"Tiny Boat" first appeared as the title track on Lauren's debut solo album in November 2023.

In Lauren's own words: "A song to remind us to hold our loved ones close. Sometimes, navigating the vast ocean that is life can be daunting, especially when the world seems to spiral out of our control. It's easy to feel insignificant, like a tiny boat on a raging sea, or one small star in the great heavens. This song tells of riding those waves, and ultimately of a realisation that the most precious things in this world are right under our noses".

Lauren has already appeared in this series (on 'Hot Music Live Presents Volume Four') with "History" as part of Greengrass and it's great to be able to include her debut solo after observing her star rise in a near vertical trajectory in recent years.

"However for me the key moments of her set were her many original songs. Audiences will, understandably, be attracted to her instrumental skills, her beautiful, ethereal yet warm voice & her engaging stage manner, yet she is clearly accumulating an excellent body of unique material, complementing her traditional repertoire, yet addressing contemporary issues, often metaphorically. As she plays them more & more in solo performance, I'm sure they will gain familiarity for audiences ....... I think they provide yet another wholly individual voice to local songwriting & manage to pull off a doubtlessly really difficult bridge between the forms of the old & the narratives of the new." ("Hot Music Live")

"The title track is one I loved the moment I heard her perform it live:... It sets the tone for the emotional heart of the album: if your eyes haven't moistened by this point, then you have a heart of flint and this album is beyond your capacity to relate....

Lauren can truthfully be said to sing and play towards the traditional end of the folk spectrum: hence her standing in that community. However having lured you in with what appear at superficial examination to be from the canon, you find none of them are: one of Lauren's great contributions to music is to refresh the repertoire with new songs, some in a traditional lyrical idiom, others much closer to modern vernacular in order to tell the truth about family life in 2023.

This is a stunning debut & having had a go at describing it to you, I advise you to go out and hear it yourselves: it's transformative and is intended to be so." ("Hot Music Live" review of the 'Tiny Boat' album.

To learn more about Lauren and her music, please visit:

www.laurensouthmusic.com

www.facebook.com/laurensouthmusic

www.instagram.com/laurensouthmusic/