Fay Fife’s Alt Country band, Countess of Fife, just had a successful Kickstarter campaign to pay for their second album coming in about a year from now, but in the interim she and her band are throwing fans a bone with a new EP coming out on March 28th on the very crucial Last Night From Glasgow label who seem to be serious about giving every one of my favorite artists a berth in their astonishing non-profit label.

And this EP will be available on the silver disc in physical form! Bucking the trend for technicolor records that I simply don’t have the time to play. Thankfully, Countess Of Fife are no strangers to the CD EP; having issued one early on in 2020 that sits in the Record Cell. Their oeuvre has seen fit to include formats from downloads to CDs and LPs…even lathe cut 7″ singles [more on that later…]. I like how they use different formats for different reasons without leaning heavily on the vinyl records to the exclusion of everything else. Life doesn’t have to be binary and we appreciate the chance to buy our music on CD when possible. But enough prattling…you might ask what’s the music like?

Countess Of Fife: Call Me The Witch [Betwixt + Between] EP

1. Call Me The Witch
2. Hard Woman To Love
3. Dark Side Of The Night
4. Live Again

“Call Me The Witch” started off mildly enough, with acoustic and tremolo guitars but quickly a gritty Blues mien showed its face. Then the bold guitar vamps signaled drops in the music bed that allowed Fay Fife to bite into the lyric all by her lonesome; hanging slightly behind the beat for a boldly emphatic verve. The tight vocal harmonies with Kirsten Adamson elsewhere allowed the ladies to swagger through the underbrush of the song most vividly. Brian McFie’s guitar solo in the middle eight was gloriously scuzzy in a Joe Walsh sort of fashion. And the ladies cold ending with their voices a cappella in unison was where the smoldering stopped and the flames began.

“Hard Woman To Love” eased up on the paint blistering intensity to move closer to folk music territory. Willy Molleson’s soft brushed drums and Kirsten Adamson’s acoustic guitar set the easy pace here. Fully allowing the pleasures of the vocals and vocal arrangements to bring warm pleasures to our ears. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Fife sound better.

As brash as “Call Me The Witch” was, the secret, hidden payload on this EP was the closing ballad “Live Again.” It was just Fay with tremolo guitar and electric piano and her vocals front and center. The vibe here was bruised but unbowed, with a defiantly soulful thrust. She doubled her vocals on the middle eight for impact, but she really let her vocals rip on the song’s lofty climax.

My main takeaway from these four songs was that Ms. Fife has become a singer’s singer in pursuing a career apart from The Rezillos in the years she’s been making Countess of Fife releases. The Country music path has now given way to excursions into Folk, Blues, and Soul on this expansive EP which holds the promises of more pleasures to come on the upcoming “A Woman Of Certain Wisdom” album in about a year. Some of these songs may figure in that release in different forms, but we’d be crazy to pass up what they can offer in the here and now as this lady drives deeper into her art.

This CD can be pre-ordered from Last Night in Glasgow for a tidy sum of $8.00. Eearlier this year Ms. Fife had also made 25 7″ lathe cut singles of the first two songs on this EP for collectors of bespoke singles who can get each one for £25.00. Her first lathe cut single [“Angel In My Pocket’] is sold out of its run, so these won’t be around forever. But you know me. That CD at Last Night From Glasgow is definitely my speed. DJs hit those buttons!

CD EP

LATHE CUT “HARD WOMAN TO LOVE”

LATHE CUT “CALL ME THE WITCH”

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