Standing in the shadows
U.K. soul singer missing from Brit invasion
Don’t compare Alice Russell to Amy Winehouse. Other than being British and a soul singer, Russell has little in common with the boozy tart best known for “You Know I’m No Good,” nor the rest of the blue-eyed soul invasion (Lily Allen, Joss Stone). And although she likes Winehouse, Russell says, “I do things on a low-fi budget, and it’s a little bit more experimental.”
Russell’s music isn’t on the pop charts, but she has a huge cult following. Among connoisseurs of nu soul – a wide-spanning genre that ranges from uptempo funk to broken beat and house – her name is hotly tipped, like a secret password that reveals your knowledge of underground dance music. She belongs to a class of singers that includes Atlanta’s Julie Dexter, Clara Hill, Noelle Scaggs, Stephanie McKay, Choklate and many, many others – independent artists and outstanding soul divas whose artistic achievements are unjustly ignored by the mainstream. Vocally, she blows like a reincarnated Dusty Springfield, warm and salty yet with an infectious bounce in her delivery.
Released on the U.K. imprint Tru Thoughts, Russell’s first two albums, 2004’s Under the Munka Moon and 2005’s My Favourite Letters, aren’t available in the United States, though you can find imported copies of them at specialty shops like Moods Music in Little Five Points. On Under the Munka Moon, the 31-year-old singer compiled random material recorded over several years. It contains some lovely and heartbreaking blues such as “Someday,” where she sings, “Stretch out my arms as the evening fades away/Your soul and my soul will meet someday.” My Favourite Letters is stylistically diverse, and includes forays into brassy classical pop and downbeat jazz. “I don’t have a proper licensing deal out there yet, so it’s really good that people have searched out the music anyway,” says Russell of her U.S. fans.
Some of her best performances, however, can be found on producer albums released by L.A.-based Ubiquity Records. On Quantic’s 2004 album, Mishaps Happening, she sings “So Long,” a resplendent ska adventure that outmatches Lily Allen’s twee offerings. For TM Juke’s 2006 album, Forward, she contributes “So Good.” “Sweet like a rhythm/Hey, just come and lay down and simmer all in my stew,” she sings in a loose and husky voice over scratchy guitar funk.
Alex “TM Juke” Cowan produced My Favourite Letters and is currently working with Russell on her untitled third album. She hopes to release it before the end of the year. “It’s sort of going more [in the direction of] David Axelrod and old soul stuff,” she says. As for the tracks, she adds, “We’ve got a few love songs on there. But we’re trying to do a few more songs that are more, like, ideas about our trying times, like Roberta Flack. We’re charged about doing some important songs.”
Russell, whose inspirations range from Kate Bush and Prince to Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway, self-deprecatingly tends to explain her work by referencing other artists. Certainly, she has yet to make a tour de force on the scale of Wonder’s totemic Innervisions. She’s a consistently interesting vocalist, however, with a growing – if somewhat scattered – body of stylish and memorable work.
“It’s always hard to describe sometimes the music you make yourself,” says Russell via phone from her home in Brighton. “Ultimately, I call it soul music as in it’s emotional and quite truthful. It has an amalgamation of lots of other styles and influences, so it’s a real mish-mash. But essentially, I think from my soul and my tummy.”