Sophie Janes
Enquiries: contact(at)sophiejanes(dot)com
Debut Album Release July 1st 2016 – pre-order on itunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/the-fog/id1104951492
‘The Fog’ is the debut album by East Sussex singer-songwriter Sophie Janes, crafted over a two year period. Cinematic pop meets orchestral grandeur; concert piano meets in-your-face voice; Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Lana del Rey and Adele meet Einaudi, Howard Shore and Ramin Djawadi.
About Sophie Janes
A home-educated singer/songwriter who left school at 9 and spent her teens exploring her musical passion, teaching herself to play the piano, compose songs and shoot videos by watching online platforms such as YouTube. In 2012 a home shot video of one of her tracks was spotted on YouTube by Stewart Pearce, former Master of Voice at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre whose clients have included Vanessa Redgrave, Princess Diana, Amy Winehouse and Eddie Redmayne. Stewart described her as having ‘the voice of an angel’ and invited her to launch her live career in London’s Earls Court by opening the UK MBS show.
There followed an outpouring of songs. Sophie spent the early part of 2014 touring and refining her set in South East UK and Germany, and the rest of 2014 arranging and co-producing her debut album ‘The Fog’ with producer/father Barry Durdant-Hollamby, who back in the day had been one of the first UK songwriters ever to sign to Motown’s UK publishing division and who spent the 80s and early 90s producing a string of UK house/dance records. In spite of having little to offer financially, Sophie attracted a core group of top pro musicians to the live band and some rough mixes from the album and clips from the live show resulted in two consecutive offers of official artist showcases at the USA’s prestigious ‘South By South West’ (SXSW).
The title track, ‘The Fog’, a haunting, driving track has already been used by SKY Sports Formula 1 in both their USA and Italian Grand Prix coverage. This followed the release of a video ‘Sandstorm’ which was subsequently playlisted on 15 UK regional daytime radio stations and also ‘A’ listed on Umusic TV, a new video channel aimed at providing age-appropriate music video content for Under 12s. ‘Sandstorm’ was also chosen for broadcast throughout thousands of UK retail stores. An earlier video ‘Stop Me’ was also chosen by Emirates Airlines for its online music channel, broadcast on various channels including SKY’s MyChannel, and has been selected for inclusion at a couple of USA film festivals featuring music videos. She also produces regular haunting cover versions for her youtube channel and facebook/instagram followers.
Sophie has also developed a schools programme based around building interest in playing and writing music and also includes values, self-esteem and confidence where she acts as a mentor/role model to young people – the first school programme is currently taking place in South London.
Sophie Janes gigs feature a line-up of fully trained professional musicians. She performed the debut of her album set at London’s legendary Bedford pub with an 8 piece band to a packed audience of 150, played her last public gig with a stripped back line-up to a sell out 280 crowd in Tunbridge Wells Trinity Theatre and has also headlined at The Pheasantry in The Kings Rd.