Discography
2009 / Technicolour Wilderness
Self-Released
Technicolour Wilderness is the new album. When she did her tax return, Diana realised she'd lived at four different addresses in a year, all to facilitate the recording of the album. It follows a well-received EP released on Fence records in 2006. Shaun Keaveny chose the opening track on the album to feature on his 'Bandaid' segment on his BBC 6 music breakfast show for a week in June, and the same track has had recent air play from Gideon Coe and Marc Riley on 6 Music. Another track on the album was the sole soundtrack for an award-winning short film screened at Cannes in June, which you can have a look at here.
The new album takes in folk, country, rock, gypsy & all sorts and spits it out to make slightly spooky catchy tunes, of the kind you might sing by the fire if you were a psychedelic European cowboy.
Technicolour Wilderness Review by Song, by Toad
“I really can’t think of much to compare this to, so I think just listening to the songs below and judging for yourself would probably be the best route. Musically, there’s all sorts jammed into this album - folk (sort of), cabaret (here and there), a little bit of swing, some indie, some, er, well, a little bit of almost everything really. It’s chock full of dramatically sawed violins and wink-and-a-nudge accordions, but there’s still enough ballsy rock ‘n’ roll in the undercurrents to make this a lot more than another pastiche of some imagined indie band who ran away with the circus.
Dianna dresses her songs up in shades of Jacques Brel and Neil Hannon theatricality, but the lyrics tend more towards the dark humour of the former than the whimsical fancy of the latter. For such an old-fashioned album (evocative of an imaginary time and place perhaps, but strangely nostaligic nevertheless) the tales told are themselves really quite modern. In fact, this could easily read as the diary of a modern girl-about-town in many ways, just one with genuine wit and intelligence instead of the usual obsession with shopping and shoes.
I really do like Technicolour Wilderness actually. It’s just… an odd record, I suppose. It has a tremendous character and personality all of its own, and I find that incredibly endearing for some reason. Add to that the gorgeous instrumentation and I reckon this is a real gem of an album.”