Brighton has a new record label in it’s midst – it’s called Love Thy Neighbour, and it’s been set up by Daniel Copeman from Esben & The Witch and Brighton Promoter Andy Rossiter. Their first EP has just just hit the shops (I picked it up from Resident last saturday), and is by local cellist singer songwriter Abi Wade, entitled “And Blood And Air”:

Before I even start to describe the music, I have to say how impressed I was with the packaging. The “air” is cut out from the sleeve, there’s a separate band around the outside, and the text on the main part of the cover is hand printed. I’m a sucker for nice packaging, and this is pushing all my buttons.

And then the music – it’s a little bit folky, and quite minimal, mostly with just Abi singing and playing the cello, sometimes with the vocal doubled up to give harmonies, and sometimes with some light percussion. The cello is used to great effect, not just bowed, but plucked in a manner of styles to fill the some of the gaps where a bigger band might have guitars or bass or drums. You can listen to one of the tracks off of the EP on soundcloud here:

There’s more details on her myspace, and occasional updates on twitter. I’ll keep an eye out for some links for the label and post them when I find them.