Colour The Atlas Upstairs at The O2 Academy in Oxford

By Josh Dawson

Now here’s one for all you sentimentalists out there. Yes, all of you. Colour the Atlas (formerly the Jess Hall Band) will be playing the monthly ‘Upstairs’ music night at the O2 in Oxford on Saturday September 22.

Founded in 2010 this Swindonian band is the brainchild of teenage singer-songwriter Jess Hall who wrote and produced all her songs from a studio set up in her parents’ garage, until critical interest began to materialise and she formed a touring band of her childhood friends. Isn’t that lovely?

Musically it is somewhere between folk and pop with beautiful keening melancholic melodies that are reminiscent of artists like Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, and Leonard Cohen.

They have been hotly tipped by BBC Introducing, supported Newton Faulkner on his recent spring tour, and have had their song ‘Play Shy’ on Radio 1. Lovers of simple tuneful song writing look no further.