New music to listen to this week: Earl

Now Hear This

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Playing catch-up after a week in Norway for Oya festival, I want you to check out Alaska-born singer Earl

She grew up singing gospel in her local church choir before moving to LA - now based in London, she's signed to BMG and is working on a debut, which is set to be out in early 2017.

She's got a great voice and a pretty unique sound - the video for her single 'I Love You' has racked up an impressive 100k views over the last couple of weeks.

Check it out and let me know what you think:

Q&A with Earl

What are you listening to at the moment?

I love so many genres of music. I’m into that song ‘Concrete' by Tom Odell and the accapella version of Ariana Grande singing 'Dangerous Woman', excellent.

Otherwise it’s been the original 'Sing Sing Sing' by Benny Goodman and my budgie seems to enjoy singing along to Sia’s 'Cheap Thrills'.

What are your plans for the rest of 2016?

Continuing with my collaborator Phil Thornalley - he’s so humble he never mentioned he produced The Cure. I mean THE CURE…

And when we weren’t skinny dipping in the ocean, I did work on this co-write with Paloma Faith over in Hastings that one of my producers Blair Mackichan made happen. And I’ve been tweeting with Guy Chambers about writing the next one…. so I hope to have the album finished by Christmas.

What was the first gig you ever played, and what’s been the best so far?

If being the worship leader at a church revival in rural Alaska doesn’t count, I’d have to say my first “artist” gig was at a coffee shopped called Perkatory in Jackson, Michigan where I attended a missionary program when I was 17. My bible school mates were on the fence about attending because the atmosphere of the venue was “secular”.

But everyone knew the words to my song about wishing I could make cookies with Jesus, so they showed up and church sort of happened amidst the sound of grinding beans. It was a sight.

The gig closest to my heart was opening for Damien Rice after he found me online. For some reason they decided to give me a standing ovation at the London Palladium. I’d never been to the UK before that. It made me want to come back.