 |
To Karen and Shelly, Alisha's Attic was a project deep-rooted in
their hearts from an early age. The pair are sisters, born
fourteen months apart in the early seventies. Karen was born in Chadwell
Heath, Essex on the 8th of January 1971 and Shelly the following year in Barking, Essex on the 20th of March.
Both sisters have long had an ambition to be a part of the music
scene and they began by sending off various demo tapes to record
companies.
Alisha's Attic were
discovered by Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics fame) after they sent him
a demo tape recorded at home. Impressed, Mercury Records immediately
signed the band and their debut album
Alisha Rules The World soon
followed. It was released in November 1996 to hugely positive
reviews, going platinum in the following year.
The girls were highly successful with their promotional tours in
1996 and 1997, touring with Australian group INXS and with the Lilith
Fair in the United States. They also gave stunning headlining
performances in various venues around the UK. Their popularity grew
as their frequency of live appearances increased.
The time soon come in 1998 to begin recording a follow up to
their excellent debut album. The band made the
decision to start recording with a new producer, Mark Plati, in New
York. Illumina was born and released in the UK in October
1998—almost two years after the debut—to mixed reviews. The band's
image and sound had changed since the first album and it began to
seem like people had forgotten about Alisha's Attic. The first
single from the new album,
The Incidentals, did
well,
reaching number thirteen in its first week of release and staying in
the charts for seven weeks. However, the charts, populated by
rehashes of old songs and manufactured groups, soon became an
inhospitable place.Moving on to a new location and a new
producer, Alisha's Attic wrote and recorded an album in Mendocino,
California, completely
different from their previous work. Time
had passed since the first album and maturity in the music and
lyrics clearly shone through. Working with Bill Bottrell, one of
Sheryl Crow's producers,
The House We Built
was released as Alisha's Attic's third studio album.
In 2001, Mercury records chose to purge their inventory of
artists and they parted company with Alisha's Attic. The sisters
decided to pursue solo careers—Shelly as a solo singer-songwriter
and Karen as a lyricist for high-profile pop artists such as the
Minogue sisters. However, one of the gems to come after the parting
of Alisha's Attic from their record company was
The Vaults I, a
collection of previously unreleased and untouched, but magically
beautiful songs.
Simon Wilson, Updated June 2003 |
