Over the course of three solo albums across half a decade, Behind The Wall (2016), Zumbo Waxes (2019), and the forthcoming Sweet Way Around, London-based, German/British singer-songwriter and producer Vanessa Anne Redd has crafted a delectable niche in the current realm of folk music.
Redd’s music is a myriad of feelings, soundscapes, and ideas that at times seem contradictory, but somehow find a way to be unifying. It’s a mixture of friendliness with stoicism, vulnerability and adverseness, and richness with subtlety. The takeaway, and the most defining feature of her music, is her voice — a perennially cheerful melodic vocal performance that is bettered by her masterful control.
‘DC Drawers’, one of the promotional singles for her third album Sweet Way Around is the amalgamation of Redd’s sound to this point. Slightly jagged, slightly mesmerising, and altogether lead by a wonderfully intonated vocal performance, it’s the sign of an artist who’s travelled, experienced, and arrived at a sound that is uniquely and distinctively her own. Her forthcoming album, in her own words, is “ultimately a bittersweet tale of how life’s complex road of highs and lows bring us to a stage in life where we are wiser and learn to love ourselves and appreciate what is truly important in life.”
Redd is introspective and pleasurable all at once. Don’t miss out on DC Drawers, and the album that’s to follow. It’s a new style of folk that is well worth your time.
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