Izzi Dunn
Izzi Dunn is one of the most exciting musicians of 2013 and looks set to have a great year ahead of her.
January will see her release her new EP Visions and there is a full album on the horizon.
I caught up with Izzi to chat about the new EP, the year that she has had and what lies ahead.
- 2012 is coming to a close so how would you sum up your year?
Quite a rollercoaster again for me (laughs). Music just keeps me doing lots of unexpected things from string arranging, to working with different artists and doing my own stuff.
So it has been another learning year and another year of experiences - I always come to the end of it thinking 'bloody hell, that went fast'. Yeah it has just been an exciting year I guess and I am looking forward to the next one too.
- You are going to release your new EP Visions early next year so what can fans expect from the new collection of tracks?
I had recorded an album and released an album back in 2010 and it was quite a produced album while this is just a small collection of songs. After I had done that album I went out and did a few gigs where it was just me and a guitarist.
So the EP is more of reflection of me realising that I quite liked writing in that kind of way, which is more stripped down, and so it is quite a naked as it is just me and my cello - the recordings are even more just me and my cello than the performances that I do.
A lot of the music that I was listening to in the last couple of years has been a bit different to the hip hop and the soul as I have been listening to a bit more country and Johnny Cash - there are more influences in there as well.
So there are four tracks; a cover and a few other tracks that are a little different to what I have done before and more cello and less beats.
- You have slightly touched on my next question really this set to tracks has an acoustic sound to them, which is very different to your last album Cries & Smiles, so why did you decide to make this change in sound? And how did you find taking your sound down a different path?
I don't think I found it to hard because I had been performing like that and I was more use to the instrument and being with my instrument. I think at first I was a little bit scared because I am quite use to getting involved with the beats and that production side and I love my soul music.
But it did feel like a natural progression because I have played the cello for so long so it wasn't that hard to sit... and when I had written songs around the cello it just seemed natural to record them like that.
I think I just wanted to strip it all down. I don't know why I decided that it was something to do at this time but you never stand still too much and I just felt that that was the way that things were going and I was being influenced by the artists of the music that was around.
To be honest I am constantly hearing different kinds of music all the time that surprises me and opens my ears and opens my mind a bit.
So I think it was something that I was going to do at some point and I had always wanted to do it so I guess it came naturally.
- How did you find that your writing and singing style fitted this acoustic sound?
A bit trickier because the playing and the singing together I had done a little of bit of but it is a lot harder for your separation to actually play.
I have looked at people who play instruments and they make it look quite easy but putting them together and be tricky sometimes. What was nice was it did change the style of my writing a little big because I was accompanying myself as I was writing.
It Wasn't Love started as bass line and I sang into something that I could still play and sing together and so it did change the way I wrote but it makes me have to concentrate harder - I would usually rather do one or the other but at the moment I am doing both. I really enjoy the challenge of it as well.
- There are still a few weeks until the EP is released so how have you found the early response to the record?
Really good. It is weird how everything is more internet led now and so I am just getting use to the idea of that kind of thing.
The feedback from Twitter and Facebook and different DJ's has been great. Also you never know how people are going to react to songs.
I find it very personal and you just never know what is going to touch people and what isn't and what people are going to latch on to and how they are going to respond.
But the early things have been really good and I am quite excited. It is nice to get that kind of response to things that you have held on to and had in your heart for a little bit and suddenly they are released to the world. I am really looking forward to playing them live.
- While there is this acoustic sound there is still a blues/jazz feel to some of the tracks and this sound was very prominent on the last album so how did your love of this genre come from?
Gosh, it goes way back. I grew up with my dad, he is in his eighties now, but I listened to a lot of musicals and jazz - from big band things right up to the classical stuff I was doing with the cello.
I grew up to Soul II Soul and early hip hop and people like Omar and The young Disciples were really my introduction to soul. From there is just loved the energy, the spirit the passion of soul music and so from a very young age I found a real love - people like Chaka Khan still really blow me away.
Blues is something that I am only just discovering now so I am listening to that and country.
There is so much out there and I never cease to be amazed and all of the music that I have found out about and how I have been inspired. I am always learning, every day.
- You have also had a hand in the production side of this record so how much of that is making an album that you enjoy?
To be honest this bit was much easier and more relaxed because when you do full productions and drums and you are putting a whole band together is hard work and so this in comparison is nice and laid back - it is just literally just me playing and singing.
There is still the detail and how you want it to sound and that is quite daunting as there is a lot of acoustic music out there and you want to make sure you record the instrument the right way and that it has got the right feel for what you are trying to say in the song.
It is another way of producing but to me it was a relief and it was a little bit of an escape for me to be able to go there and come back to the full band and production and stuff when I do my next record.
It is just a little sideways turn for me. I thought that it would be easier, and in some ways it was, but there are lot of things that you don't realise going to a just a guitar and a voice or a cello and a voice to make that sound the way that it does so it was still important to get all the detail into how it sounds as well.
- Visions is a collection of four tracks so is there a new full length album on the horizon? And if so what can we expect from it this time around?
There will be yeah; it is what I am working on now. I am hoping to have it out in the middle of next year so I just want to move forward with it.
I want to incorporate what I have done with this EP as well as where I came from with my hip hop and soul roots - that hasn't changed but I just want to incorporating other things into it. It will be a more of a full production record but I have always wanted to do this on the side.
- Well you have slightly touched on my next question with the new record what kind of sound can we expect? Are you going to experiment a little bit more?
I think I will. I am still always going back to the things that inspire me the most and that is classic old records but because there is a lot of exciting new music out there as well from a production point of view that is a whole other landscape that I am trying to get my head around.
I do like to keep moving and I don't want to stand still too much but I do still love my soul and I am still listening to my Curtis Mayfield.
I have been around some artists at the moment that I am doing strings for that have just blown me away - there is guy called Cody Chesnutt and he is the most incredible soul singer.
I am just experimenting with production a bit more now but the soul and blue is still something that I can't escape.
May be some more collaborations as well would be nice as I would like to get other people get involved a little more too as I am quite hands on with doing it all.
I am a bit of a control freak and so it would be nice to let go a bit and let other people do some stuff as well. So I have got some things next year with some other artists.
- Over the last couple of years you have worked with a whole host of people so what is it about the collaboration that you enjoy so much? And is there anyone in particular you would like to work with going forward?
There are loads of people - pretty much everyone I do strings for I want to work with because I never know what I am going to get. I have done so many diverse albums string wise as well - not just writing myself - and I don't think that I am every standing still very much.
This work always gives me another angle on what I am doing as I can go from straight up soul music to experimental folk meets electronica and hip hop - so in the course of a year I worked with a lot of different kinds of music and I think that that does reflect in how I write.
As far as writing is concerned I am a big fan of 4hero and Dego is someone I have admired for years so I am hoping that he is still up for writing next year. There are also other people on the horizon as well.
I am quite use to being on my own and doing this and I think it is a part of me that I haven't had the chance to try as much and I think, in terms of writing songs, I have always been a big self-contained and I want to see what another person can bring.
- These collaborations open you up to other styles and sounds of music so how do you find that this influences your own work when you go back to do solo stuff?
Even the way I have done this acoustic thing I have just done an album with some people who have done this folk/electronica kind of sound and it was very experimental.
Just soundscaping and the little details of how they mix sounds or how you would use one particular sound and the structure of things. There are so many angles of song-writing and string arranging.
I am not saying that I don't think people move through genres very much but I do think that a lot of people stay in some places a lot and I am very lucky in the sense that I do get to see a massive cross section of everything.
I hope that it makes my music different and makes it stand out and shows that I have got a lot of styles in there.
I am not scared of taking this from soul and this from hip hop and some of the best artists that I admire are the one that manage to do that seamlessly as they mix lots of influences and make it sound like a whole new sound.
My ultimate goal would be to keep doing this and to get somewhere like that and I hope that it keeps reaching people.
- How did you get into music in the first place?
It was through the cello really. When I was a kid at school and they said I had big hands and asked me if I wanted to play the violin or the cello.
I thought the violin was far too squeaky and I didn't like the idea of it and so I picked up the cello and that is how I started.
I was a bit of a geek and got quite into it as a child and just carried on really. I got into sessions at seventeen or eighteen and I have found my way from there and it has broadened out into different kinds of music.
- Finally what is next for you going into 2013?
The physical EP is out at the end of January and hopefully gigs will be around that time as well.
So January is going to be my time really and I am just gearing up to the new year. It will be nice to spend some time with the family over Christmas and then just crack on into 2013.
I am just going to be writing over the next few months and experimenting and hopefully looking forward to a good year.
Izzi Dunn - Visions EP is released 21st January
Click here to download Visions EP
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw