Lucy Farrell: The Folklore Rooms, Brighton, March 14 2023

We’re officially excited about Lucy Farrell’s new album, We Are Only Sound, recorded at Wenlock Abbey in Shropshire, in the dark days of lockdown.

Naturally en route from Scotland to Cornwall (who plans tours?), Farrell lit up Brighton’s Folklore Rooms on Tuesday, accompanied by a beautiful Gibson tenor guitar and Jake Charron on a more conventional six-stringed instrument. Her voice is bright and clear, and her songwriting is on point.

Often uncovering the profundity in the everyday, Farrell covered lost keys, birdlife on the Thames Estuary and the trials of parenthood with wit and insight. But there’s a darker side, too: I loved the intensity of lines like “I bite your tongue and you hold mine”, and the iron-fist-velvet-glove “passive-aggressive” Sacrifice, gutsy and menacing.

Another – a commission received via an online auction during lockdown – crisply illustrated her talent. Farrell had been asked to write a song for the winner’s husband, unknown to the songwriter but for a list of his interests. It’s quite an intimidating, intimate brief, but she has responded intelligently, working in a raft of Hitchcock references and a Duncan Chisholm-esque tune to come up with something that works for a wider audience and, one imagines, the fortunate husband in question.

Not only that, in the forthcoming album’s title track (see below), she’s got a sing-along banger!

Check out her upcoming shows here. We Are Only Sound is out on April 21 on Hudson Records.

Main image: Giovanny Estrella Talentti

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