The artwork for Finnish singer/ songwriter Nina Åström was designed by Red Team Go. South African based Red Team member Russell Grant joined forces with London based music production house, and Red Team members weeksweeksweeks. This is the second album to come out of this harmonious partnership. A working relationship that funny enough, all started with Russell Grant and Dan Weeks as strangers meeting on plane from Helsinki to Amsterdam. After an hour sipping on mini whisky bottles, the two exchanged business cards and parted ways in Schipol .
After staying in contact for well over a year, Russell Grant showed the company the work completed for João Orecchia’s 2009 album Hands and Feet. At this point, they joined the Red Team Go community, with many exciting Red Team Go projects immediately put into development. As a result of the Red Team Go network, weeksweeksweeks are now able to offer the additional service of album artwork to the artists they produce and record. Dan Weeks has also since gone on to become an important part of the Red Team Go’s infrastructure. Russell Grant on the other hand gets another great album cover in the portfolio, and not to mention the bragging rights for having designed for an artist with cool european characters in her name.
Nina Aström, from Finland. Singer, performer, artist. Her pop-folk style has been influenced by artists like James Taylor, The Carpenters, Stevie Wonder, Mary Black and Jennifer Warnes.
Nina has acted as a Unicef Goodwill ambassador and has previously released 9 of her own albums. In 2008 Dan met with Nina to work on a track that he and Jason Carter produced for her. It was a success and from there started the lengthy process of ….talking & listening!
PRE PRODUCTION @ BADGER COTTAGE
Nina popped over to the UK for a week to start work on her forthcoming album. The English weather was an inspiration as was the “new” upright.. but the songs are coming together nicely. Drums next week…. will keep you posted!
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, until I was 13. I moved to
Northampton after that and stayed there until my 20’s.
Where do you live know?
In London. Brentford…apparently famous for Brentford Nylons? Tights? I don’t own any!
What have you been up to musically?
I have just started recording my third album! I’m working with two great producers in Glasgow. Hoping it will be ready early summer! Woo hoooo!
If someone doesn’t know your stuff where should they start?
er…you can get it on iTunes…Colour Scheme and Feeder Lane are the first two albums. You can hear my stuff on my website and myspace too!
Who inspires you?
Hmmm. Many people! A lady called Shawn Colvin is my inspiration musically. She’s amazing and when I met her I told her I loved her ‘in a psycho way!’ How embarrassing!
Favourite album?
A Few Small Repairs (Shawn Colvin)
Favourite movie?
The Goonies
Your best party trick?
Er…I usually wet myself when I laugh! Is that a party trick?
You contributed some stunning vocals on Kris’s album. How did you get involved with the project?
I met Kris at New Wine festival last year and really liked his music! And he’s a top bloke hey! [km: awww shucks] So when he asked if I’d do some singing for him I was really pleased. Also he was working with Matt Weeks so I new it was going to be a good thing!
What were your impressions when you got to the session and heard the songs for the first time?
I loved them! I was actually really surprised at the style of the songs and the production. I totally love that raw, earthy Damien Rice
thing that Kris’s stuff has got going on! Don’t know what I thought it would be like…but it was really my kind of stuff.
What are your plans for the year?
I’m concentrating on getting this album finished and out to folk! It’s been 5 years coming so is well over due. Then I’m planning lots of gigging over the summer, and have a massive tour with the wonderful J John in September and October. I’m so excited as we’ll be visiting venues all over the UK. Can I also say that I want a dog this year, but don’t think I’ll get one…but if anyone has a dog that I can borrow I’d be grateful! Thanks!
listen
You can hear Nicki’s fantastic voice on Kris Morris’ “I Think We Both Know”
Fantastic review going in July 2009 edition of UK roots bible Maverick. Hurrah!
“A musical Wizard from Aus releases a stunning debut album The current economic crisis that is blighting the music industry means that artists like Kris Morris and albums like I Think We Both Knoware now pre-destined to relative failure. Without Kris getting the backing of a decent record label you will probably never get to hear this stunning album and that’s a damn shame. I Think We Both Know opens with the sublime So Beautiful; a song that Radio 2 would have played to death 12 months ago and still should. Title song is a plaintive cry from one lover to another at the jagged edge of a doomed relationship. Kris Morris uses his edgy voice to great effect on this and It’s OK, with both songs crackling with suppressed anger and infatuation.
Kris Morris has honed his talent and paid the proverbial dues over the years by moving from his native Australia to London and playing every pub and club South of Birmingham. The album ends with another two marvelous heartbreakers – I Still Believe and Closer To You, but thankfully by now Kris has re-discovered love and tells his new lover that he wants to ‘risk getting hurt/ replace tension with tenderness/replace anger with gentleness.’ James Blunt, Ray Lamontagne and Ryan Adams must all wish that they could have written songs as great as these. My only regret with I Think We Both Know is that it is only available as a download. Gone are the days when a release like this would be trumpeted from the rooftops with full colour advertising; a gatefold sleeve, 32 date UK tour and Kris appearing on every TV programme from Later with Jools Holland to Loose Women. On the upside, not only is it relatively cheap to download the tracks from his website and iTunes; but you can also get a FREE album of demos too. How can you resist?”
“It is hard to believe that Kris Morris, who hails from the same coastal part of Australia as Jack Johnson, is as young as he is. His anguished lyricism and musical competence are from another era, by a significantly older performer. Although he has been variously described as being influenced by the occasionally vapid Ray Lamontagne, the US folksy Ryan Adams and even fellow Antipodean Neil Finn, what emerges is the distinctive and comprehensive confidence of a guitar player and songwriter, whose vocal dexterity can more than stand-up on its own choral intensity.
Okay. So there is a bit of over-dubbing and layered-tracking used to build his unique sound but, when you hear his voice accompanied only by his capable guitar plucking, then you also realise that you are listening to a solo performer of considerable substance, whose past seven years spent as a troubadour around the pubs, clubs and university circuits in the UK have been a time well spent in formulating his debut album, I Think We Both Know. That’s right. This is the man’s debut. He did make a small mark with an EP launched in early 2007 (‘Little Light’) but, as we all know, it is only air-play that will guarantee commercial success and I believe that Kris Morris more than deserves that recognition.
Dabbling on the peripheries is both a luxury and a detraction from where he should be. His sound is personified by the occasional pain of his experiences, although it is not as tragic as the archetypal, beard-growing ‘mountain man’, of a type that seems to have grown commercial fruit for some artists through the TV commercials scene. Morris displays a genuine honesty and as much musicality as Jeff Buckley, despite the occasional melancholy of some of the tracks on this album (release date: 13th April 2009).
There is some truly wondrous music on this CD, which ranges from potent electric rock to soft and naked poetry from the heart. We are informed that he has returned to Oz. Somehow, I think he will come back to Blighty, because Kris Morris is one artist of whom you will be hearing more in years to come.”
Review by: Iain Robertson
Read the original article at: Reviewed Online
Thanks to Frank Hennesy (BBC Radio Wales) for being first in to play some tracks from I Think We Both Know on his program
He played the tracks The Sun and the new improved album version of Other Side – sandwiched between all sorts of lilting Celtic type stuff. God bless Wales!
What they say
“He’s got a style all of his own”
Frank Hennesy
BBC Radio Wales
Frank was the first to get behind Little Light and Someone Sometimes, and BBC Radio Wales were the first too to have Kris in for a live radio session after the release of Little Light.
