We’ve had a tremendous year smuggled into the member’s lounge down beneath the Soho crackle and hum, so we hope you’ll join us at the Phoenix Artist Club for this penultimate line up. Jake Morley you might be aware of already, so you know you’re in for a treat. Rory Butler is going to send you home ablaze – we had him at the show in Islington recently and he’s something else, he’s from another age. Ace newcomer Kizzy completes the line up – see below for details. As ever – doors from 6:15pm where we’ll all be hanging with the bands while Marvellangelo turns the kitchen into a block of Vatican marble – don’t eat before you come!

/// JAKE MORLEY ///

With support from BBC Radio 2 (“We like this a lot!”- Dermot O’Leary), BBC 6Music, and airplay on over 40 local stations, Jake Morley is finally jabbing a spear of sunlight through that cloud of potentially mainstream singer songwriters. The Independent made their way to his Bush Hall show and said: ” (Jake) is incredibly talented when it comes to winning the crowd over… masterful guitar-playing, and crowd-pleasing ‘pop’ melodies – Morley barely puts a foot wrong…” That bastion of emerging champions, Tom Robinson eschewed on 6Music that the songs were riddled with “…real life lyrics and superb, virtuoso playing… extraordinary…” Having shared the stage with many leading lights of modern English songwriting like Ben Howard, Ed Sheeran, Lucy Rose and Rae Morris, Jake is poised to join them with the upcoming release of his second album. He does things with the guitar that have your foot trying to break away from the ankle. Above is a track from the new record, which we loved and thought was reminiscent of Tom Baxter, and below is one from the last…

/// Rory Butler ///

When Rory got onto the stage at the Old Queen’s Head a few weeks back, you knew in ten seconds he was the real deal. Some artists just have it oozing out of them, and Rory is one of them. John Martyn references seem to get thrown around willy-nilly these days, so if you’re saving it for one guy, this is he. Absolutely masterful on the guitar, and a writer who will no doubt go on to be worthy of the comparisons. Rory won the Danny Kyle award at Celtic Connections, opened for a sell out performance by Rachel Sermanni and shared the bill with Transatlantic Sessions on Mary Ann Kennedy’s late night Radio 3 sessions. He has since supported Michael Marra, Eliza Carthy, Sam Lee, Bella Hardy and Anais Mitchell in some of Scotland’s major music venues. Once London and the rest of the UK gets a taste of him, he won’t be supporting people long. To whet your whistles, check out the vid at the top, and this below – but you need to be in the room to really get it. It’s like watching a young Jackson Browne pouring out his heart and humour in a thick Scottish lilt while John Martyn and Nick Drake throw chords around Beverley’s feet.

/// KIZZY CRAWFORD ///

A Welsh speaker with Bajan heritage, eighteen year old Kizzy Crawford’s solo career began just two years ago. She’s already making folks sit up with airplay on BBC Radio 1, BBC 6Music, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru as well as live TV performances on S4C, Children in Need for BBC 1 and the 6 Nations advert campaign. Kizzy won the ‘Brwydr Y Bandiau’ at the National Eisteddfod 2013. She also won a Welsh Singer-Songwriter competition receiving money to record her first EP ‘Temporary Zone.’ A recent signing to BDI/Bucks the last two years have seen her play the Plaid Cymru Conference, Glastonbury, Wakestock, Abergavenny Food Festival (where she performed her single Golden Brown live on BBC Radio 4) and she supported Gruff Rhys and Newton Faulkner. Kizzy recently toured Canada culminating in a showcase at the Prince Edward Island Festival and is a BBC Horizons artist of the year. Not bad 2 years in! Check this and this… a brilliantly fresh mix of bilingual soul/jazz.