Wyckham Porteous' New CD - 3 AM - Released In Canada - March 18, 2008

It is with great pleasure that Cordova Bay Records announces the Canadian release of 3 AM by Vancouver based singer-songwriter Wyckham Porteous. This album is a wonderful mix of Wyckham's heartfelt originals and some brilliant covers including The Beatles smash hit of 1963, Please, Please Me. This album was produced and arranged by music legend Andrew Loog Oldham and has already received much critical acclaim in the UK and North America. On 3 AM Wyckham's deep emotive appeal is tastefully accompanied by some of Canada's finest musicians.

Wyckham Porteous: "Please Please Me" Released - United Kingdom - July 2, 2007

At Long Last... The Wait Is Over! (Cordova Bay CBR-0372S - RELEASED Monday, July 2nd 2007)

It is with great pleasure that Indiscreet PR announces the Monday, July 2nd release of Please Please Me, the brand new single by Vancouver based singer-songwriter Wyckham Porteous, on the Cordova Bay label (distributed in the UK by Pinnacle). If the title seems familiar, well that's because it's a cover version of The Beatles smash hit of 1963. Except, you've never heard it like this before! The single has been produced and arranged by no less a music business legend than Andrew Loog Oldham, former manager of The Rolling Stones, and MD of one of the first British Independent record labels, Immediate. Andrew Oldham worked with The Beatles in their early days, and his recollection of the recording of Please Please Me was that the song was originally composed as a ballad, in tribute to the great Roy Orbison. Hearing the obvious qualities in the song, the band's esteemed producer George Martin nonetheless encouraged the band to whip up the pace, until it became the defining Merseybeat anthem we now know and love. In the spirit of the song's original incarnation, however, Oldham has took the song back to its gentler tempo, adding layers of plangent steel guitar, pizzicato strings and tasteful sitar, whilst Porteous contributes a vocal of aching poignancy and deep emotive appeal, and the result is one of the most striking reworkings of a Beatles song ever.

The Wyckham Porteous version of Please Please Me has already caused quite a stir on UK radio; when Bob Harris and Mark Lamarr (deputising for Jonathan Ross) played a 'white label' copy of the single on their respective radio shows late last year, Porteous' website received over five hundred hits, with browsers demanding to know where they can get a copy. Well, with the final UK release of this truly magnificent single, those wishes will be finally fulfilled.

Wyckham Porteous will release his new album, '3 AM' on August 20th, and will be available for interviews and radio sessions in promotion of this sparkling single release. Please contact Alan Robinson or Lesley Shone at Indiscreet PR on the numbers / e-mail addresses below.

Andrew Loog Oldham: "I feel very fortunate to have met and got the opportunity to record Wyckham Porteous. I've been living in Vancouver for the summer for the past few years and had struck dumb as regards finding something tasty to record -- twenty-two year old impassioned or intoxicated libertine wannabes are better left to the younger those who did not get to taste the grail as I did with the likes of The Stones and Small Faces. Wyckham's voice and readings are a treasure. To me he's like a white protestant west coast aesthete atheist Leonard Cohen meets Harry Dean Stanton who is a warm, warm performer whose voice is like a bottle of wine who has matured into a friend and who, with these recordings, has opened up more than a few glasses of radio and home friendly recordings."

Happy Holidays - New Annoucements - December 23, 2006

We are extremely pleased to announce two new signings at Cordova Bay for release in early 2007. Bill Bourne, the Juno Award winning roots artist, will release Boon Tang on Cordova Bay Records this February. Bill has recorded most recently with Tri-Continential and award winning Eivor Palsdottir but he has also had major success with: Sweetgrass, Tannahill Weavers, Alan MacLeod (Bourne & MacLeod) and  Shannon Johnson. Les Siemieniuk of roots magazine Penguin Eggs writes, "Boon Tang is Bill Bourne at his quirky and reassuring best."

We are also pleased to report that 3 AM, the newest release from another world travelled Canadian roots artist - Wyckham Porteous - will be released in February in the United Kingdom followed thereafter by release in Canada. This substantial release was produced by Andrew Loog Oldham -- early manager/producer and co-writer with The Rolling Stones -- and contains a super cover of The Beatles song, Please, Please Me. Andrew was part of The Beatles think-tank at the time of the original recording and felt Wyckham was the perfect artist to present the song in its intended form -- very slow in a Roy Orbison influenced tempo.

Combined, these new releases will kick-off 2007 in a grand style.

Speaking of kick-offs, we'd like to thank everyone for their support in the launch of fierce panda canada in partnership with that wonderful UK buzz label, fierce panda records. New releases by Shitdisco, Make Good Your Escape and Capdown will provide a bold new sound for Canada in early 2007.