The Leeds Scenester

What’s impressive about Hannah Trigwell is her worldwide, online presence. Trigwell is unsigned yet astonishingly reached Number 6 in the Itunes chart. All achieved through self-promotion using Youtube, Myspace and various social networking sites. Artists that start out as an unsigned nobody and catapult into international charts, generally get a lot of respect from hardened music geeks, James Blake anyone? So naturally I’m intrigued. Researching into her background I discover Trigwell is no pop-factory produced sound, she’s a natural talent, preferring to take to the streets of her hometown, Leeds, and bravely attempt at captivating the passing crowds with her sugar-sweet voice and an acoustic guitar.

This however, leaves me feeling slightly disappointed with her debut single Headrush. If the aim was to create a more commercial sounding track versus Hannah’s previous work, Headrush has certainly achieved that. The intro is promising; simply-picked acoustic guitar and youthful vocals instantly creates an atmosphere of romance and longing. After the emotional intro, a piano is added creating a further, melancholy layer. This is where the sound proceeds from being one of an alternative, acoustic sound, to one of a pop produced chart sound. The piano inevitably loses the intensity and rawness of the track and the guitar sounds like it has been altered to create a more polished, pop-sound effect. The lyrics are quite repetitive, only needing to listen to the track a few times and I, annoyingly, know it word for word. Conceptualise the track you’d imagine would accompany the closing credits of a teen-angst Disney movie. I think the track will push into the commercial chart, rather than the alternative one. If that’s what the aim was, then brilliant!

Laura Collinson