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Astrid Williamson

Imagine a place where the stimulating strangeness of Radiohead might meet the melodic sensuality of Suzanne Vega, where the soul-bearing intensity of a cult singer-songwriter like Lisa Germano might melt into the funky ambiences conjured by Daniel Lanois, where the minimalist keyboard backwash of Erik Satie might drift across the surreal landscapes of Laura Veirs.

Astrid Williamson's third solo album, Day Of The Lone Wolf, is the place where all these magical sounds, and more besides, have finally come together, to rub one up against the other, collide and spark brightly, illuminating the darker corners of the human heart.

Shetland-born Williamson started to dream of a career as a musician when she was just eleven, having played the piano, guitar and fiddle since early childhood. She continued on the classical music path and gained a music degree from the Royal Scottish Academy in Glasgow, while putting together the band that would become critically acclaimed as Goya Dress in the mid-1990s.

Goya Dress made just one album for Nude records, the John Cale-produced Rooms, in 1996. "I loved being in Goya Dress," Williamson says, "and the media were mostly very kind to us, but the big sales never really kicked in." The record-buying public were similarly scandalously unmoved by Williamsons solo debut, 1998's Boy For You, also released by Nude, and produced by Malcolm Burn in New Orleans.

The true colours of any artist destined for greater things are invariably revealed in adversity, and thats certainly true of Astrid Williamson.

"Theres a before-and-after aspect to my career," she acknowledges. "After the crash when my deal with Nude ended, everything fell apart and I didnt really know where I was going. There was lots of staring at the sea until I got my confidence back."

Williamson rebuilt her career from the ground up, launching her own record label, Incarnation, and releasing her third album, the self-financed album Astrid in 2003. Its successor, Day Of The Lone Wolf, may be the record she's spent this long journey trying to make. "Even if it turns out to be the last album I ever record," she says, "I will not regret anything about it. There's more of me on this album than anything I've done before."

Links:

www.astridwilliamson.netastrid williamson

www.myspace.com/astridwilliamson

Astrid Williamson - Wikipedia entry

Astrid Williamson feature - Hi-Arts website

Astrid Williamson interview - www.contactmusic.com

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