Rock-city Scarborough’s Eliza Carthy was charming – had switched off her phone before the show unlike a certain host and didn’t miss out on reminding him of that – grounded and simply projected herself as the free spirit she most likely is. At least that’s the feeling I got after listening to the interview. Moreover, Carthy wasn’t shy in talking about her latest record “Neptune” (HemHem Records), an “explicitely auto-biographical record which “wasn’t something [she] intended.” Further questions then lead to the idea behind naming the album after the sea god & planet:
“Somebody did a chart for me a few years ago. And Neptune is all about change and destruction. (..) It seemed appropriate apart from my (…) watery obesession over the last albums. They all had either vague, or water, or sea themes to them. (…) I thought, I should expand my repertoire some more and looked at the stars. (…) And it seemed relevant.”
- (Via Independent.co.uk)
Eliza Carthy originally started her career off as the singer of the Waterdaughters, a folk supergroup which she formed together with her mother and an aunt at the age of 13 before joining the folk combo, Blue Murder for whom she vocalised “I Bid You Goodnight”. In 1998 her album “Red Rice” received the first nominaton for the Mercury Music Price followed by “Anglicana” in 2003.
Despite the singer’s critically acclaimed route to fame as a “poetic, old soul”, Carthy wasn’t ashamed to admit that she still sees herself as an “amateur”. Well, that probably isn’t what I’d call someone with over 20 years of stage experience but Carthy based her reasoning on different rational.
“When it comes to writing my own material, I’m only three albums in. (…) The thing about amateurs is that you tend to write about yourself. (…) It’s like your first novel. It’s all about you. And that’s what they say about dreams as well. It’s that every character in your dreams is you.”
Listen for yourself. The interview is available on BBC iPlayer (1:37:00 in!!!). The single “Britain Is A Car Park” can be download for FREE on Eliza Carthy’s site.
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