Fiona Bevan

Bevan is of British and Canadian parentage.[1] Her great grandmother was romantic novelist D. E. Stevenson and Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson was her great-great grandfather's cousin. She was born in Bulmer in Essex,[4] brought up in Suffolk and went to Colchester County High School for Girls.[5]

Fiona Bevan's debut EP In The Swimming Pool was released in 2007.[6] Her debut studio album Plant Your Heart was released in 2009 on the Fallen Idol label.[7]

In 2011 she released an EP, Us and the Darkness, on Venus Climbing co-produced with Robin Baynton. It features Bevan on lead vocals and guitar accompanied by Rosalie Bevan on bass and James Crichlow on violin.[8] One of the songs on the EP, "Dial D for Denial", was a semi-finalist at the 2011 International Songwriting Competition.[1] The song "Pirates and Diamonds" was included on the OneTaste Collective Album Vol. 2, released on 14 June 2010, while she also appeared on Winter Hunter Remixes by The Living Graham Bond released on 26 July 2010 on the Fat label.[9]

Her song "Love in a Cold Climate" was included on the For Folk's Sake Christmas 2011 compilation album.[10]

Bevan's second album, Talk To Strangers was released in 2014 on Navigator Records in the UK, Planet Music in Australia and P-Vine in Japan.[11] In 2015 it was released on Convexe / Universal Music in Canada, and Convexe in USA. The album's twelve songs were written by Fiona Bevan, arranged and played by Fiona Bevan and Shawn Lee produced by Shawn Lee and engineered by Pierre Duplan in Bloomsbury, London and mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios, San Francisco. The Guardian wrote "Bevan took us on startling odysseys that suggested Erykah Badu, Joanna Newsom and Kate Bush spine-tinglingly joined".[12] The Line OF Best Fit called it "...mesmerisingly beautiful..."[13]

The first single "The Machine" was remixed by Ed Harcourt and featured Fem Fel and received airplay on BBC Radio 1 and BBC London. Clash Music commentated about the track, "Fiona Bevan contrasts pastoral, acoustic textures with her golden, golden voice"[14]

The next single, "Rebel Without A Cause", was released in May 2014, with remixes by Anushka, who are signed to Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Recordings, and Mr Hudson.

The single "They Sang Silent Night" was released in 2014 as a peacetime/Christmas song, marking the 100-year anniversary of the Christmas Truce ceasefire when enemy troops united in peace to sing Silent Night across the trenches. A live version of the song aired on Christmas Day on national ABC radio in Australia, featuring Fiona accompanied by Jeremy Marou from Busby Marou on guitar.[15]

In December 2016, Fiona Bevan was featured on the Stefflon Don mix-tape Real Ting, with other artists such as Jeremih and Scouse Trappin Tremz. She wrote the song 'Forever' with Rymez and SteffLon Don, who was nominated for the BBC's Sound of 2017[16])

In February 2017, British newspaper The Observer selected Bevan's song "Sight of You" on the article "A history of the love song in 10 tracks", underscoring its importance in the digital era, especially for young music listeners, which "tackled the physical inadequacies many young women feel in the age of social media and told them they were OK to have". She commented that "it felt very important to write it like a feminist love song...Girls at that age – 12, 13, when their self-esteem is often rock bottom – need to hear those things said, so to hear them from their heroes is life-changing." Bevan received "hundreds of messages from girls on social media after the song grew in popularity.[17]

Bevan released a new solo EP, Wild Angels, Sweet Demons on Laurel Canyon in 2018.[18]

In the spring of 2015, Bevan's own track "Slo Mo Tiger Glo" from her album Talk To Strangers was chosen as the theme music for the HSBC adverts aired in the UK and Ireland.[32] Her song "Beginners Luck" was used as the E! 2015 winter red carpet season USA track.