I.V. Webb A native of upstate New York and currently exiled in London, I.V. began her career fronting bands in bars and clubs at the age of 14 (with the aid of a fake ID) performing alongside the likes of 10,000 Maniacs and other local heroes. After a short relocation to New York City, she found herself in the heart of the London music scene where she formed her band The Heroines, who received much critical acclaim from both the music press and fellow artists alike. " Flame haired I.V. Webb is the kind of glamorous creature who can strut out of the bog at The Falcon like there isn’t piss on the floor. That, dear readers, is because she is a poetess, not a mere mortal like the rest of us. She came over from New York to London to write songs…The result: pathos and pyrotechnics, violas and violence, small voyages from the sinister to the serene." - Melody Maker "Name dropping the likes of Patti Smith and Virginia Woolfe as influences, they invoke the harsh and nervy pop sounds of PJ Harvey or Throwing Muses…they have an uncommon passion, poise and promise." - Time Out London "Her voice embraces like a thorny vine. Cut, it would bleed pure honey. To liken it to Merchant’s, Bush’s or Carlisle’s would be too mundane. But I did. What the hell? At times, the music resurrects the spirit of Patti Smith at her most swooningest" - Melody Maker With her own songs and a live cover of Patti Smith’s "Pissing in a River", she has appeared on many compilation albums alongside artists such as Radiohead, The Verve and Carole King. Her large body of work under both I.V. Webb and The Heroines have captured the hearts of her audience and longed for a permanent commemoration. Through her desire to remain true to her songs and in the spirit of Ani Difranco, she is releasing a collection of her songs entitled I.V. Webb and The Heroines, The Demo Seeds, ready for release, ready to scatter the seeds… The Demo Seeds This girl’s a long way from home - sometimes life chills her to the bone, and that’s how the demo seeds came to be sown. These songs all got written because some deep nerve had got bitten - and here you can take them for your own. I.V. Webb, minstrel exile of New York City who landed in London with nothing but a massive, soulful voice and a restless spirit. The Heroines, her fluctuating band of players who have enamelled the bare feeling, deep poignancy, and love that inhabit the songs. The Demo Seeds, ten mood elevators that sound like they’ve been here since I don’t know when and will stick around in your psyche to see what the future brings. Some of these songs hail from other times, but are not aged; some come from the now; all of them bond to form a chronicle of a musical odyssey that has called at just a few of the stations on its line. There are ‘The Kiss’ and ‘My Lover’s Tie’, ‘Comes In Waves’ and ‘Man I Worship You’ - group-driven opuses charged with emotion and defiant strength, evoking the often-quoted influences of Patti Smith and Throwing Muses - a spirit as much as a sound, and that’s the most important thing. There are ‘Speechless’, ‘Green’, and ‘The Swing’- in a sparser surround of sound, spiralling strands of slow-burning passion and subtle shades. These songs are driven by the propellers of folk as well as of rock, their bittersweet tone mixing longing, vulnerability and pride. There are ‘Stars’ and ‘Last Goodbye’ - a surge forwards, a deeper swell beneath the voice. In ‘Stars’: “I miss you baby, miss your ghost; what you used to be haunts me still; I long to feel the same, without the pain” . . . perhaps the song that sums it up and plunges furthest into fathoms of feeling, yet to emerge vital and renewed. Now there’s hyperbole, and there are words written in belief. These few lines, like the songs they introduce, are planting their feet firmly in the latter camp. There are few songwriters or singers who touch the heart of so many who hear their work. The songs of I.V. Webb and the Heroines you hear on the Demo Seeds congregate under an apt banner: they’ve been scattered - sometimes they’ve been homeless, sometimes they’ve been welcomed, adored and devoured. Now they’re gathered for a while. The past is here, and also the future. Let’s just commend the power of the songs to you: steps, from start to now, on a road that has often been rough but can only rise with the singer now.