New single from Red Sky July

Single releases
Written By Chris Singleton

Single release: Red Sky July, How to Get Your Love
Album: Red Sky July
Listen: www.redskyjuly.com 

“As atmospheric as it is emotional” - ****, Q Magazine
“Featherlight, fragile and naively charming” – Mail on Sunday
“Packed full of gorgeous harmonies, lilting slide and a warming country glow” – Guitar & Bass Magazine
“What a great album” – Classic Rock Society

Red Sky July are gearing up to release How To Get Your Love, the second single from their long-awaited debut album, and are set for their first tour of Scotland. The “haunting but pulsating” (Q) How To Get Your Love combines melody and melancholy to superb effect, with singers Shelly Poole and Charity Hair in perfect harmony. The inspiration for the song came easy, with Shelly professing, “It’s about being in love and magnetised to someone or something that you hold godlike ... the words just fell out.”

Red Sky July marks the first time that husband and wife Shelly Poole (Alisha’s Attic) and Texas guitarist Ally McErlaine have recorded together. Born out of a desire to write songs inspired by their love of the likes of Gram Parsons and Neil Young for their own personal enjoyment, Ally, Shelly and former Alice Band vocalist Charity Hair found themselves crafting and recording an entire album.

This was in 2009. Yet 2 weeks before recording was due to start, Ally suffered a major brain aneurysm and was in a critical state for over a year. The focus, of course, shifted to getting Ally fit and healthy. Reconvening last summer with a couple of additional songs, Red Sky July were eager more than ever to capture their music on record. The album was recorded live in Bristol with producer Rory Carlile to give each song a sense of danger and fragility. As Shelly notes, “we can’t help but make music that sounds like it’s about to fall to pieces, but somehow it stays together.”

All three will testify that the song writing process for their debut album has been one of the easiest of their respective careers, with songs and lyrics literally tumbling out as they discussed past relationships and experiences. Working with no boundaries or expectations yielded an album written for the sheer pleasure of making music together.   

Red Sky July’s debut album is a gloriously rich experience and a notable leap forward from anything they have been involved in before. While the lyrics mostly come from a reflective place, framing personal stories through a universal lens, they also make use of fantastical imagery to lend the songs an air of mystery. Meanwhile Ally’s instrumentation is low-key but varied and textured, giving each song little secrets and moments that do not reveal themselves at first, but create scenes and aural locations for the listener to explore and rediscover with each listen.  

Shelly, Ally and Charity have travelled the world, performing and writing for as long as they can recall. Red Sky July finds them crafting a new sonic landscape, making sense of the magic of the world around them with breathtaking beauty.

Live dates

Red Sky July will play the following dates in November:

Sun 13 Nov – Glasgow, King Tuts
Mon 14 Nov – Edinburgh, Electric Circus
Wed 16 Nov – Inverness, Mad Hatters
Thu 17 Nov – Aberdeen, Cafe Drummond

Tickets £10. Available from 08444 999 990 and www.gigsinscotland.com

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Chris Singleton
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