"Fool" by Antonia Kirby
Review
Today I have the opportunity to repair another omission in my reviewing history for "Hot Music Live": to be precise until this moment, I have not yet written about Antonia Kirby and that is doubly remiss since her much regarded track "Labour of Love" appears on our ‘Hot Music Live Presents Volume Two' (if you have not yet heard this, please go to https://hotmusiclivepresents.bandcamp.com/album/hot-music-live-presents-volume- two for a free download).
"Labour of Love" first appeared on Antonia's ‘The View From Here' EP in 2016 & I'm pleased to announce that her new single "Fool" (released today on all righteous platforms) adds to her discography before 2019 ends.
This beautiful, heart wrenching piano led ballad (the piano courtesy of track co-composer Tom Haines) simply reeks with honest emotion (which is what I admire about her artistry & without which you'd not have this to read) and her pellucid vocals sit perfectly in an airy soundscape sculpted by her regular collaborator Nick Dransfield. Antonia says that she has favoured emotion & feel over technical perfection (which too often results in sterile, passionless blandness): I can't hear any imperfections myself but they have certainly left the heart & soul of this wistful piece intact: her untrammelled voice spills out into the space left for it to grand effect in a tale which takes its protagonist from a sort of semi-submissive masochism through a reflective journey of growing self awareness to the strong & assertive personality its writer is. Quite soon she is even having a go at the person initially she was waiting (in vain) for..... though even this aspect is tempered by the emotional intelligence that she is suffering from sins of carelessness not malice.
I don't know for sure precisely what Antonia has in store for us in 2020, but a very big hint may be the video she has posted of a stunning collaboration with fellow "Hot Music Live Presents" artist Hannah Woof which you can see at https://www.facebook.com/antoniakirbymusic/videos/587702318726050/ Antonia tells me that this may only be first of several collaborations with Hannah.
The song is called "Fool" but the artist certainly is not & neither will you be unless you fail to check it out....
