Debut album ‘True Love Stories’ from Alan Pownall is to be released 19th July. The sunny summer sound is steeped in heartfelt lyrics and melody, the Sunday Times describing it as being: “Like Ray Davies singing calypso”. An easy rolling guitar style can be heard throughout, with the occasional violin embellishment from Noah and the Whale and Laura Marling’s violinist Tom Hobden.
Pownall had particular ideas about the feeling he wished to create with ‘True Love Stories’, stating: “I wanted the album to be like a jazz festival in the 1940s in the south of France, but set in some dingy bar on a rainy day – like, it would have all those picturesque elements, but slightly twisted as well”. The warm vintage sound he successfully manages to create is perhaps owed to the Eddie Cochran, Billie Holliday and Elvis records his grandparents played to him when he was younger.
The 25 – year – old Londoner describes the album: “I wanted this first album to be simple romance...it’s make-believe in many ways. I long for the day that I can love someone and they can love me back. I’m just too complex!” Complex though he may be, the simple, warm and heartfelt album is one of 2010’s sounds of the summer.