Artist Spotlight: Aqua Alta / Jenn Grant

I know I already did one this week, but then this new stuff slid across my dashboard and it stopped me in my eternal scroll and I had to share it, so here we are.  Two in one week. Except that this is actually two in one post, so three.  Well, I make the rules, such as they are, so I guess I can break them.

Aqua Alta is a new project by Jenn Grant, Charles Austin, and Graeme Campbell.  So far, it’s barely more than a tease – a name, a one-pager website with no info or photos, and just three songs.  The first two got my attention, but the third song, Epic Sweep, has been on compulsive replay for about an hour now.  Something about it reminds me of Summer radio songs from the early/mid 80s; a little Wild Horses, a little Bettie Davis Eyes; it’s sultry and hot and synthy and jangly and delicious.

Jenn Grant has occasionally had this power over me; I booked her for the 2008 Peterborough Folk Festival largely because the song Dreamer stayed on compulsive replay for me for about a month and I finally just broke down and obeyed the promptings of my musical heart. Acqua Alta isn’t much like her other work, but that voice and that musical sensibility is there, and it hooked me before I’d even realized that the vocalist was Grant.

So I’m going to plonk down the video for Dreamer, because it’s a great song, but you should also click immediately on over to check out Epic Sweep, because that song is pretty damn shiny.

Two Six Shooter Records artists in one week; you’d think I was in their pocket or somethin’.