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Carmel Smickersgill

[ she/her ]

city: Manchester
country: UK
genre: Alternative, Electronic
styles: Jazz

Follow Carmel Smickersgill on

Spotify Bandcamp @carmelsmickersgill carmelsmickersgill.co.uk

on hashbrandnew.com since November 08, 2021

credits: Andrea Terzuoli

label
PRAH Recordings

prah.co.uk

@prah

@prahrecordings

Unsolicited Advice

out on May 16, 2025

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Reviews and Comments

Emerging modern classical / outsider pop artist CARMEL SMICKERSGILL announces brand new EP Unsolicited Advice, released 16th May via PRAH Recordings.

First single “Build The Habit”, is built around a relentless sounding 5/4 rhythm and a reversed saxophone sample performed by Pip De La Sayers. Inspired by artists such as Jlin, KABEUSHÉ and Verraco, its lyrics are repeated like a mantra (a technique deployed by Smickersgill throughout the EP’s five tracks).

“Silly music that comes from serious places” is how Smickersgill modestly described the crackling flashpoints and thrillingly assembled palette of sounds that made up her PRAH Recordings debut We Get What We Get & We Don’t Get Upset back in 2022.

Since then, Smickersgill’s career has taken her down a rich array of different paths. She has performed as a support act for her mentor Anna Meredith on multiple occasions and appeared on Elizabeth Alker’s BBC Radio 3 programme Northern Drift.

She describes forthcoming new EP Unsolicited Advice as “...a letter to a past self through the filter of hindsight.” Each track was written from a place of learning, a shift in perspective or a hard truth she feels her former self wasn’t ready to hear.

Subtly darker in tone to its predecessor, Smickersgill is keen to stress that “Unsolicited Advice still has a good amount of taking silly noises very seriously.” The EP’s genesis and development was hugely collaborative, with the composer working closely with Pip De La Sayers (saxophone), Marco Woolf (production) and Atanas Dochev (percussion).

The composer lists the likes of Arthur Russell and Mica Levi among her influences, but those who listen and recall Anna Meredith’s work aren’t far from the mark either: the Scottish composer and performer has been acting as a mentor for Smickersgill during the creative process, listening to demos and offering feedback.

[Bandcamp]