We live in the age of the short attention span- where vacuousness is a virtue, where time to stop and think is really found and where everything goes in one ear and out the other. But if you are still reading this, it suggests you may still be looking for someone or something more substantial and rewarding than the hoards of tight-troused retro- rockers or gay-for- pay gimmick peddlers of present day pop.
Carina Round may not have the kind of slacks that court infertility and she probably won't share a snog with another girl if it gets her video played on MTV (although we can hope) but when regarding the essence of her music, there are few more arresting and striking sounds available to the human ear. I wanna make people feel something, explains Carina on her personal motivation. The music that I listen to most is the kind that reflects something that I feel. After all, isn't that why we all listen to music? To be excited and to be thrown into upheavel?
Growing up in the deprived Low Hill area of Wolverhampton, external recreation was a limited for a young Carina. It's not the sort of place my mother was willing to let me run around so all i had was what was in the house - mainly books and records. My most prized possession as a kid was a turntable I was given for my fifth birthday. Revelling in the delights of Dylan and Simone, an infant Carina found the kind of artistic vocabulary that most people don't gain until their late teens and with that head-start, it's hardly surprising that her first album, The First Blood Mystery emerged in 2001 when she was just 22.
Dealing with subject of her fathers continuing absence, the display of naked emotion through a rough and raw sound drew rave reviews from the more clued-up areas of the music press who saw shades of P J Harvey, Kristin Hersh and Patti Smith in the albums autobiographical energy. I've always been influenced by sentiment rather than style, continues Carina. So I think I have taken more from Charles Bukowski, Dorothy Parker, Tom Waits and Bjork. The way they articulate ideas and emotions is more important then their respective styles.
Gigs with the likes of Coldplay, Elbow, Ryan Adams, Turin Brakes, Ben & Jason, David Gray, Ed Harcourt, and some old geezer called James Brown (he's the Godfather of soul apparently) also helped raise her profile and now, the long overdue follow-up, The Disconnection looks set to continue that ascension and with it,the woefully inaccurate idea of Carina as tortured-soul type will finally be laid to rest even for those who continually equate singer-songwriters with being wilfully complex. It's still a personal record but this time, it's a celebration of the things I've discovered about myself as opposed to ranting about the things that bother me. Even the title is upbeat - Disconnection is about confronting things like joy, anger, pain and confusion and letting them go.
In every aspeact, the only direction for Carina Round is forwards. See if you can keep up with her.
Source: http://www.carinaround.co.uk/
