Annie Gardiner is an Artist and a freelance Songwriter, Producer and Audio Engineer working out of some of the best studios Bristol, UK. She writes under her own name with her solo project, as well as songwriter, singer and bassist for noise-rock duo Hysterical Injury with her drummer brother Tom Gardiner for 3 EP’s, 2 albums and multiple tours round the UK and beyond supporting Beak>, Lightning Bolt, The Primitives and more. Annie is a continuing writing collaborator for French electronic pop duo The Penelopes whose singles include Meet Me by The Gates and The Last Goodbye featuring award winning French actress Isabelle Adjani (Serge Gainsbourg, Werner Herzog, Luc Besson) and Pastoral featuring actress Lola Bessis (Swim Little Fish Swim, Picnic at Hanging Rock). Her background in musical improvisation both as practitioner and facilitator has fed Annie’s ability as a versatile studio vocalist, bass player and writer for any genre.
She has racked up over 50 credits on record releases that include songwriting, singing, bass playing, audio engineering, mixing and music production. Skills that specialise in working with songwriters and music producers who want to develop their music to release standard, providing an open and supportive manner to get exactly what the Artist needs to assist them with their work.
Often working with Artists that work-in-the-box on their own and need special equipment and expertise to get the unique touches to the vocals or instrumental recordings. Annie knows exactly what it takes an Artist to make and express their precious music and understand with expert skill what it means to support an Aritst in their exploration within their ideas and the studio scenarios. Annie has taught and written many of the flagship songwriting and lyric writing modules at Degree Level at BIMM Bristol, and supported hundreds of Artists through her job role as Senior Lecturer in Songwriting for over a decade.
You might see Annie doing Live multi tracked recordings of shows at an interesting gig in Bristol, playing her solo music with Double Bassist and Board Game designer Jo Kelly, carefully recording hi-fi vocals for Artist/Producers, Setting up site-specific recordings for bands in Bristols rich and diverse DIY scene or creating a sonic fiction out of found sounds, scored music (her own usually), synthetic sounds and sounds pretending to be other sounds.
Book me here, I would be delighted to hear from you.
Background…
Annie was born into and brought up on creativity and music making in the surround of the deep countryside. What her upbringing lacked in money and expensive school trips, was more than made up for in cultural experience of a unique kind. Her mum, Virginia Aurora Scott, a composer and pianist with two first class degrees in composition and performance from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Virginia, a pianist and cellist, went on to be key songwriter and mellotronist for Progressive-Rock Band Beggar’s Opera as well as staff songwriter at British Lion Music through the 70s and later through her experience as an educator, she wrote music for The Classical Music specialists, Boosey and Hawkes. A contemporary composer with particular interest in improvisation, with music performed in venues such as BMIC London, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Norwiegian Church Cardiff. Virginia is still very active in musical improvisation and how that practice translates to the poetic word. Find out more about Virginia’s key works at the British Music Collection and at her website.
Dad, Ricky Gardiner, a guitarist and songwriter best known for being David Bowie’s mysterious guitarists during the late 70s Berlin period as he appears on the album Low, a further collaborated with Bowie on his Tonight album in the 80s. Ricky was also a collaborator with Iggy Pop in his post-Stooges era, with which he co-wrote and performed on the album Lust for Life, penning album favourite, The Passenger as well as several more. Ricky toured with him and Bowie on The Idiot tour in 1977 with Blondie supporting. Ricky was founding member and guitarist of Scottish progressive rock band Beggar’s Opera in 1969 right through to the later duo recordings he collaborated on with his wife Virginia. In later life, Ricky suffered with Parkinsons PSP, from which he passed in 2022. Kory Grow of Rolling Stone Magazine wrote a touching obituary, as many kind journalists did, and you can find out more about Ricky’s music at his website.
“ there was a sense of pervading menace about the material, heightened by her perfect vocal control” - Tony Benjamin Bristol 24/7 (2023)
“ Annie Gardiner, who had performed a spectral support set (at Sage2 Gateshead)…” AJ Dehany London Jazz News (2023)
“… Annie sets up the sensation of flames crackling by crinkling paper into a loop as a backdrop to hymnal feeling of the song which is brought to a crescendo and rapturous, well-deserved, applause.” - Paul Cook at Joyzine (2023)