Rue Royale... album number three!

Yesterday's "open book" post was an attempt to express how it felt to immerse myself in British culture so long ago, as well as try to understand and pinpoint my own identity.  It will be the first of many such "open book" posts that deal with the Big Change of this year: moving back to the States.

In practical terms, we are filing a petition for Dan's visa.  Once that clears, he has a medical and then actually sends in paperwork for a visa.  This will probably include an interview at our family's most-visited building in London: the good old American embassy.  There are financial costs every step of the way, so we have to walk this path slowly and carefully.  We don't yet have a leaving date, as our timeline is completely dictated by the speed of governmental paperwork.

For future posts, I'm also going to write about how I arrived here so many years ago, and why.  I think reliving a bit of my own history is going to be fun, and help me regain some of my memory, which has mysteriously gone missing over the last decade of parenting!

For today, though, I want to write about our favourite Anglo-American musical duo: friends Brook and Ruth Dekker, who together are Rue Royale.  Ruth, who already had known Dan for years, became a good friend to me too during my first year here in the Midlands.  She later sang at our wedding in the States, and then went on to fall in love with Brook, and they were married, settling on the opposite side of the Atlantic to us.  They stayed in the States initially, but later moved here to pursue touring in the coffeehouses of Europe. 

Short people in our house had fevers and congestion, so Dan and I had to see them separately over this weekend.  I went to Birmingham to the amazing Ort Cafe to hear them play on Saturday night; while Dan went with our mate Kemp to Manchester on Monday evening to do the same.

Their acoustic folk-pop sound and style has evolved gradually since that first LP we heard five years back.  They retain a distinctly melodious acoustic sound, voices alternately blending and harmonising, dreamy and dark.  I'm no musician, so I can't go into technicalities here, but I think in their new material there's a lighter, livelier lilt, with slightly more percussion and electric influences. 

The great news is, you're going to be able to hear some of this new stuff soon, too, if we can support them in their quest to record a third album!  Find out more about it here:

And visit their Kickstarter page to make a donation towards this album!