Marcus Foster has unveiled the video for 'Shadows Of The City', the lead track from his debut EP 'Tumble Down' which is released on Geffen Records on Monday 4th April.
Marcus Foster is no ordinary singer songwriter, and so he was never going to be quite so easily tempted into the tried and tested route of overnight success and instant fame. "Organic" is an awfully clichéd word, but his slow and stealthy gestation into a new artist of genuine note has nevertheless been just that. When you hear his songs, you realise it could never really have gone any other way.After much anticipation and preparation, his debut EP is finally ready for release. Entitled Tumble Down, and featuring four tracks rich with languor and melancholic life, it sounds like the work of someone who has been doing this for years, forever. You listen to the four songs here, particularly the slow six-minute burn of the title track and the exquisite ache of Shadows of the City, and at no point do you imagine him to be only 24 years old. These are folk songs and bluesy too, but nobody would ever be able to describe them as "nu", which, frankly, is a relief. They sound, like many great things, as old as the hills.
Marcus Foster was born in London. He was six years old when he felt inexplicably drawn to the piano for the first time, and began to take lessons. This was unusual, he points out, because although his family were a family of music lovers, none had a particular penchant for playing themselves. But Marcus did, and he became quietly obsessive about it.
Marcus contributed one song to the Twilight soundtrack, entitled Let Me Sign, sung by Robert Pattinson and two songs in the road movie Five Dollars a Day starring Christopher Walken and Sharon Stone, this was enough to light a fire under Marcus's name, and create an awful lot of premature excitement.
With astonishing rapidity, he had now became a word-of-mouth sensation, and by the middle of 2010 this still unsigned new artist had already racked up over a million hits on his MySpace page, while his Twitter account was followed in the tens of thousands. It prompted record labels to court him, and he eventually signed to Communion/Geffen Records shortly before Christmas. Communion Records is the label owned by Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons, Kevin Jones, and producer Ian Grimble.
Tour Dates are as follows:
05/04 - Oxford, Jerico Tavern
06/04 - Birmingham, Hare & Hounds
07/04 - Bristol, Mr Wolfs
09/04 - Glasgow, Captain's Rest
10/04 - Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete's
11/04 - Manchester, Night & Day
13/04 - London, Hoxton Bar & Kitchen
Published on 25 March 2011 by Wayne Feltham
