Album Notes

Chris Smyth is an acoustic songwriter and musician based in Cambridge, England. He is fast gaining a reputation as an exciting new songwriter and a musician with flair and subtlety. Recently Chris has been focussed on recording his second studio album, This Is Our Factory (Let’s Make Good), as well as playing gigs at UK acoustic venues with the likes of Chris Difford, Chris While, Cara Dillon, John Tams and Seth Lakeman.

Born in Kent in 1980, Chris Smyth was brought up in a very musical Irish family. His parents had just moved to England from Belfast where his father was a record producer and recorded numerous Irish folk and rock bands. Including The Undertones (Teenage Kicks EP), the late BBC Radio 1 presenter John Peel's favourite track of all time.

"I grew up listening to a lot of music. We had a fairly huge record collection at home and there were always a lot of musicians and musical instruments around because my dad was usually recording. I was encouraged to play music from an early age. I think that because my parents valued creativity and thought that music was important, both as self-expression and purely as entertainment, I never thought it was a waste of time to spend hours learning to play."

By the age of 15 Chris had learnt piano, guitar and drums and began to play music with friends in school. In 1998, when Chris left for university, he hoped that it would be the start of a musical high point with lots of live music to get involved with.

"I didn't meet many people who played a musical instrument at university. At home, music had been a big part of my life, but it wasn't until I arrived at university that I realised that it wasn't like that for everyone. That was really when I understood how much music meant to me and I started writing songs."

Over the following five years Chris wrote more and more songs and in 2002 he moved to Nottingham where he began to play his songs live as a solo artist in Nottingham's music venues. Within months he had built up a strong following and was regularly being asked for recorded material.

"I was quite surprised at the reaction, very quickly I started to get requests for my songs at gigs and other bands asking me to support them. I was asked to support Glen Tilbrook from Squeeze in Nottingham and the audience response was very positive. I knew that the next stage was to record some of the songs that I had been performing live and I knew who I would get to produce my debut album."

Chris recorded his debut album Amber Lights in Spring/Summer 2004, playing all the instruments himself. It was produced by Dave Smyth at Wizard Sound Studios. The record received a great response and was been given airplay by radio stations in the UK. Chris also had a live performance recorded by BBC4 for use as part of the 2005 BBC Folk Awards Show. In early 2006 Chris began work on recording his second album This Is Our Factory (Let’s Make Good).

"In 2005 I played lots of gigs including quite a few festivals. It was a great opportunity to play the new songs in front of an audience and I think honing them through live performances has made the new album really strong."