After I released my EP Universe for Afternoon Tea in late 2009, I sat down and drew up a list of goals to move my music career forward. It looked something like this:
Here at SoulBounce, we’ve been noticing a lot of quality soul music coming our way from Australia and New Zealand. From Sam Sparro to Electric Empire to The Liberators and Electric Wire Hustle, there has to be something funky brewing in the waters over there to create such a bumper crop of down-under talent. Now we add to our ever-growing list of Kiwi and Aussie soul with Australian singer-songwriter Shameem. Her three-song EP, Universe for Afternoon Tea, showed a lot of her promise with jazz inflected R&B songs like “Undertones” and “I Look Up.” The jazz influences and her smooth, clear voice have made the Perth-native a favorite guest singer for many of Australia’s jazz clubs, but her heart truly lies in the world of soul music. She has used her influences to her advantage though, merging them with her love of ’90s R&B grooves to create something truly special, and it shows on her self-titled debut album. Tracks like “Boy,” an easy, laid-back jazzy groove of a love song, and the moody “Sleeper on the Night Train” showcase Shameem’s marriage of jazz and soul to great effect. Shameem’s debut will be released to the masses on November 19th. If you’re lucky enough to be a music-lover in Asia and Australia, Shameem plans to follow up her album’s release with tours on both continents (and maybe she can bring her talents stateside as well). As a consolation for the rest of us, we can listen to “Boy” and “Sleeper on the Night Train” below and hop after the bounce to see video of Shameem and her band recording the album (which features her track “Back to the Ground”).
(See article online here)
JAZZAZIZ gig: With the Russell Holmes Trio
Want pictures? Of course you want pictures!! Got some really cool snaps from the recent JAZZAZIZ gig… yay for trippy purple lighting!! Check more out here.
NEWS: I got grant #1!! So I’ve got the green light to invade WA with my music… now, to deal with the rollercoaster of confirming venues, people, places, things… here’s the best one I’ve had so far: “Oh, turns out we’re going to be rennovating our bar right during the time that we booked your gig, so we’ll have to postpone you by a couple of months. Sorry.” Lovely.
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BLOG ENTRY 30/09/10
“Undertones” has been nominated for the WAM Song of the Year Awards in the urban category!! You can vote for it as your favourite song at Perth Now… also check out the nominated tracks by my fellow Soulaverse collective members, The Brow and NDORSE & Rezide! Funny, this song has had a long journey with me… I first penned the melody, lyrics and chords at the age of 15 in response to my experience of the high school flirting game. It developed and the arrangement matured over the years until I recorded it for my EP… and here it is in the finals of WA’s most prestigious song competition: the work of a 15-year-old schoolgirl! Cool Anyways, I’ll be attending an awards night in mid-October to see how my nominated track fares in the overall judging, so stay tuned…
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All photos taken by Katey Manuchehri – www.kateymanuchehri.com
“I Look Up” video teaser is online!! You can check it out here. The full-length clip will be online in a couple of weeks… To be the among the first with the link for the full-length clip, “like” my facebook fan page by clicking on the facebook icon on the sidebar. For more exciting recent news, check out my blog.
I wrote this song whilst I was living for nine months in Alice Springs, which is a small town in the heart of Australia. I dedicated these nine months to establishing a program for kids aged 11-15 called the Junior-Youth Empowerment program – it seeks to empower young people to discover their talents and use them to serve humanity, to make moral decisions, express themselves in a constructive way and to become agents of change in the world. With my main focus being on service to humanity, these nine months were one long spiritual high for me. This song was born out of this high – I guess it’s an anthem of hope for the world. Some of the lyrics come from my convictions as a member of the Baha’i Faith that all of humankind is one family, that we were created to love one another and that world peace is not only possible but inevitable.