Ruckus Exclusive: Alan Pownall Acoustic Session

Last night the London Ruckus girls spent yet another evening at the Communion takeover sessions at the Flowerpot Pub in Kentish Town. Communion is one of our favourite music nights in London, and has produced some of our most listened-to records of the year (their compilation and EPs from Matthew and The Atlas and Pete Roe). To have them running free gigs at our favourite pub was just a dream. Look out for more information on the week soon.

We were treated to an amazing night of music including Pete Roe, The Staves, Angus and Julia Stone, Damien Rice and Alan Pownall, supported by an all star cast of Chris Maas and Kev Jones (previously both in Cherbourg), and Ben Lovett and Winston Marshall from Mumford and Sons. Alan played four songs, including a cover of “Tiny Dancer” by Elton John which raised the roof off the pub.

Afterward, he kindly played an impromptu acoustic session for us in the flat upstairs from the pub. Parts of this were also recorded for Communion so you might see them in better quality some day soon. Sadly, given the impromptu nature, we only had a stills camera that records sub par video!

He started off with a song he has been writing recently, called “Weigh Heavy On My Heart”. This is a real exclusive for us as it isn’t even finished being written yet. I am in love with it already and have been jamming about my flat to it this morning, so have a listen and let me know what you think!

Next Alan played his gorgeous song “Heart of Hearts”. As you can see from the video, by this point we had proper lighting as the whole thing was being recorded by the communion lads too, very helpful for us as it improved the quality!

The final song Alan played for us was “Chasing Time”, as requested by one of the Flowerpot staff in the first video. He was a bit unsure about playing it acoustically but thankfully gave in to peer pressure.

If you like Alan, then his new album True Love Stories is out at Rough Trade Records now, and will be out in other shops tomorrow. It is a wonderful debut record, showing his range and diversity as an artist. Alan told me last night that he has begun writing for his second album already (as can be seen from Weigh Heavy on My Heart) and it is more Tom Petty influenced than the first record. I can’t wait to hear it.