Romantica Obscura by Angie Palmer

At seventeen Angie left England for Europe, deciding to travel before taking up a place at art college, but ended up living in Paris and making a living playing music:

"I had a battered old Spanish guitar and I knew a couple of chords that an old boyfriend had shown me....I still remember the first few francs I made from playing music, I played three songs in the Paris metro and that was it...I was a minstrel following in the long tradition of the wandering musician. At least that's how I saw myself back then."

Angie spent the next seven years travelling around Europe busking, playing bars and clubs, and small festivals.

"People often comment on the aggressiveness of my playing, but a lot of my style came from pure economics: the better I played the better I ate. It was as simple as that. I wanted to be as good as I could, but I had to compete with others so I went for making my guitar sound as big as possible. I thumped and slapped it to get some percussion out of it so that I could grab people's attention. If they did that they might part with some money. i still have the old Guild that I travelled with and it looks like it has been used as cricket bat! I couldn't part with it, all my learning was done on that guitar."

Angie's time in Europe was also spent writing songs, some of which appear on her first cd: A Certain Kind of Distance which she recorded on her return to England and took around the country's blues and folk circuit, including two years appearing on the acoustic stage at Glastonbury. These were songs that Angie had been playing for a live long time and represented a solitary, travelling way of life.

Whereas Angie's first cd was a totally solo effort her next, romantica obscura, has drums and bass as well as cello, violin and congas.

"romantica obscura is a cd that I had always wanted to make; songs that have a strong lyrical element as well as a strong musical one. I guess it's a bit like Joni Mitchell's "Hejira-Summer Lawns" period, especially as the main instrument after my guitar is a fretless bass, and some of the arrangements have a more complex, yet slightly 'free' feel to them."

Average Customer Review: