Alessi's Ark - Over the Hill

MUSIC



The video for Over the Hill sees Alessi hosting a tea party for an invisible friend and I think it captures her whimsical style wonderfully.

For more information about her upcoming live shows and album you can visit her Myspace page.

Read my review of her support slot for Mumford and Sons at the ICA after the jump.

Alessi’s Ark, acts as a vessel for like-minded souls to share their talents alongside singer-songwriter Alessi Laurent-Marke, whose unique intonation and resonant voice adds depth to her imaginative tales of kite-flying, robots and moonlight.

While Alessi’s previous live performances as a solo artist have been hushed and gentle, the full band which now accompanies her on her ark ensured greater complexity to the songs, while never overwhelming the charming observations of her lyrics. The tinkling keyboards turned the chorus of new single Over the Hill, comprised of those three simple words ‘I love you’, into a complex confession, while the male vocals accompanying The Horse ensured that the song told a much more intriguing story than if it were sung by a lone voice. However, for Woman all of the added extras were stripped away, the poignant song requiring nothing more than the harmonics of Alessi’s guitar and voice, which were in perfect and simple accord, as they were on the heart-felt new song Dancing Feet, which proves her sophistication as a songwriter.

Alessi is always playful with her voice, using it to create new sounds and inflections which ensure each performance of every song is unique. Freed from the pressure that inevitably comes from being entirely alone on stage, there was a sense that the band’s layers of instrumentation provided her with even more freedom to experiment, which is a refreshing thing to see in a fledgling musician whose creativity, like her imagination, is limitless.