WHITE DOTS (digital/physical release July 2019)
MOJO * * * *
Norfolk-based singer/songwriter creates a joyful soul pop follow-up to 2009’s Lemon
A cross-dressing train driver who likes lipstick and high heels. Two boys in Mexico City playing trumpet and tuba on the streets. A woman sitting in a car park in someone else’s car, heartbroken. These are characters on Wolfe’s latest album, a collection of songs that combine glorious Brill Building-style chant, jazz drums and lustrous strings. Like a latter-day Carole King, Wolfe delivers each track with a high clear voice, observational humour and a quiet sense of drama. The barely there bossa nova beat on ‘Traces’, the fuzzy guitar and exquisite lament of ‘White Dots’, the wistful trumpet of ‘Paris Metro’ – flowing arrangements build and drive each track, leading us through a world of broken love, memory and magic realism. Sweetly addictive. Lucy O’Brien. (MOJO, 1 Jan 2019, Issue 87) Full Review
FOLKING.COM
White Dots finds the Dublin born multi-hyphenate in excellent form with a cocktail of pop, folksy, jazz and stage musicals. At times vocally echoing Kate Bush, she crafts story-led songs that have likened her to Carole King and Norah Jones though I’m more inclined to line her with Ray Davies and Vinny Peculiar in the way she channels observations, both wryly humorous and pointedly serious, into her lyrics to capture a perspective that I’ve previously described as akin to Mike Leigh. Many feel like plays scripts in waiting. Mike Davies. Full Review
TRAVELLERS TUNES (single review)
London and Norfolk based artist (and producer) Paula Wolfe has returned with her new single ‘Georgia Blue’.
In 2019, with European elections approaching, couldn’t be released at more apt time. With an undercurrent of hostility permanently in the air, human emotions and progress are sliding out of view.
Wolfe’s tale of a cross dressing train driver, with crisp warming vocals and swooning production is a stark reminder to be less selfish. It’s written with great characterisation and a strong sense of Englishness, it’ll recall the eloquence of Ray Davies and Paul Weller in their pomp.
Despite the prevailing beauty on show, there is a solemnness to the protagonist’s journey that should spark memories of ‘Saturday Night Sunday Morning’ or Pulp’s ‘Common People’. A sense of ordinary people living extraordinary lives burns bright.
This is ‘That’s Entertainment’ for the woke generation and boy does society need art like this to bring different generations together once again. Mike Adams. Full Review
TRAVELLERS TUNES (album review)
London and Norfolk based artist Paula Wolfe has returned with her new album ‘White Dots’. Written, arranged, engineered, produced and mixed by Wolfe and it’s out now on SIB Records.
‘White Dots’ delivers an array of storytelling, often character driven and sometimes, achingly personal. ‘Cherrington Road’, is based one of Wolfe’s earliest memories. The sweetness and innocence of her 3-year-old self singing in the garden of a family home will melt the blackest of hearts.
On ‘Bonnie’, Wolfe opens up about trying to move on from a relationship. Not just any the relationship, but “the one”. The one which everyone else is unfairly judged by. The one that raises you up and hinders you simultaneously. The simplicity and the honesty of Wolfe’s vocals and the subtle orchestration is a glorious dichotomy of elation and sadness.
It’s not always personal, ‘Caravan Man’ is a fictional account of a man Wolfe saw on a French campsite. Her ability to jump into the world of someone else is effortless and no less interesting. The intrigue on Wolfe’s vocal “Caravan man, who are you waiting for / what are you waiting for” is as powerful as the Death Star tractor beam. Then, when her Kate Bush-esque vocals soar alongside the organs, a wholesomeness and realness akin to The Kinks’ ‘Muswell Hillbillies’ album.
Former single ‘Georgia Blue’, details the life of a cross dressing train driver. The hallmarks of The Jam’s ‘That’s Entertainment’ circulates as Wolfe portrays a modern day outcast with great affection and warmth.
This is a fantasy album. It’s a what if the spirit Lily Allen and Laura Marling merged with the great characters of Ray Davies’ song writing and is sung by Kate Bush and Carole King. Layered with such vivid characters and enriching landscapes, Wolfe has provided an album that keeps on giving. Mike Adams. Full Review
VELVET SHEEP
“SONG FOR EWE” is the feature where artists & music people beloved byVELVET SHEEP choose an obscure song they’ve been listening to that day. Today’s guest is a learned and earnest singer songwriter, producer, guitarist and writer with an ear for a subtle tune and a line in compelling storytelling and her latest tune has a great tale. Taken from an upcoming album called “White Dots”, the song “Georgia Blue” was inspired by a trip Paula took by train from her Norfolk studio to interview Isabella Summers from Florence and the Machine at Dean Street Studios in London for what was then PhD research but has since turned into a book called “Women in The Studio, Creativity, Control and Gender in Popular Music Production” about music production and gender.
The train back that evening was delayed as the scheduled driver didn’t turn up for his shift (in itself not super remarkable in London) but spun into a beautiful yarn about a cross-dressing train driver who simply wanted to feel beautiful rather than driving a train from London to Norwich on a brass monkeys night in the winter.
“White Dots” is Paula Wolfe’s third album and also includes songs about an ageing bachelor looking for late love online and Mexico City’s street kids working noctural nightshifts “while their compatriots busk on the Paris Metro on the other side of the world”. Part Carole King, part Kirsty MacColl, all unerring charm.
Welcome to VS, the super-smart, keenly observant, niftily talented Paula Wolfe. Nick Hutchings. Full Feature
Musik an sich (album review)
Traditional songwriting meets modern production and this creates a very finely spun pop album with a slightly melancholic charm. 17/20 Full Review
RADIO:
SOHO RADIO, London:‘Such a beautiful set, such a wonderfully articulate guest.’ Cheri Amour, The Other Woman Show. Full Interview and Live Performance
BLAST RADIO, London: Full interview and live performance
RIVERSIDE RADIO, London: Featuring Georgia Blue
Bluesandrootsradio.com: Along The Tracks Show featuring Georgia Blue
Poplastikka, okto.tv, Berlin: Featuring Georgia Blue video
BRUM RADIO, Birmingham: ‘Georgia Blue, what a great track!’ Mike Davies, The Alternative Roots Show. Full Show
RADIO REVERB, Brighton :Full Interview and Live performance
Student Podcast, Southampton Solent University: Women in The Music Industry: Full Interview
LEMON
(Remastered and Due for Re-Release 2022)
MOJO * * * *
Paula Wolfe’s 2004 debut Staring had promise. Having followed her muse from Manchester to London to rural Norfolk, her follow up’s in a different league. Lemon is a mood shifting, musically inventive piece of work, each song a slowly evolving story. Wolfe paints vivid pictures – whether singing about bickering lovers, lonely widows or the English gated communities of southern Spain. This is the album that finally puts Wolfe on the map. Lucy O’Brien.
UNCUT * * *
A self produced, self released LP by a tender and idealistic singer-songwriter from rural Norfolk, Lemon turns out to be a quiet gem, subtly sung with the obligatory acoustic guitar enhanced by dreamily understated strings. Best of all, Wolfe’s a splendid songwriter weaving engaging stories about immigrant mothers struggling for acceptance and the lonely paranoia lurking inside a gated community. Rather fine. Nigel Williamson.
MAVERICK * * *
A collection of stunning miniature dramas and stories, the lyrical content is exceptional and demands a prominent position in the success of the record. I’d say she’s Beth Navaro crossed with Dido and sometimes crosses to the cusp of a Lena Marlin-songstress. There are songs that offer stunningly descriptive stories and gorgeous vocals, such as track 5. The arrangements are at times grand, at others times minimal. Laura Bethel.
Head of Music BBC Radio 2 and 6Music
A very nice album with well crafted songs and good production. Jeff Smith
The Guardian Hay Festival
Mesmeric guitarist and songwriter
SKY ARTS
Brilliant. Live Recorded Show
NEWNOISEMAGAZINE
Independence. That’s the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of female singer-songwriter Paula Wolfe. And before one begins thinking of negatively in some bizarre, PC manner; this isn’t some attempt to paint her into a stereotype, but merely a chance to highlight the determination and flare of the young femme, as not only did she pen and record her debut offering ‘Lemon’, she even produced and mixed the thing. Now that’s dedication and that’s certainly independence.
But the question NN is sure many are wondering is ‘Just because one is inertly proud of their art, does that make it good?’. And the answer is yes. From the opening folk ebb of ‘How Can I?’, with its beautiful lyrics and gentle melodies, through to the luscious harmonies and quirky instrumentation of ‘Cheer’, Wolfe is clearly not a woman that does things by half.
Moving onto the poignant lyrics of ‘A Place In The Sun’ and the interesting moog work and vast melodious offerings of ‘Not Lonely’, one is left in awe of what it is Wolfe has come to create on her debut offering, as each song is pumped full of quirky ideas, interesting instrumentation and touching words of struggle and sorrow, one can only admire the work of this young genie.
Add to this the atmospheric lull, moving lyrics and string-fuelled swell of
‘Asylum’ and the end result is a flawless exercise in modern art, that boasts enough melody to make this as a warm and approachable as possible, whilst being unafraid to extend an olive branch to the musos; stunning.
Tom Brampton http://newnoisemagazine.com/
NETRHYTHMS
When I reviewed her debut album I likened her story based songs to the musicals of Willy Russell and suggested that perhaps her future lay less as a live performer and recording artist and more as a songwriter for the West End stage.
I still reckon that’s where her biggest success may yet lie, but this sophomore release is more persuasive in making a convincing argument for a place among female singer-songwriter CD collections.
Again released on her own label, it’s again a pretty much one woman show, though she does delegate drums, bass and strings duties. Musically, while Not Lonely has an uptempo rock dynamic, it mostly stays within the same warm sophisticated jazz flecked pop territory of its predecessor, Somewhere In Between (a song drawing on her own experience as ‘an Irish child in London with an English accent’) conjuring Brill Building era visions and even hints of Randy Newman.
However, if her debut was largely populated by children, the characters here are adult, though not necessarily any less emotionally wounded or dysfunctional. For example, How Can I? where the opening line has its relationship screw up declaring ‘I’ve been a bitch today’, the title track’s character worn out with arguments and throwing the blame around, or the grieving aged widow of Freddy And Eve. Loneliness, be it through loss, rejection or self-destructive behaviour looms large on This and Not Lonely. And anyone who’s ever seethed while queuing behind some OAP should listen to Cardigan Pockets and get a compassion transfusion.
Her Mike Leigh/Ken Loach sensibilities remain sharp too with the immigrant mother in Asylum bitterly documenting the prejudices meted out to her and her kids by an unaccepting community and her experience of the Little Englander mentality of a gated community in Spain. And, the self-interest themed Cowboys is drawn from bitter personal experience of some dodgy builders who causes the completion of her studio and the album to be delayed by a year.
But, they say that if life gives you a Lemon then make lemonade, and Wolfe finds sweetness too; the promise of the spring and summer that lie ahead in La Ranche En Hiver and the rays of optimism sprinkled through Cheer. She’s a formidable eccenCitric talent.MikeDavies.
http://www.netrhythms.co.uk/reviewsw.html#wolfe
FATEA MAGAZINE
Not quite belonging is the strangest place to be, not actually being part of something but caught up in its momentum be it a place, a person, a feeling. Paula Wolfe seems to capture that emotion and turn it into a narrative and ultimately a song. She’s got a knack for hitting the mark on both sides of the desk. She also produced Lemon and managed to avoid the pitfalls that can arise when you do everything on your album. There’s a mellowness that also pervades the album and stops it from becoming too bitter a journey of self-discovery for writer and listener. Neil King. http://www.fatea-records.co.uk/magazine/
ToxicPete.co.uk
I don’t know whether it’s meant to be but Lemon somehow sums up this glorious album by Paula Wolfe; one of your required ‘five a day’, a sweet treat, at times slightly bitter but always refreshing!
I suppose a comparison would help here; think Suzanne Vega, think Kate Bush, think an amalgamation of the two, then think Paula Wolfe. Lemon is right up there with the big albums of our time – a real contender, a stunner! Lemon is fairly understated sounding affair and yet Wolfe gives it everything – inspirationally conceived and wonderfully written songs, stunning arrangements, superb execution – it’s all here! It’s fanbloodytastic!.
Paula Wolfe has a seemingly natural ability to make you stop and listen to her songs – and definitely, these are songs worth getting in to! Wolfe’s majestically descriptive lyrics are made even more tangible by her great use of punctuative rather than confusing instrumentation. Sure there’s plenty to listen to, it’s not actually stripped bare but it is wonderfully coloured by empathetic strings and things. Wolfe is a natural and Lemon is simply splendid!.
Lemon by Paula Wolfe is a mature and sensitive work that’s easy to listen to and a pleasure to behold; clearly a great lyricist, obviously a gifted instrumentalist and certainly a visionary musician – Wolfe shows massive ability and creativity that cries ‘potential’. Lemon is massively commercial and given decent air-play and promotion I can see ‘Lemon’ becoming one of the ‘must have’ albums of the year. ‘Lemon’ by Paula Wolfe sits somewhere in the same mould as Damien Rice’s ‘O’; on the more sensitive side of the ‘acoustic’ arts, deep yet homely, educated craftsmanship delivered with finely honed professionalism and definitely one for the more discerning ear. Lemon by Paula Wolfe is a little beaut and deserves massive success!! Peter J.Brown.
THE IRISH WORLD
She confounds the well-worn stereotype of what a female singer is and should be. An intriguing album full of exquisitely told stories. Lemon looks set to make its own unique mark on the music world. Shelley Marsden.
THE IRISH POST
A stirring collection of tunes…Paula is a self proclaimed one-man band of the most modern kind. Fiona Audley.
BBC INTRODUCING
Up and coming star. Full Feature
EASTERN DAILY PRESS
The Norfolk-based singer and songwriter’s second album is a polished collection of heartfelt songs which show her talents as singer, musician, writer and producer. Her voice is clearly enunciated , the timbre sweet and the acoustic guitar-work melodic.
But there’s steel underneath that sweet exterior with Wolfe’s lyrics going to unexpected places, such as a swipe at ‘Little Englander’ mentalities in the Spanish-set in ‘A Place in The Sun’. The title track is typical of the sincerity which flows through this set. Trevor Heaton.
STREETVOICE 8.5/10
Musically, this is spot on with some great guitar…but the best part is Paula Wolfe’s voice. This is one lady who has an amazing voice and I’m surprised she isn’t a mega star in this country. Lemon is a great album and one that certainly needs to part of your collection. Steve DIY.
AdrianDenning.co.uk 4/5
Paula Wolfe was born in Dublin yet moved to London as a child. Lemon is her second album, a self-written, self produced and performed effort released on her own label.
‘Lemon‘ is a tasteful collection of acoustic songs with just the occasional track featuring an electric guitar or a more up tempo feel. She manages to hit the nail right on the head, lyrically she has a remarkably fresh look on life. The title track is a good example – a slow motion, sunny springtime with just a light sprinkling of rain. The lyrics really do raise this above other musical wallpaper. ‘Cheer’ is a near-perfect number with the same relaxing and special atmosphere as the title-cut. So, if a quiet and intelligent singer-songwriter is what you want, rather than all too much shouting, Paul Wolfe could well be just the one for you.
HOTDIGITS.co.uk
Paula Wolfe is worth a listen on this her second album as she covers many musical bases and has a lovely, melodious voice. There are jaunty tunes like ‘Not Lonely’, reflective acoustic numbers such as ‘How can I?’ This is self- produced with a clear, crisp sound throughout.
All this album needs is one song to get some airplay and Paula Wolfe will become a much more widely known name, she has the songs to back her undoubted vocal talent. Jason Ritchie.
ZEITGEIST
This is a rather accomplished set of singer / songwritery stuff. Some interesting songs and arrangements lift the album into the realms of the very good. Think Suzanne Vega without the annoying side order of smugness.
The highlights are many, but include ‘Asylum’ which relates the third party tale of a mother and her kids moving into a small English community, and the ‘welcome’ they receive, and the tale of a young couple flitting to rural France in ‘La Ranche en Hiver’.There is more than enough here to keep a battalion of Guardian readers very happy indeed. Stuart A Hamilton.
ROCK-CITY.co.uk
Textured, well produced and Wolfe has a beautiful voice. This is the sort of thing you might hear being championed by Radio 2. The story telling nature of the tracks make them resonate in your consciousness. Greg Thomas.
STARING
(Reworked, Remastered and Due for Release 2022)
MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
An uneventful night on Oldham Street, Manchester, may not seem the stuff to gee up the songwriter’s muse, but Paula Wolfe seems to specialise in such eloquent observations of the urban and banal. Hence we also get Skinny, a simple descriptive song about a skinny white girl, Leanne, another outsider’s hymn about a little girl, and West Side, which is about waiting for something to happen on a dull Sunday afternoon. Such naval gazing comes couched in appealing acoustic arrangements, but the really striking feature is Wolfe’s voice, which has the kind of exotic intensity of Kate Bush coupled with a head-girl quality of earnestness. Paul Taylor.
BBC MANCHESTER
Chances are you haven’t heard of Paula Wolfe yet, but if you get down to Night and day on Monday 23rd February, you’ll get the chance to see her as part of the Roadworks Tour, and fall in love with her sweet, sweet, voice and twisted tales of urban life. According to her press release, Paula, “strains for the fluidity of Ricki Lee Jones” as a musician, “lies somewhere between Chrissie Hynde and Patti Smith” as a performer, but writes with a heart that “is all Tom Waits”. Whoever she is, though, it all sounds very beautiful to us and she’ll make a change to the usual bish bash rock kids that roll all over the night and day stage.
TIME OUT
A rising talent.
WORD MAGAZINE
Easy-on the-ear, sensitive female singer songwriting for those whose cockles get warmed by Suzanne Vega and Dido. Jude Rogers.
MUSICOMH
Her debut album Staring is a true solo effort given that she played every instrument, wrote every song and self-produced the album. She’s had a chequered history, being born in Ireland, raised in London and paying her musical dues in Manchester. She was also the singer in a punk-folk group but Staring sees her travel a more sedate path. She’s relocated back down in London now but the first thing you notice about Wolfe is her very Northern sensibility. It’s unusual to hear someone singing in an English accent and Wolfe pulls it off. Staring is hard to fault. The opening track Walk Away combines swooning strings and a lovely strummed acoustic guitar to dreamy effect. The title track follows and is probably the best song on the album. Wolfe employs a part sung, part spoken word approach to the verse before sliding deliciously into the chorus. In parts it’s reminiscent of early Suzanne Vega, having similar intelligent, literate lyrics. Lyrically, Wolfe has a talent for portraying characters and situations with the eye of a screenwriter. Oldham Street describes a rather bleak night in Manchester only ending when she falls back into her lover’s bed. Similarly, Leanne gets into the mind of an emotionally scarred child (“Leanne hides her head in her jumper when she’s sad”) while West Side empathises with bored children who have been neglected by their parents. You need something a bit different to stand out from the rest of the crowd with this type of music. Wolfe does enough to suggest she could become a major talent. Staring definitely marks her out as a name to watch. John Murphy.
LOGO MAGAZINE
Paula Wolfe possesses a lush, dreamy, little-girl-lost voice that can send goosebumps marching up and down your spine, and when she uses a conversational tone her halting, fumbling phrasing recalls Sophia Churney on Ooberman’s haunting Shorley Wall?. It sounds like indie heaven then, and it could be, for Wolfe’s self-penned songs are as scathing and unflinching as anything by Trembling Blue Stars; if she sticks to the acoustic guitar, or can recruit a class backing band, she could challenge Thea Gilmore. Here’s hoping.
DRIPFED MAGAZINE
A pretty good album. If Elkie Brookes and Alanis Morrisette shacked up in Manchester and somehow produced a love child, Wolfe would be the joyful result. Her voice and lyrics ring with maturity and experience: philosophical, observational and ultimately positive. Although certain songs border on the Gorgonzola-front lyrically (Oldham Street, Leanne), they are delivered in such a relaxed, Northern tone that one cannot help but warm to this wide-eyed Wolfe. When I first heard this album, it caught my attention. It wasn’t the craftmanship of the songs; it wasn’t the arrangement (Wolfe plays every instrument on the album) nor the musicianship; what made me melt just a little bit was the honesty. She means every word, which I believe is a rare and exceptional talent. I’d love to stumble into a pub in the Northern Quarter and find her, with the room in the palm of her hand, strumming a guitar.
7/10 Carol Hodge.
NETRHYTHMS
Born in Dublin, raised in London, educated in Hull and musically bloodied in Manchester where she briefly played with punk folkers Gone To Earth before cutting loose to go the singer songwriter route. Now relocated back down south where she’s been making increasingly bigger ripples on the London acoustic circuit, this is her debut album, a solo effort in every sense having played, arranged and produced everything you hear. It’s also her own label. She’s not exactly rootsy, her music more informed by pop, light folksy jazz, and, one suspects from such numbers as West Side, May I and the spoken Maybe, the stage musicals of Willy Russell. As the latter observation may suggest, her songs tend to be small stories and snapshots, her landscape that of the inner city streets and estates (the voice may be sweet but she has the eyes of Mike Leigh) strewn with crumpled cans of beer and populated by hardened faces (Oldham Street) and hardened hearts (Staring). Maybe it’s the maternal instincts in her, but many of the songs deal with emotionally bruised children, the neglected kids of West Side, the emotionally withdrawn and scared girl in Leanne, the bored and the broken hanging around the corner on May I, the embittered teenage cynic of Joy. Maybe that’s also why, although she sees the despair, the emotional brutalisation and the numbing of too many dreams, she also offers notes of hope, the possibilities of bluer skies and better lives that cling by the fingertips to That Is The Way and This Time. Even if, as on Wind, that feeling is only for a day. MikeDavies.<ahref=”http://www.netrhythms.co.uk/reviewsw.html#wolfe”>http://www.netrhythms.co.uk/reviewsw.html#wolfe
FIND
(Reworked, Remastered and Due for Re-Release 2022)
PEOPLESOUND.COM
Gifted, graceful and wonderfully lulling, Paula Wolfe enjoys that all too rare quality of being able to command your attention to the point of dropping everything else. Within her vocal lies a phenomenal talent that she uses to great effect on these self penned compositions. ‘Coolest Kind Of Love‘ introduces an incisive lyrical style over an exquisite slice of acoustic guitar whilst the sublime ‘Trying‘ demonstrates a heavenly union between voice and piano.DickB.