Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Tending your own garden is perhaps a chore for some people, for others it is a pleasure, to be at one with nature, to know that each seed placed into the Earth has the potential to grow, to mature, into something special, that it can be seen to hold in its own place or time, an aspect of the gardener who tended it, who nurtured it, and who in the end took the time to see it go through its life cycle with love.

Every Seed We Plant though is not confined to the garden, to the plot of land attached to the domicile or home in which we ourselves are planted, it is in the interaction with the outside world, with those closest to us, those we bump into in the street, the merest exchange with a stranger and to whom we will never meet again, it is in those seeds we drop, we purposely bury, that we water, that we allow to struggle without help, those are the seeds in which we are ultimately judged.

For Alice DiMicele, the long and productive music career is one that has seen the talented singer/songwriter tend to those seeds with reverence, and whilst some get away with scattering with abandon the kernels and sources of life, Ms. DiMicele has nurtured the soft verges as well as the hard shoulders with insight, panache, sincerity, and above all, love.

It is in her latest recording, the elegant Every Seed We Plant, that this tenderness of spirit, and yet determined soul, rises to the occasion, and as each song is presented in full, the listener comes to understand and appreciate the delicate balance of every meaning gleaned, every social drop of information is layered amongst others who hope to see a moment of time turned into beauty, to offer shade, to offer protection.

Across tracks such as Long Dry Winter, Alone, Sunrise, Sweet Elaine, Rise, and the album’s finale of Every Seed, Alice DiMicele doesn’t just build a garden, she raises a responsibility, she feeds hope, and the result is one of intimacy, of revealing a scene of colour, of boldness, and of tearing down the physical dependency on relying on others to make you happy; for as long as you sow with love, so shall others come to see that it is the right way to tend to every plot of land, of the mind, possible.

Every Seed We Plant is an album of creative sensitivity, at times raw, at times tempestuous and turbulent, but never once relinquishing the power of renewal, of looking ahead to sit under a tree that offers shelter and comfort to those that need it.

Ian D. Hall