In 2014 Beating Drum discovered and signed the Swedish songwriter Jenny Lysander.
Following the release for Record Store Day 2014 of a limited edition 7” vinyl featuring Beating Drum’s two artists, Piers Faccini and Jenny Lysander. In Spring, Jenny Lysander’s debut EP Lighthouse, produced by Piers Faccini was also released. After another two summer weeks of recording, Jenny’s first full-length album Northern Folk was made and released in spring 2015.

 

 

 

Elle sera bientôt la digne héritière de Joni Mitchell, la cousine potentielle d’Emiliana Torrini ou d’Alela Diane.     — Les Inrocks

 

 

Piers’s attention was first drawn to Jenny’s voice when he came across a cover that she had posted on youtube of one of his songs ‘Time of Nought’. They later met at one of Piers’s concerts in London where the nineteen year old Swedish songwriter gave him a copy of some of her demos. After hearing her songs, Piers invited her to come and record at his studio in the countryside of the Cevennes region of the south of France. Nestled in the woods, far from the noise and interference of the city, the rural studio seemed like the perfect environment for Jenny Lysander’s quiet and poetic songs to be recorded.

It’s also in this studio that Piers Faccini has been making a name for himself as a producer, not only of his own albums but also by other artists like the Brazilian Dom la Nena, the Neapolitan singer-songwriter Gnut and the Trinidadian poet and singer Roger Robinson. The recordings from ‘Lighthouse’ Jenny Lysander’s EP, bring together her beautifully crafted songs with Piers’s subtle and complimentary skills as an arranger and producer.

“I was drawn to Jenny Lysander’s songs from the first moment I heard her demos. Behind the delicate arpeggios I heard a true and rare poetic voice and one whose words and melodies I’ve fallen in love with ever since. I’m overjoyed that Beating Drum is the first label to be publishing Jenny’s songs and I feel priviliged to be taking up the role of producing and arranging her beautiful writing.” — Piers Faccini.

 

Lysander echoes the same understated beauty as folk music greats like Nick Drake and Fairport Convention, with a modern tint that draws comparison to Agnes Obel and Ane Brun.     –– Drunken Werewolf