Minnie Birch is a Hertfordshire based singer songwriter who puts her energy into her solo music career as well as working creatively with prisoners to both develop their musical skills and provide recordings for their children back home. One of her earlier singles, Glitter, attracted a prestigious spin on Huw Stephen's BBC Radio 1 show and this track Emeralds is arguably the closest in style to be released as a single, in the last five years since Glitter.
These two tracks, John Barleycorn and Emeralds are being released as a AA single on 13th July as a self release and draw attention to a track which is on Minnie's second album Tethered (which came out last year) as well as a track she was delighted to be commissioned to rework, the traditional folk song John Barleycorn, by local Hemel Hempstead ‘creative’ Mark Crane.
Mark used Minnie's somewhat ethereal interpretation for his film, based on Leslie Tate’s memoirs ‘Heaven’s Rage’ which is being shown at a number of film festivals including Liverpool’s Pride.
He also made her a video using some of the film footage, to support the release.
‘It was an honour to be asked to work on a track for Mark’s ‘Heaven’s Rage’. I know Mark through the local scene of creative types in Watford and we often end up at the same events together but I got to know him even better when we both found ourselves acting as ghosts in Hemel Hempstead’s ‘Spirit of the Old Town’ ghost walks. There was a period of time when he was constantly exhausted from working on this movie of his, he would always be sketching ideas backstage at the ghost plays. I knew he’d put so much energy in to this project and it was a real labour of love for him, so when he asked me to do a version of John Barley Corn I genuinely felt honoured (and nervous).
Although he references Traffic’s version of the song, I was of course excited that it would be an opportunity to look at a more traditional folk song but be allowed to do something very ‘Minnie’ with it, as that is what he asked for.’
‘Inviting Cian Davis to guest on the track really made it something special. I just felt the track needed another haunting vocal because the moment in the film itself -for me- is all about the many demons of alcoholism and the different lives the protagonist’s lives, the different sides of himself he feels he can or can’t show to people so it made some sense for me for there to be another vocal.’
I was in the middle of making my album with producer Lauren Deakin Davies and we took a day out of album tracking to work on the song. It was actually a really hard process to get right. Mark was so in love with the demo version I had recorded on my phone but we needed a studio quality track to put on the final film, so we were really trying to capture the most polished version of a very rough emotional song – it was a tricky balance. I think Lauren found Mark’s desire for a lack of perfection went against her usual ways of wanting to record something and we worked a few versions of the song before arriving at a final version We did the guitar and vocal together as a live take and I think she did a great job of capturing the emotion of the track. Cian had very little time with the track before we threw him in the studio but I think that fitted with the ‘raw’ nature of what we were trying to capture. Lauren is very skilled at making people feel comfortable in the studio so she was the ideal producer for us to work with on something with such a short deadline and which we’d had such little time to compose together.
We did the work on the song for free and I paid for the studio time myself and Cian’s expenses out of my album budget as I knew Mark’s project didn’t have much money it in. He said he’d make me a music video to go with the track as a thank you. I had no idea how beautifully crafted and edited it would be. I was proud of the song and planned to release it in some way so more people could hear it and thought about it being a ‘B’side to an album single release but the visual he has made and the collaborative element of this song with myself, Lauren, Mark and Cian has led me to really want to get this track out there for more people to hear. It is very special I think.” Minnie Birch
Emeralds
I wrote Emeralds when I was thinking about the world we live in. It was written post-brexit referendum and after the Presidential elections in America. I was feeling a bit at a loss with regard to the world we live in. I was also in the middle of discovering a person close to me had been quite dishonest with me. I was feeling a sense of not knowing which way up was anymore. The general feeling was I was looking at the world both directly around me and at large and thinking “We’re not in Kansas anymore” the line from the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy becomes aware of the absurdity of Oz and that nothing around her is as it seems. The song is entirely littered with references to the Wizard of Oz.
“With a lions mane and a scarecrows pride” “Don’t let your crows circle me I will throw the apples from this tree” “Yellow dust on your boots and I, I am no detective but I am feeling like, you no longer see this place as your own, you’re taking the first balloon ride home” “In a coat of green I’ve played the part”
And of course “Lions and Tigers and bears! Oh my!”
Lauren really embraced the chaos of this song, if Lauren catches the enthusiasm for layering in a song there is no holding her back, she knows exactly when she has a track she can really play around with and we had a lot of fun layering this track and then finding the point at which to hold back.
It was one of my favourite studio experiences – to drag myself out of this obsession with ‘space’ in music and just let Lauren build the chaos that was required to get across what I wanted so it could really feel like we were ‘dancing in the forest’ by the time it crescendos. I mostly recall Lauren saying things like “let’s just try this”. I always have this idea my albums need to be able to be recreated live. But Lauren helped me to see that the recorded version can be a completely different version to the live and there’s a beauty in that.
I also used my tap shoes to create part of the percussion on this track – they are ruby red tap shoes so I felt it fitting.’ Minnie Birch
EMERALDS will be available on Friday 13th July
Links
WEBSITE: http://www.minniebirch.co.uk/
BANDCAMP: https://minniebirch.bandcamp.com/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/minniebirch
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/minniebirch/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/minniebirch/