Miranda Barber, who was the first act to be funded by grass roots music investment website Slicethepie.com, will release her debut album at the end of this month. The singer was chosen by users of the site from a list of 600 hopeful new acts to receive £15,000 of funding in September last year. Since then, she has been in the studio with producer Charlie Winston and the resulting material will be released through her own label Barbershop Records on 30 Jun.
Barber said: "I am humbled by the extraordinary support [my fans] have thrown my way by voting for me, out of 600 songwriters, to win the first Slicethepie singer/songwriter showcase".
As previously reported, Slicethepie is a company offering artists a way to raise money for recording outside of traditional channels. Artists sign up to the service by paying twenty quid. Users of the Slicethepie website are then invited to invest in signed up bands. When a band gets £15,000 of support from users they are ready to start work on an album. The site's owners reckon that if backed artists sell 1000 albums then those who invested in them will have recouped on their investment. They will continue to make an income from album sales, though the rights to the master recording and songs remain with the artists.