31st January 2019,
The Unitarian Church, Liverpool
supporting The Delines
Recent Reviews...
"Our evening of well-crafted song, of rich melody and strong, intelligent lyrics begins well when Rachael Jean Harris appears onstage. Truly gifted, with a voice capable of carrying clear and often raw soul and emotion, her melodies seem to find their natural place, almost unaided. Natural, intuitive and utterly spellbinding. There are songs of confinement, of the oppressive nature of isolation and the damage it can do. Sublimely imagined and perfectly delivered over her skilled guitar work, there's pain in these songs, a real edge and, in some places a welcome melancholy. Finishing with Hair of the Moon, a song from this year which sounds older than its time, somehow more familiar than it should be, is a fine example, classic songwriting. They should teach this kind of thing. Soul and depth."
Paul Fitzgerald / @NothingvilleM for Bido Lito! Issue 93
"On hearing the first few acoustic chords from Rachael Jean Harris, her delicate and precise jazz-like progressions, you are at once transported back to Joni Mitchell’s mid-1970’s Hissing of Summer Lawns phase. But when you hear Harris’s soaring vocal it is evident that she is so much more than a Joni Mitchell mimic (though she would surely not deny her roots).
Her songs are beguiling and break all the rules it seems, the structures are hard to pin down and her vocal phrases meander captivatingly, constantly wandering where they seem really to have no right to go.
Many acoustic guitar based singer-songwriters’ vocals follow their guitar chord progressions, but Harris seems to turn this idea on its head, and you find yourself wondering how the acoustic guitar can possibly match that vocal. But of course she is so proficient at what she does that the guitar and vocal dovetail perfectly and the effect is as seamless as it is enchanting."
Derek King for Liverpool Acoustic, at Studio 2, Liverpool