firefly, which was a little disappointing after Below The Waves.

Her first album for 4AD, 'Love' was a more polished, textured progression form Below The Waves, but after that I felt she was treading the same path with diminishing returns...

She made a great single with Patrick Fitzgerald from Kitchens Of Distinction under the name "Lost Girls". They recorded an album which was never released which is a shame as it sounds like it would have been pretty good...

firefly, below the waves, and love are all essential to have. the self-titled album from 1993 has some good stuff on it. her cover of heart like a wheel is nice. but, yeah, it's not as strong as love. Miracle from 1996 is the album i've played the least. I'd actually have to play it right now just to remember what it sounds like.

i never bought the 4AD Pomegranate comp. I'm sure it includes unreleased stuff or whatever. i'd buy it if i saw it cheap somewhere.

her song on the last this mortal coil album is great too.

don't know how old this info is on her website, but it sounds promising:

"Last year, Heidi sent herself “back to school” and enrolled on the
songwriting course run by Ray Davies at The Arvon Foundation. She found
this experience, “renewing, inspiring and the hardest work I’ve ever
done”. The result is, Heidi is currently recording a collection of new
songs. She says, “I’ve got about 40 songs now. How and when they will
be released, I haven’t the faintest idea. I just know I need to do this
with all my heart.”

Heidi Berry teaches Songwriting and Live Performance at the Brighton
Institute of Modern Music. She lives on the south coast of England with
her partner and a cranky black cat."

nothing new or unreleased on Pomegranate, Scott. the only real rarity on that anthology is the A-side of the Lost Girls 7". it should have included at least one mix of "Signs of Life," the one-off trip-hop track she recorded with the Ronnie & Clyde guys (as Aeroplane) for Detox.

taken me years to really appreciate these albums.

Wow, I didn't realize they released the Lost Girls album (plus a second disc of demos!) in 2014. Anyone heard it?

i feel bad that the lost girls stuff i've heard on youtube doesn't really thrill me. like, i don't think i would listen to it much if i had the CDs. i've always dug the KoD guy too. one song i heard really reminded me of hearing natalie merchant singing behind some 90's gazepop song. i don't think their voices really meshed well at all. there are solo heidi vocal tracks but they didn't sound exciting either. and i'm a fan!

i really feel like she needs sympathetic production for her voice. and that stuff didn't have it.

i didn't even know about that stuff until recently.

i haven't heard the whole thing though. there could be gems on there.

if it had all sounded like this i might have dug it...still sounds demo-y though. or maybe like an early adventurous sarah mclachlan b-side...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx-5Hs0qQCM

who produced most of her albums... peter walsh and hugh jones?

Heidi Berry teaches Songwriting and Live Performance at the Brighton
Institute of Modern Music. She lives on the south coast of England with
her partner and a cranky black cat."

― scott seward, Sunday, 28 June 2009 22:32 (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

She does - our Alice is going there as of next year, after her gap yr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUBDNGRzKVk

so sad she didn't cut an entire album with brendan perry