Gabrielle Aplin (With Rachel Sermanni and Lucy Rose) - River

Ho Ho Ho!

Hello kidz. Howz it goin’? Santa ‘ere, takin’ over this blog-shite for a few days with me mates whilst the normal author is off being a right old fairy and sitting on top of the Christmas tree or somefink.

I’ve been enjoying the odd glass of sherry or 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 9 whilst ‘avin a look at this yearz naughty and nice Christmas list, to see who I’ve got to give wot to. And believe me I do like to give the naughties a bit of wot they deserve. Ho Ho Ho. Last year I remember one particular lassy who had been very very bad all year, so I slipped somethin’ inside ‘er stocking really appropriate. And then there was another bad lad who I gave a sackful of my Christmas joy to. He won’t forget that Christmas in a hurry. Mrs Claus wasn’t very happy with me, but I’ve got an important job to do, coming down all those chimneys and spreading the Christmas love and thatz how I like to spread it. 

Anyways, I’m not ‘ere to tell youz about howz I get sizzled on Christmas Eve and then spread the magic with the elves. No, I’m ‘ere to give you some good old Christmas tunez. Because there’s nothing better than some banging yuletide bangerz.

Except f*ck me backwards with Rudoplph’s red nose, what the f*ck is this? It sounds like someone got a copy of The Staves album and thought they’d have a go being Joni bloody Mitchell. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. But I’ve been left a note here that says something about the bloke who normally writes this drivel being a fan of Aplin, Rose and Sermanni and so I’ve got to embed it on this blog.

Well screw that, there’s only one sort of embedding I like to do and that’s getting Mrs Claus in the old bed for a spot of riding my sleigh and ringing my bell, but seems like I’m gonna have to do what Mr Breaking More Waves says for now, mainly ‘coz I’m too out of ma f*cking skull to find any other Christmas tunes. Mental. W*nker.

Happy Christmas kidz. Make sure you all get out on the lash, start a few fights and puke up in your hallways on Christmas Eve after a big old greasy kebab. Thatz the way to make Christmas special.

Gabrielle Aplin (With Rachel Sermanni and Lucy Rose) - River

Rachel Sermanni - Waltz (Video)

Dear Rachel Sermanni,

We’d like to apologise. You see we’ve been a bit two faced about you on Breaking More Waves. We tipped you as one of our Ones To Watch last December and then in January suggested that we were ready to declare our undying love for you. 

Since then. Nothing. We haven’t featured you on the blog at all. It would probably be fair to say that we’re the online music version of a slapper – running off with other women (and men) for our own instant gratification and never giving you a second thought. Mind you that's what many of us bloggers are like you see - we get into your musical bed, romp around a bit and then move on. 

So we’d like to doth our hat and apologise Rachel. For it was never meant to be this way. And now you have a debut album ready to roll. It’s released on September 17 and is called Under The Mountains. So if you accept our apology, we’d like to feature you again, with your new video for the song Waltz. An utterly beguiling and beautiful piece of music; one of those just stop everything and listen songs.

Love Breaking More Waves xx

Rachel Sermanni - Waltz (Video)

Rachel Sermanni - The Fog (Video)

We’ve already posted about Rachel Sermanni’s song The Fog, back in October.The essential key points of that particular post were

• It is a very good song.
• We are ready to declare our undying love for her.

Before continuing we must interject and state that our undying love is for Rachel’s music and not some warped internet-stalker fan-boy desire. We save that for our favourite pop star N-Robz.*

Rachel has now released a video for the previously posted song and therefore, bearing in mind the above two key points, it seems only right that we also host this. Important points to note are:

• Rachel looks like she got a nice ‘Christmas cardigan’ this year.
• Does she really pick her nose at 11 seconds in ? That’s not something you often see in a contemporary music video. If it was Radiohead it would probably be lauded as being 'innovative' so well done Rachel, if indeed there was a bit of bogey removal going on. Highly innovative.
• There is some fog in the video, but it looks suspiciously like dry ice.
• At 2.58 there’s a bit of a creepy moment until ‘the big reveal’ at the end which is, well, a bit odd really.

Rachel Sermanni - The Fog (Video)

The Fog is taken from Rachel's Black Currents EP released on 6th Feb. Rachel was also named as one of our 15 Ones To Watch in 2012

*This is a joke internet police. We do not need to be arrested. Nicola Roberts is perfectly safe.

Ones to Watch 2012 - #15 Rachel Sermanni

We started the Breaking More Waves Ones To Watch 2012 posts with a female acoustic singer songwriter who we’ve featured on the blog a number of times this year (Lucy Rose) and so we’ll finish with a female acoustic singer songwriter who we’ve featured on the blog a number of times this year as well.

Rachel Sermanni is a charming musician who comes from a small village in the Highlands called Carrbridge. She’s already supported the likes of KT Tunstall, Roddy Woomble, Newton Faulkner, Fink, John William Grant plus Mumford & Sons and a few months back released the limited edition Bothy Sessions EP which was recorded in a green, wooden bothy with a tin roof and a wood-burning stove in the Highlands. This location seems perfect for Rachel, her songs being dreamily organic, the gradual increase in her popularity being found in a very natural way. There’s no major record label marketing strategy at work here, just a singer, some tunes, some live performances and an open ended vision of just playing music. It’s this d-i-y approach that meant that Rachel was under no pressure to make the songs on The Bothy Sessions fit for radio, with 3 of them clocking in at way over 5 minutes and the other being just a minute long. Yet they meshed with those who heard them anyway.

In 2012 Rachel Sermanni will start with some more shows and a new EP - Black Currents from which the song Breathe Easy (below) is taken.There’s a number of dates in her homeland and a very special gig at the Union Chapel in London with the equally wonderful Russian Red on Jan 23. After that, who knows? Not every artist has every aspect of their year mapped out from them from day 1. 2012 could be the year that Rachel Sermanni is One to Watch, but then it could be 2013 or 2014 as well. Irrespective of our predictions, whatever she does, whenever she does it, we’re pretty certain that this fine new talent from Scotland will produce magic. We know we've fallen head over heels, maybe you will to?

Breathe Easy taken from Rachel's debut EP Black Currents out on 30th Jan 2012 by Rachel Sermanni

Rachel Sermanni - The Fog

Here’s something new from the Mumford & Sons approved Scots singer songwriter Rachel Sermanni. It’s called The Fog and fully justifies why we’ve been putting her name forward on the blog a number of times now. It’s a bold and fearless song built around a simple but irresistible chorus, which finds Rachel pulling back the curtains to hit us with her resoundingly potent vocal. “Mercy mercy I’ve been caught, lying with my darkest thought,” she hollers note perfectly.

If the likes of Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling are now the respective kings and queen of the UK nu-folk movement then Sermanni is very much the princess in waiting. In fact, The Fog is far more accessible than anything on Marling’s jazz-tinged and slightly experimental third album - so there's commercial potential here. We’ve been smitten for quite a while now, but maybe now is the time to declare our full love.

The Fog by Rachel Sermanni

Rachel Sermanni - Waltz

Today Scotland’s T in the Park festival kicks off. As that nation’s largest music festival it can bring in heavyweights such as Foo Fighters, Beyonce and Coldplay as well as a host of other big names. But what interests Breaking More Waves are the acts on the smaller stages and those lower down the bill. One name immediately catches our attention - Rachel Sermanni - who plays the T Break Stage on Sunday.

We fell utterly in love with Rachel’s affable acoustic music the first time we heard it and featured her as a new wave back in April. This love was cemented deeper at a mid-afternoon set at the Green Door Store in Brighton as part of a Scotland Showcase at the Great Escape Festival. Yet until now Rachel has not had any music to sell. Thankfully this is about to change as she releases a gently charming EP, The Bothy Sessions, which was recorded in a bothy in the Highlands of Scotland. Listen to her song Waltz below and watch the crowd sourced video that was shot at the Great Escape show and appreciate its deft meandering folkish loveliness. It’s about as far removed from Beyonce shaking her booty and Chris Martin getting thousands of people to go ‘Woah oh-oh’ with their their hands in the air as you can imagine. And it’s all the better for it.

Waltz - The Bothy Sessions by Rachel Sermanni

Rachel Sermanni - New Waves

Back in December 2008 when Breaking More Waves named Mumford & Sons as one of our Ones to Watch for 2009 (here) we really had no idea that they would go on to be as phenomenally successful as they have become. This huge success carries with it a number of by-products and one of them is that any other new artist that is associated with the band can prosper from magnified attention.

So it could be for Rachel Sermanni, who has been blessed with the Mumford seal of approval,following jamming with them on a beach in Scotland after meeting them at one of their shows. After this initial meeting Ben Lovett from the group invited Rachel down to London to record some songs with him and she’s subsequently played several Communion gigs – the de rigueur for any aspiring new folkie type who wants to tap in to a younger folk audience easily.

Hailing from the tiny village of Carrbridge in the Highlands of Scotland Sermanni’s songs certainly have a hint of another Mumford associate about them ; namely first album Laura Marling, although Rachel’s voice is of a higher sweeter pitch perhaps more akin to Alessi's Ark or Eva Cassidy. Unlike Marling’s early days however, Sermanni appears to be completely at home performing her songs to an audience, something which she’s recently had opportunity to do both at South by South West and supporting (yes you’ve guessed it) Mumford & Sons as well as Breaking More Waves favourites Stornoway in Scotland.

Listen to her pure vocals and alluringly lovely songs and prepare to be enchanted. The latest new folk princess to queen Marling? She certainly deserves attention for the crown.

Eggshells by Rachel Sermanni