MADAM - the group project of singer/songwriter/producer Sukie Smith – are to make their acclaimed sophomore album Gone Before Morning available as a full release on CD and download via Sukie's own Shilling Boy label, distributed by CARGO.
Gone Before Morning was originally given a limited download-only release in April 2009 as part of high-end audio company Bowers & Wilkins’ website-based Music Club, which afforded Sukie and band the opportunity to record at Peter Gabriel’s Real world studios. The release was available for one month, and in that time gained considerable praise from Club members and press alike.
But Sukie always believed the work deserved wider exposure and has spent the Autumn of 2010 making final embellishments to the album at Reservoir Studios in North London to make Gone Before Morning what it is now. Sukie has been able to do this thanks to the website www.pledgemusic.com which gives fans the opportunity to provide financial support to artists in return for a unique memento of the project.
Gone Before Morning comprises eight original songs, combining elements of trip-hop, Western gothic and Europop with Sukie’s own expressive widescreen vision. It also includes deconstructed takes on Odyssey’s ‘If You’re Looking For A Way Out’ and Al Wilson’s Northern Soul classic, ‘The Snake’.
The completion of the project was celebrated with a performance at King’s Place, London on 21 January. The album will be released on Monday 2 March.
MADAM’s debut album In Case Of Emergency was released on the Reveal label in February 2008, to universal acclaim. Later that year Sukie provided the score to the British independent film, Hush Your Mouth, featuring her song ‘Ride The Waves’ as the prominent ‘outro’. The film recently won Best Film and Best Director at the Portugal Film Festival. In April 2010 she collaborated with Italian band Hollowblue on the co-write ‘Wild Dogs Run’, appearing with them in the Europe’s first ever 3D music video, which won the award for Best Music Video at Hollywood’s 3D Film Awards 2010.
MADAM’s debut album In Case Of Emergency was released on the Reveal label in February 2008, to universal acclaim. Later that year Sukie provided the score to the British independent film, Hush Your Mouth, featuring her song ‘Ride The Waves’ as the prominent ‘outro’. The film recently won Best Film and Best Director at the Portugal Film Festival. In April 2010 she collaborated with Italian band Hollowblue on the co-write ‘Wild Dogs Run’, appearing with them in the Europe’s first ever 3D music video, which won the award for Best Music Video at Hollywood’s 3D Film Awards 2010.
Sukie is available for interview.
Press
“Contender for the noir niche occupied by Hope Sandoval and Chan Marshall… a real find”
4/5 The Guardian
“Madam is a name which should be written in bright neon outside big venues in the swanky part of town” 4.5/5 The Sun
“…head and shoulders above the singer-songwriter masses ,as individual a voice as Cat Power or Joan As Police Woman” The Independent
“An astonishing album of cruel beauty and emotional honesty, an immense talent” 4/5 R2
“Like an imaginary soundtrack to An American Dream, full of desire, sadness and beauty, In Case Of Emergency is a surrealist masterpiece” Gideon Coe, BBC 6Music
