A vast amount of musicians I know have been mostly self-taught, and for Anna Stephens and Alfie Cattell that is no different. Producer Alfie Cattell taught himself how to play the piano at 14 from which point he was inspired to make his own compositions. Singer/songwriter Anna Stephens started writing music on her own when she moved to Paris in 2014 and then made melodies on her mom´s piano in England. In my opinion, this is what makes musicians so special and a definite example of how talented they can be.
Moodbay are made up vocalist/songwriter Anna Stephens and producer Alfie Cattell and are based in England. Alfie tells me his inspirations are his two brothers (who are both guitarists and songwriters), The Beatles, and Radiohead. The band seems to be influenced heavily by what Anna is inspired by, but for now they are looking up to musicians such as David Bowie and Chvrches. ¨Sometimes Anna will come up with a melody in the shower and run down to the studio in a towel before Alfie starts to put a groove to it. Other times, Alfie will come up with a song idea at about 5am whilst Anna is sleeping (we’ve got opposite body clocks). Anna will add vocal melodies to the song the following day. Other times we’ll write together, influenced by something we’ve heard or talked about recently,¨ said the band.
¨We have some enthusiastic supporters and we want to keep them interested. We’re also looking to grow a bit of a following at home in the North East, with the live side of things.¨
–Anna Stephens (Vocalist for Moodbay) [8/10/2019]
¨Alone is about a man Alfie saw when he was driving, and was walking towards traffic in the middle of the motorway at 3am. He had his hood up and you could just make out his mouth. This led to me and Alfie talking about what his story could be,¨ Anna says. It is amazing what you can make a song out of, in this case it is just a hooded man walking down the street. The imaginations that Anna and Alfie have are remarkable and another piece of what makes them so talented. Listen Up is no different, it´s minimalistic and sharp. There’s not a lot I can criticize the band, however I want to encourage them to use their imaginations and continue staying true to their sound and eclectic music.
¨We like all genres and we aren’t worried about whether the music conforms to a trend, so our music as a whole can’t be placed easily in any one genre. That doesn’t mean to say we are anti trends or anti anything.. We just try to make good songs and we use all the experience and tools we’ve learnt over the years to do our stuff.¨
-Anna
The band tells me that ¨the future isn’t certain but we know we still want it to be electronic, with human emotion.¨ They do hope to continue making music that keep getting better, and ¨as long as we can afford Polski bread and tea we’ll be laughing¨. After the release of Alone on August 16th, they are coming out with a debut album which will be released towards the end of the year with a love/hate theme to it.
I would like to thank Anna, Alfie, and everyone else for being so patient for this review. It wasn´t burn out because I love writing, and it wasn´t boredness because I literally get 6 to 10 review requests from bands ranging in so many genres every week. I guess it was the feeling of not being heard, but after so much support and encouragement I see now that people do read my articles and that’s all I ever wanted. Anna and Alfie are truly good people with an amazing talent and if you would like to follow them then you can find them on Facebook and Instagram, and listen to their music on Spotify. To see future posts and updates for Moodbay and all other musicians then please feel free to like/follow Unedited on Facebook and Instagram. Have a wonderful rest of your weekend!
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