Louise Patricia Crane’s debut album ‘Deep Blue’, which is released on her own label Peculiar Doll Records on May 15th, sees first week entry into the UK Indie Album Charts at #20 and the UK Rock / Metal Album charts at #8.
The singer and songwriter’s commanding presence is complemented on the record by luminaries including Jakko Jakszyk (King Crimson), Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) Scott Reeder (The Obsessed, Kyuss) and Danny Thompson (Pentangle / John Martyn).
Existing in a dreamlike headspace that embraces classic psychedelia, ethereal visions, romantic mythos and rapturous drama, Louise Patricia Crane’s debut album is a twilit collection of uncommon class and chutzpah – emotional and fantastical realms writ large in a musical landscape where nothing is off limits, possessed of a rare magick to fire the imagination.
The genesis of this album arrived when Louise began working in earnest with Stephen Carey, who she had first met when singing with The Eden House, and it became apparent that many of the musical ideas she had nurtured independently for years might have finally found a suitable creative foil. She was so thrilled by their early experiments together that she relocated from her native Belfast to rural Cambridgeshire to work on the record.
“Working with Stephen has been a wonderful experience” says Louise, “I felt respected and in control of the process. He’s also just a very talented musician who instils his playing with a lot of emotion and – dare I say it – femininity, which was so key for me and for this album. Stephen and I also share a lot of the same reverence for certain artists and aesthetics, namely Kate Bush’s ‘Hounds Of Love’, which was my loose template for producing a record which can at one point touch on pop overtones, then the next moment take you somewhere much darker – proggy, yet still dreamy throughout”.
With an intuitive rhythm section of Eden House drummer Simon Rippin and bassist Steve Gibbons on board, a resolutely genre-free and unconventional sound began to evolve amidst a myriad of influences – from the rich and celestial sonics of classic Cocteau Twins to the timeless melodies of ‘White Album’-era Beatles and the maverick spark and earthy passions of early Tori Amos, not to mention non-musical inspiration such as the classic cult film Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders and the literary fiction of Angela Carter. It was to take on still new frontiers when King Crimson member Jakko Jakszyk came on board, contributing guitar tracks and backing vocals. “I can’t put in to words what it meant to have the singer and guitarist from King Crimson – who I’ve been unashamed about declaring as my favourite band – express a keen interest in my music”, says Louise.
Moreover, legendary artist Jim Fitzpatrick, famed for his work on Thin Lizzy’s ‘Jailbreak’ amongst many others, was on hand to work on the album’s sleeve.
Yet these contributions, prestigious though they may be, only serve to accentuate an extremely well-defined and potent vision all Louise’s own. “My main overall theme on this album, is certainly escapism, seduction, dreaming – escaping the corporeal realm and going somewhere otherworldly that stimulates and tantalises” she notes. “I’m a total dreamer and art – for me – has always been about leaving this place and being taken away to somewhere more appealing to the senses”.
