Irish songstress Gemma Hayes returns to Bold Street’s Leaf Tea Shop this month, Getintothis’ Emma Walsh looks forward to another intimate show from the Meteor Award winner.
It remains a mystery to us that an artist quite so remarkable as Gemma Hayes has continued to buzz along under the radar for five critically acclaimed albums with only a Mercury Prize nomination and a Meteor Award to her name.
Over the course of her career Hayes has built on blissed out folk ballads and anthemic lo-fi pop rock to dreamy shoegazing sounds, incorporating all these influences in her latest offering, the beautiful Bones and Longing. Crowdfunded on PledgeMusic and released on her own self-established Chasing Dragons label, Hayes brings her fifth album on tour across the UK and Ireland this month, returning to Leaf Tea Shop on Bold Street on May 16.
When we last caught Hayes live in Liverpool she told the audience of an early career run in with pop music mogul Louis Walsh who advised her that though she had potential, if she wanted to sell records she’d have to “lose the guitar“. Fortunately for us she stuck to her convictions and her own song writing and her latest single Palomino is yet another testament to that fortitude.
Hayes plays Leaf Tea Shop on May 16, tickets are available here.