Welcome to the official website of Abigail Hopkins, singer-songwriter, actress and acting coach.
The recording from James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake will be officially released on Thursday May 4th through Waywords and Meansigns and you can listen to a preview on Folk Radio here: www.folkradio.co.uk/2017/04/waywords-meansigns-finnegans-wake/ and on Soundcloud.
Very happy to announce the imminent release of a recording I did with one of my long-term music collaborators, David Hurn of James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake". The recording will be released soon through Waywords And Meansigns - you can check out the project here: www.waywordsandmeansigns.com/2017-finnegans-wake-contributors-pt1/.
Wishing everyone a Very Happy and creative 2017 - stand up for what you believe in and never ever forgo your creative passion, or your humanity or your truth for anything that doesn't feel right! There are a few music projects on the boil. The double album "Remembrance.Reverie" has very thankfully been mastered due to a beautiful and kind act of generosity and its release is being planned for later this year. Meanwhile I'm recording an EP which will very probably be called "Extreme Weather Conditions" to mark a very turbulent past year - this is currently being recorded with the aim for a release towards the end of 2017. After a long sabbatical (in which I've been busy but somewhat "ruminating" and doing other more actor related activities), I've made myself a pledge that I'll do my best to release at least ONE IF NOT MORE recordings per year!
Latest update and album "blog":
So the album that started out as "Remembrance" has now developed into a double album. The second album will be called "Reverie". I decided to start on a second album, because I felt there needed to be a more definitive listening journey and narrative and wanted to end on a more triumphant and optimistic note. However both albums are melancholic, because that's the music I feel I do best and that's the music I love listening to the most. I'm currently finishing the final few songs and recording at home in London. I've had an amazing time learning to produce and record on my own, and have met with different challenges along the way. I've also overcome my aversion to using synth and the old synth I got many years ago in California and was going to sell on E Bay, has been kept and has turned out to be a fine friend along the way. So I don't have an exact release date as yet, because both albums need to be mixed and mastered. It's taken time recording this, but I'm happy that every project has its own story and journey. That's all I can say for now - watch this space for updates and when the time is right, the album(s) beginning with the letter R will be unleashed! Have a brilliant, creative and brave 2014!
July update and album "blog":
So these strange collections we call albums seem to have their own agenda and journey which they sometimes and often times end up steering - in other words - the albums take on a life of their own - so this one is now morphing into a 15 plus track affair, and is still to be mixed and mastered. The last couple of years have been crazy with me travelling to America and needing to put certain things on hold and yet at the same time needing to crank up new sections of my life and take leaps into the unknown. My Mac Book and little bits of recording equipment which I can pack away in a suitcase follow me to the States and back again to London, and many of the songs have been recorded in kitchens and big walk-in closets in various parts of New York, from Queens to Brooklyn, and then back again to North London. Some recordings have been done in precious spare moments, some on the spur of the moment, and some as kind of wild experiments in using amps and weird reverby sound effects and some recordings stealthily done so as not to upset the neighbours. Overall I think the album has a sort of tattered, ragged, ghostly, chaotic feel to it, with background clunks and clatterings and rain pattering preserved intact. Anyway as soon as it's finished and mixed and mastered, it will be released and it will be called "Remembrance" as many of the songs really are about remembering childhood, past loves, remembering the dead, nature and the passing of time and life's impermanence. There's one historical song on the album, based on true historical fact, a tragic story about a love triangle that ended in death and despair, which fascinated me as a child, because I wanted to understand why adults were driven to do these things. With all these themes in mind, the album suits a winter release much more than a summer or spring release.
