Charlotte Church - I Can Dream (2014)

If you know the name Charlotte Church at all, it's almost certainly as the pre-teen singing sensation who won 'The Big, Big Talent Show' in 1997, and then went on to sign a contract with Sony Music, and to release her first album, 'Voice Of An Angel' in 1998, when she was just 12 years old. The collection of arias, sacred songs, and traditional pieces sold millions worldwide, and made her the youngest artist to have a No. 1 album on the British classical crossover charts. In 2000 she released 'Dream A Dream', an album of Christmas carols, and in 2001 she added pop, swing, and Broadway into her repertoire with her album 'Enchantment', which in turn led to her first all-pop album in 2005, with 'Tissues And Issues'. Four singles were released from it, with the most successful being 'Crazy Chick', which reached number two in the UK charts. In November 2006, it was announced that she and Sony had parted ways, which according to her publicist was a mutual decision reached after a series of meetings throughout the year, although there was speculation that her pop releases' chart performance contributed to the decision. Although she announced that she would be working on new music in 2008, it was to be another two years before we heard from her again, when she appeared on 'Friday Night With Jonathan Ross' on 13 March 2010, and confirmed that she had already begun writing and recording her sixth studio album. 'Back To Scratch' was duly released on Dobby Records in the UK on 25 October 2010, together with the title track preceding it as the lead single. However, in March 2011 it was announced that she had ended her US$3 million deal with Power Amp Music over promotional disputes, and consequently 'Back To Scratch' never received a US release. 

The main reason for this post is that I have just listened to a podcast interview with Church, speaking with comedian Richard Herring, and she discussed the real reason for leaving her US contract, which was that they refused to let her record an album of the music that she loved, which was nu-soul and R&B, and in particular the music of Jill Scott. She therefore left the label and set up her own studio in her garage, where she was able to record the music that she wanted, and to release them independently on her own label, Alligator Wine Records. The result was four CD-EPs, with 'One' coming out in 2012, followed by 'Two' and 'Three' in 2013, and 'Four' in 2014, and the music contained on them is very different to anything that had been heard from her in the past, with scything electric guitars evident on songs from 'Three' and 'Four', and burbling keyboards throughout, while her vocals range from the ethereal to the dynamic. All four EPs are extremely rare, and were almost impossible to locate, but I really wanted to hear them after listening to the interview, and so when I did finally track them down it was a no-brainer to post some of the music on the blog. To my mind, 'Three' and 'Four' contain her most impressive songs, and so this album is made up of most of the tracks from those two EP's, with the rest of them following later on a more ballad-orientated disc. The cover might seem a bit edgy for an album from a former child star, but it is the actual cover for the 'Two' EP, with just her name and the title added, which seemed to fit the image perfectly.   

Track listing

01 House Upon The Sea
02 Love Alone
03 Magician's Assistant   
04 Remains
05 Like A Fool
06 I Can Dream
07 Little Movements
08 Hood Shade
09 Entanglement
10 Water Tower  
11 Love

If you'd like to listen to the whole interview then you can find it here.