New To You Spotlight: Australian songwriter Karen Craigie releases Mountains Of Gold

Originating from Sydney, international award-winning songwriter Karen Craigie has been writing, recording and singing since she was a child, releasing singles and albums under numerous monikers, writing and co-writing songs for her own catalogue and a number of other artists. 

Karen’s songs have featured in film and on TV, (MTV Diary, Drew Carey’s Sporting Adventures, and Pickings), and she has also enjoyed airplay in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and here in Australia.  Her music has also been licensed for airplay in retail outlets across most of Europe – including in The Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland as well as into Spain, Ireland, the UK and into the United States.

Release Date: 1 June 2018

Label: Buttercup Records Australia

Total Length: 37:44

Genres: Country

Amazon UK

Despite Craigie’s musical achievements it’s likely you have never heard of her before; especially if you’re outside the orbit of the Australian Country Music scene. She spent years on the other side of the industry, including a stint working as Label Manager for Australian Alt Country and Power Pop label Laughing Outlaw Records, and as a booker and venue manager in the UK, working with a dizzying array of artists from Bloc Party to Roni Size.  Ever-careful not to blur the lines between her work and play, Craigie developed her musical career behind the scenes; focusing on songwriting, and totally bucking the traditional working musician path of live performance.  She explains;

“When I first started releasing music I was working in the music industry and I wanted to keep those two parts very separate. I am not a musician anyway, beyond playing enough to write the songs and get them ready for the studio. Songwriting and creating songs was then and has continued to be the part of music that I love most and want to be involved with. Over time that has allowed me to avoid the cycle that I have seen so many musicians wrestle with – work getting in the way of music getting in the way of work – and have a reasonably long-running career as a songwriter, alongside multiple professional paths, and a heap of other major personal projects. I plan to continue doing things this way for as long as it keeps working”.

In her “other professional life” Karen is what she calls a professional do-gooder - founding and running the Australian Charity - Prosper (Project Australia), chairing the boards and committees of multiple international organisations for street kids (including Welcome to my yard and Prosper Children’s Village), leading the fundraising program for her son’s school, fostering more than 20 children over 6 years and being a mum to her 10 year old co-writer.

“Writing songs has been the best way that I can find to stay connected to music amidst all of my other passions and commitments. I am a songwriter and occasional artist and that is enough. Some performers don’t write songs and some songwriters don’t perform. I am in the latter category. That fits nicely with my home, and busy work life and lets me keep doing everything that I love. If I attempted to add performing or anything else, I’d have to let go of something else that’s important.”

November 30, 2018 sees Karen release her 3rd LP, but the first under her own name through Buttercup Records Australia.  

Written and recorded at Love Hz Studios, Mountains of Gold is a powerful combination of cleverly crafted lyrics and heartfelt vocals, delivered with the signature polished production of Golden Guitar-winning producer, Matt Fell.  Each song on Mountains of Gold tells a unique story and draws on a range of influences spanning country, pop and rock music.

Published on April 23, 2018 Watch “Lonely Town” (5.6K Views):

NEW RELEASE Karen Craigie - So Long

So Long is the follow up single from Mountains of Gold (released June 1, 2018) and features stunning lyrics and heartfelt vocals, delivered with the signature slick production of Golden Guitar-winning producer, Matt Fell. 
The single was sent to country radio.

Stream on Soundcloud | Available on Amazon UK & iTunes

Lonely Town; the first single from the album, spent 7 weeks in the Country Songs Top 40 Australian airplay charts and hit the top ten of the Official Tasmanian Top 30 country chart in Australia.  Other tracks featured on Mountains of Gold have taken out multiple Australian songwriting awards – including Songs Alive’s The Song Comp, and reached the finalist or semi-finalist stage of the Tamworth Songwriters Association’sNational Country Music Songwriting Contest, TheInternational Songwriting Competition, The UK Songwriting Contest and the Australian Songwriting Association Song Contest amongst others, while the tracks Lonely Town and So Long achieved two much coveted American Songwriting Award nominations.

Mountains of Gold Track By Track

Little Heartbreaker – The lead track is an ironic, pop-skewed reflection on the destructive relationships that find us all, and the games, fakery, and ruin that punctuate such fraught affairs. 

Kill Me Now – a cautionary tale about the importance of going your separate ways after a breakup and the torment of nursing a heartache with an old still love hanging around.

Bottom Line – co-written with Karen’s now 10 year old son, when he was the tender age of 6). The song is a walk through negotiation of the typical heated, repetitive arguments we find ourselves in with our significant others, and a plea for common ground and a meeting place somewhere at the bottom line.

Mountains of Gold – has been a song-writing awards favourite and is the heart and soul of the album, capturing the beauty, longing and sadness of the passage of time, letting go of dreams, and coming to realise that life is no fairy tale and there really are no mountains of gold.

High – is a different kind of love song about navigating the journey through all of the distractions and temptations that the world offers, to find your way to the love of family that brings you home each night.

Game Face – chronicles the type of off-colour love that takes the best out of us and leaves us wanting nothing more than to depart with our pride still intact. No making up, no pretending to be friends, no such luck and nothing more to do but pack up your heart and leave.

Happy Ending – a Country Eastern-flavoured dedication to finding ‘The One’ you have waited your whole life for. But it’s not that simple – promises, hurt, lies, imperfection, loneliness and knowing that at any moment the happy ending itself could come to an end.

Lonely Town – was written on a Greyhound bus ride through Nevada and was created as a homage to classic American western movies conjuring imagery of long setting suns, shoots ups, and whisky and incorporating country sounds from the fiddle to backing vocals that emulate the style of the singing of the first nations people of America.

So Long - this award-winning ballad (2015 Songs Alive, The Song Comp – Ballad Category) is inspired by the fictional relationship between characters Tim Riggins and Lyla Garrity from the hit television series, Friday Night Lights and captures the bittersweet mood of long, lost young love.

Till It Gets Done – the final album track is a rock-fused motivational speech reminding us that anything is possible. Set against a score of classic rock guitar and a soaring middle 8, the song throws out the challenge that it is all up to us and it comes down to simply getting the thing done.

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