Tiki Black Releases a collection of poems to accompany her Second Album and Bags the Akademia Outstanding Legacy Award
The year 2022 proves to be a personal best for artist Tiki Black as she publishes a well-received companion book for her 2022 acclaimed second album, “The Sound of the Broken Wand” and wins the Akademia 2022 Outstanding Legacy Award.
UK/USA (July 1, 2022) – Award-winning musician and author Tiki Black released her sophomore album this year, which is entitled “The Sound Of The Broken Wand.” The record has received critical praise alluding to its timelessness, authenticity and quality. Entropy Mag (USA) underscores its “spellbinding beauty” and “grace.” Liverpool Sound and Vision (UK) calls it “influential,” “charming,” “uplifting,” and “outrageously cool.” Fatea magazine (UK) speaks of a “phenomenal album, full of soulful and haunting melodies that will capture your heart.”
Critics marvelled particularly at the power (Sinusoidal, Rock Era), uniqueness (Radioairplay) and range (Find No Enemy) of Black’s voice, as well as her authenticity and honesty (The Next Gig – Netherlands, Entropy). Edgar Allan Poets call their experience listening to the album “bewitching,” and compares it to that of Ulysses hearing the mermaids during the Odyssey. Music Authentic speaks of the rare treat to have such an artist in today’s musical noise. The audience too has taken to the sound, from live shows during Black’s current promotional tour to album streams on different platforms including Bandcamp, Amazon, iTunes, and Spotify.
The superb musical collection and unique rendition of “The Sound Of The Broken Wand” benefits from its talented session musicians and its producer, Russell Cottier (The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sony, Sky TV, Tamoki Wambesi Dove, etc.), the then resident sound engineer at the Grammy Award winning Parr Street Studios where the record was engineered.
A further achievement graces the artist’s year and sets to vindicate her early supporters who recognised her talent long before the world caught on. The Singer-Songwriter Tiki Black this year was awarded the Akademia 2022 Outstanding Legacy Award. The Akademia seldom bestows this honor, reserving this award only for musicians who have “built a musical repertoire that the executive team has deemed timeless and important to future generations.” Announcing its winners in June of this year via live stream, the Akademia executive team made a bold statement, emphasizing the value they put on quality and inspirational creations over quantity.
Such a recognition contributes to increasing the popularity of “The Sound of the Broken Wand” as a favourite album of the year. And the audience is about to get even more of the concept album as the artist releases a complementing poetry collection. The book of the same name is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. A limited-edition hardback book including CD can be purchased on Bandcamp. Further encouraging emancipation, the poems explore the underlying themes in folk tales that accompanied our growth or may have accidentally hindered it.
This sophomore album follows a critically successful debut album, Out Of The Black. That concept album was deemed a “masterpiece” (YourMusicNews, Canada), and praised for its “impressive music” (FabOn, Japan), “warm, embracing and timeless” sound (Spiral Earth, U.K.), and “gorgeous… truly memorable” songs (The Akademia, USA). It confirms as does her acceptance speech this year, that the songstress insists on putting the time and meraki needed on every one of her musical creations to inspire and empower. The musical energy is encouraging and emancipating. Quality is paramount, and thus shines, unencumbered from the pressures and restrictions of time and trends.
Tiki Black is present on all major social media platforms. Her music is available via all major retailers and streaming services. The musician is currently promoting both her album and book widely. Audiences can find show dates and more information on her website at https://tikiblack.com.
About the musician and author
Tiki Black is an award-winning singer-songwriter, touring performer, recording artist and author praised for her unique vocal and piano performances, her inspiring lyricism and her profound and blended compositions. She has released two albums, “Out Of The Black” in 2013 and “The Sound of the Broken Wand” in 2022, accompanied by a book of the same name. Two of her songs appear in independent movies, the 2017 short Silence and the 2019 film Djoli. The artist mainly performs in English but has written songs in French as well as forewords for a couple of French books in the language. She has also been honoured with prestigious awards as a recognition for her inspirational song writing. She is currently promoting her second album while completing the writing of the third.
England-based by way of Paris and Cameroon, singer-songwriter Tiki Black announced the imminent release of her new album in 8 years. Tiki Black has been praised for her “impressive music” (FabOn, Japan), “warm, embracing and timeless” sound (Spiral Earth, England), and “gorgeous… truly memorable” songs (The Akademia, USA, Nov 2013 Music Awards).
The highly anticipated sophomore album has been teased with the release of its previews and the performance of a number of its titles in the UK, the Netherlands, France and Germany. The final date of release is now official as Tiki Black announced the digital release for the 7th of December 2021 followed in January by a physical release.
The artist took her time with this release, “I need the time to experience, feel, understand and translate”, Tiki reveals. “I won’t rush life for the sake of a song. I won’t create a piece that I’m unhappy having to hear or perform for the rest of my life.” This might be the secret in the depth of her writing, the haunting of her melodies and the praise she has been receiving for her recordings, writing and her performances.
The album is recorded in the Grammy Award Winning Parr Street Studios in Liverpool where record producer Russell is resident. Russell Cottier has worked for Chart-Topping Artists and Labels, – such as The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sony, Sky TV, Nuclear Blast Records, Tamoki Wambesi Dove, Cavern Records, and many more.
With no filler on her new album, Tiki Black presents different flavours of separation, cutting the umbilical cord or as she refers to it, cutting the feed to enable growth. While The Unscripted comes to terms with such an emancipation in an original and refreshing tone, Release Me deals with the internal struggle to part from our own whims to regain control of our lives. The Other Woman is pure Blues with the subtle touch of an operatic touch that explores and plays with the idea of the blame game. The title track, The Sound of the Broken Wand, plays a haunting melody aimed to break more than a spell but its very source, the wand that spellbinds us into its world of shortcuts and instant gratification that hold us back from natural and positive growth.
The album clearly has various influences, blended by Tiki Black, Russell Cottier and a host of talented session musicians in a way that allows the singer-songwriter’s signature voice to breathe in power and gentleness over the whole waves and the theme to express itself freely and uninhibitedly.
The artist’s voice explores its spectrum of tones and releases its power and passion, especially in songs like The Other Woman, defying The Debt, Colour Me Blue and The Crowns Crumbs. The songstress never shies away from any of the scales on which the substance of her songs requires her vocals to slide.
The album stands almost in defiance of the five-year hardship that delayed its completion and release. But through COVID-19, voice loss, funding crisis, the music artisan made it to unleash a wonderfully crafted musical collection. The album is released on No Sugar Added (NOSE) records. It is available right now on pre-order on Bandcamp. The digital version will be available on the 7th of December 2021 at all major retailers and streaming services and the physical release will follow on the 11th January of 2022.
The album is available now on Tiki Black’s website at https://tikiblack.com for listening and pre-order!
The Queen of electro-ethereal Folk (with a castle to match. Yep Enya bought her very own castle in Killiney, Ireland.) is revered for taking her musical heritage of Irish waves and bringing the world into it with the very ethereal sounds that are reminiscent of old Celtic fantasy stories. Enya is the spelling and pronunciation of the name of this musical artisan and E-I-T-H-N-E is the original spelling in this songwriter’s native tongue, the Donegal dialect of the Irish language.
She is born in a musical family and even formed a band with some of them, the group Clannad, better known for their Theme From Harry’s Game. Her extreme talent makes her one of the most unique music creators of all time and an inspiration for fathoming wonder out of individual originality and traditions’ inheritance.
The wealthiest woman in music (yes, it is not the usual and more onscreen suspects) earned every penny of her wealth by taking us beyond the boundaries of time, space and preconception into worlds that our minds could suddenly creating out of sound waves. Her songs are a success on and off screen bringing soft wonder to our daily lives. She is also a muse and a teacher for those who want to learn to create and harness or make the most of a most magical blend of who you are: who you worked to be and who you have be borne to be. She has inspired many not least Antonín Mrkos who named the asteroid (6433 Enya) he discovered on 18 November 1978 after her.
Enya in ten songs
Watermark: This purely inspiring instrumental is the title track of her 1990 album. It is also featured in the 1990 film Green Card alongside other songs from her “River” and “Storms in Africa”. These are by far not the only pieces that have made it to the movies. Her songs On your shore and “Exile” (from the album Watermark) and “Epona” (from the album Enya) were featured in the 1991 film L.A. Story. “Ebudæ” is also featured on the soundtrack to the Robin Williams feature film Toys
Orinocco Flow: One of the most recognisble songs from Enya, often called Sail away because of the repetition of the phrase in the chorus
China Roses is a graceful walz of ethereal beauty that seems to be inspired directly from the far Asian elegance in a most Euro-Irish take
Storms in Africa
So I Could Find My Way is a delicate lullaby from her 2015 album that sounds like a subtle entry to Christmas, an ode giving thanks and an air of a gift back, all in one, in her unique electro-ethereal way. We can now go to sleep in peace.
Even In The Shadows
I Could Never Say Goodbye – With this number, Enya reminds us why she loves, creates and shares such a unique and addictive style of music
Wild Child: An epic rendering of the adventures bursting within and through our fragile souls
Caribbean Blue: An unmissable track that cannot hide its electronica sounds but loses none of its ethereal charm.
Only Time: the best way to complete this 10-piece Enya collection is with this classic from Enya’s 2000 release. Arguably her piece of reference, the tune brings a sense of divine or at the least otherwordly peace. It has been used over and over again. Its use span comedy and drama context when it seeks to pass an important message. This is the case respectively in an episode of Friends (The One where Chandler Takes a Bath) and in the media to soothe the news reporting the attacks of 9/11.
I Write The Songs #118 Featured artists is the second part of finding out the origin of the show I Write The songs by Tiki Black aired on Canalside Community Radio for the first time around the 25th of May 2017 with podcast via Mixcloud.
I Write The Songs #118 Featured artists part 1
Joan Baez, Farewell Angelina, 3.12, 1965, Bob Dylan, I Write The Songs 58, and an upcoming IWTS
Father John Misty, Bored In The USA, 4:22, I Love You, Honeybear [Explicit] 2015 Josh Tillman: one of our most featured songs, appearing in I Write The songs #105, #94, #85, #76, #70, #66,
Dee Dee Bridgewater & Ray Charles, Till the next somewhere (aka Precious Thing), 5.04, 2011, (Ronnie Bird, Pierre Papadiamandis): IWTS 64, #95, #60, #49, #45, #35, #83, #72,
