ALICE RUSSELL
Pot of Gold
(Six Degrees)
By Todd Lavoie
At last – an American breakthrough. English soul vocalist Alice Russell has been belting it out for quite some time now: her first solo full-length, after several initial inspired collaborations, was 2004’s Under the Munka Moon (Tru Thoughts) – but somehow, scandalously, she never had an American label. Her trio of releases – the aforementioned Moon, along with 2005’s My Favourite Letters and 2006’s hodgepodge compilation Under the Munka Moon II (also on the British Tru Thoughts label) – weren’t exactly impossible to track down stateside, but they didn’t receive nearly as much attention as they perhaps would have with the support of a company on these shores.
Luckily for all concerned, this is about to change: San Francisco tastemakers Six Degrees Records recently unleashed Russell’s latest, the aptly monikered Pot of Gold. And yep, all of you groove pirates, there are riches aplenty here.