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Last updated18:19, June 26 2017

Theresa Fryer

Arrowtown singer-songwriter Holly Arrowsmith is crowd funding her latest album.

House concerts and wedding gigs are all up for grabs as Queenstown's own TUI Award-winning queen of folk Holly Arrowsmith turns to crowdfunding for her second album due out later this year.

Arrowsmith, who was back home in Queenstown early this week to star in Auckland folk band Tiny Ruins' Sherwood show, launched a Kickstarter campaign on June 15.

She has until July 6 -22 days - to raise the $21,000 to fund her second album, which is almost complete.

Donations can range from as little as $10 or $20, for a free digital album or CD, through to $1000 for which Arrowsmith will sing at your wedding.

"I'll sing you down the isle and do a one-hour canape set for guests. For $1500 I'll do that in Australia as well, travel included," she said.

So far she's been pledged two $500 house concerts in Queenstown and Te Awamutu.

"We set up in your living room, or backyard, and create a beautiful ambience."

She's offering a host of other rewards, and if she doesn't reach her target by July 6, people don't pay on their pledges.

"I'm nervous, but hopeful," Arrowsmith said.

She's already got a generous pledge from an American family, who drove 321 kms (200 miles) from Minnesota to Wyoming to hear her show in the United States.

"People are basically pre-ordering now, buying my album to support its creation."

The money will cover production, mastering, pressing vinyls, CDs and marketing.

Arrowsmith describes this as her "most honest work yet" themes of home-sickness, loss, painful growth and hope in dim places. Cities emerge "like dark forests" for the first time, but as always there's a

strong reflection of nature.

Slow Train Creekwas written in a log cabin in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado during her American tour last year.

Most of the nine new songs were recorded in a 'pop-up studio' created in a Colac Bay bach where Arrowsmith and her Arrowtown producers, Tom Lynch and Steve Roberts, were holed up making music for several

weeks late last year.

"I think recording in that bach at Colac Bay has had a massive influence on the album," she said.

"It feels like you're sitting there next to the fire with me. The intimacy is cool."

She's trying to build on that in the final stages being recorded at renowned Lyttelton music studio, The Sitting Room,where she's working with producer Ben Edwards, who's recorded with Marlon Williams, Julia Jacklin and The Eastern.

Arrowsmith may have been born in Sante Fe, New Mexico, but it's the mountains of her beloved Wakatipu where she grew up, that have inspired the album.

"I'd just moved to Auckland 18 months ago when I started writing the album. I literally wrote the first song, Farewell,as we were driving out of the Kawarau Gorge, saying 'goodbye' to my home and all those nostalgic memories," she said.

"When I returned to Auckland from my South Island tour last year, and drove into that southern motorway, I felt really disappointed."

Soon after she and husband, Mike, moved to Christchurch.

"Auckland isn't a bad place, but I'm just a South Island girl at heart. I miss the people, the mountains, family and friends."

To donate search 'Holly Arrowsmith' on http://www.kickstarter.com

-Stuff

Read the original:
Arrowtown musician Holly Arrowsmith crowd funding new album - The Southland Times