Transition Culture

Rebecca has recently been chosen by IC Music, a new music network of venues across Belgium, France and the UK, as one of 12 artists who will be given opportunities to tour in big venues across Europe. Rebecca’s just returned from her first gig in France where she supported Baxter Jury to a sold-out crowd. Rebecca will be performing locally at Totnes Studio Lounge on 11th May, Dartmouth Music Festival on 13th May and Exeter Phoenix on 16th May. She is currently recording a new album.

‘The Lights’ will be available to purchase from www.rebeccamayes.com and all major music download retailers on 7th May 2012.

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CONTACT:

Rebecca Mayes: 07894 711820

rebecca.mayes@yahoo.co.uk

BIOGRAPHY

Rebecca Mayes grew up in a musical family and started writing songs at the age of 16. She moved to Devon to study Literature at Exeter University where she began to play her material live on the local gig scene. In 2009 she was offered an unusual job writing songs for The Escapist Magazine, a website who review video-games. Neither a gamer nor a critic Rebecca threw herself into the project wholeheartedly, juxtaposing nu-folk music with the latest blockbuster games. The resulting songs are subversive critiques on the violence and misogyny of video-game culture, albeit in Rebecca’s light-hearted and quirky style.

Each song is accompanied by a video, shot and edited by Rebecca, who also recorded and produced all the music. The video’s are highly creative vignettes of Rebecca playing her many instruments dressed as various video-game characters, filmed against quaint Devon backdrops. Each song and video was created within a time frame of two weeks.

‘Video-games are fascinating,’ says Rebecca, ‘there is a huge pre-occupation with distorted power – the power to kill, control and win. A lot of what comes out in games I see as an exploration of the human psyche, especially what is repressed. The gaming industry seems to be a meeting ground for a lot of what is live in our culture, bringing together elements of film, music and technology, and it’s increasingly becoming the majority past-time for young people. There is a lot that I feel drawn to comment on.’

Her gaming album ‘The Epic Win’ was reviewed in the Independent and the Observer, who praise her “wry wit and affectionate, informed voice”.

Charlie Brooker commissioned Rebecca to write a song for his latest BBC program ‘Gameswipe’. She wrote him a sweet lullaby about the violent game ‘Madworld’ and sang it in a cornfield with scenes of the frenetic game spliced in between shots of her ukulele, blond curls and floaty dress.

During the year and a half she worked for The Escapist she built up an impressive following and established herself as a singer/songwriter with innovation, imagination and intelligence, prepared to go a never-before-ventured route.

Rebecca went on to compose music for documentary and film (In Transition 2.0 and Things We Don’t Talk About), as an exciting new challenge. ‘Writing the music for In Transition 2.0 was wonderful because the stories came from countries all over the world, I was composing music suitable for stories from places like Italy, India and Brazil,’ says Rebecca, ‘I had a lot of fun playing my harp and accordion in ways that sounded Japanese or Portuguese, I even managed to include some Sitar.’

She is most enthused about her new material for the forthcoming album. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to write purely from myself, without an external stimuli. I’m loving discovering what it is that I really want to communicate and seeing how my sound has developed.’  Rebecca is currently recording her new album and performing across Europe as part of the IC Music Programme. She lives in South Devon.