RUN is an ode to those forced to flee and sets the tone for her forthcoming album, “Heirlooms & Hearsay”. Inspired by her own family history, de Bastion's songs are social commentary soaked in piano and cello arrangements. Thoughtful, clever, and with a nod to 1960's psychedelia, Roxanne de Bastion reminds us that great lyrics do have a place in pop music.
Glastonbury's legendary acoustic stage, a showcase at Folk Alliance in the USA, opening for Martha Wainwright, Ricky Ross and Thea Gilmore as well as touring in her own right across Europe only account for a handful of events that filled by Roxanne's diary over the past six months. Her debut album and follow-up EP garnered support from BBC6, Xfm, The Sunday Times, R2 Magazine to name a few. In Germany, Roxanne has even made the prime time news together with Taylor Swift in a feature on the future of music as well as receiving national press in FAZ and Intro Magazine. Roxanne de Bastion is no stranger to the independent music scene supporters across Europe.
The main inspiration behind RUN and the forthcoming album, which was recorded in rural Devonshire together with producer Peter Miles (Meadowlark, Eliza and The Bear, etc), is Roxanne's grandfather, Stephen de Bastion (or Istvan Bastyai von Holzer), a pianist from Hungary who made a new home for himself and his family in Stratford upon Avon after enduring the 2nd World War and the Communist take-over of his homeland.
Roxanne draws parallels between then and now, exploring how trauma gets passed on through generations and points a finger at society's short-term memory. Sounds gloomy? It somehow isn't. Perhaps because the message is delivered with what BBC6 producer Tom Whalley referred to as “one of the most perfect voices [he's] ever heard”