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Reviews Reviews of Red Raku's Previous Works Red Raku Sweetly Sedated (Watershed) Lovely, string drenched record that is a worthwhile addition to the flooded acoustic music market thanks chiefly to Clare Bowditch's wonderful vocal work. She's got good material to work with (she's writer or co-writer of all 11 tracks), but it's Bowditch's voice that sets Red Raku out from so many others trying the same sort of thing. Jeff Lang INPRESS, 1999 Red Raku Roda Leisis May (Watershed) Red Raku songwriter Clare Bowditch has an opaque, honeyed kind of voice, reminiscent at times of Beth Orton. Which places it perfectly amongst the sounds on Roda Leisis May, an ultra-organic outing that ships from rollicking folkie caravans to hushed and unhurried laments. Recorded by Art of Fighting/Sodastream drummer Martin Brown -- who plays various percussive and non-percussive instruments throughout -- the album hitches it's wagon to openly "beautiful' sounds, and...moves with a downplayed grace. Bowditch has a way with words, and a mournful voice with which to deliver them..the outright poetry of Daughter's Father, which details the emotions that come with an absent father, (has) the kind of earnest elegance that Beth Orton delivered on Central Reservation highpoint Pass in Time. That such a song can move through territories that should theoretically be awkward with such ease and charm shows just how well it comes together…working not unlike an old-fashioned weepie, subverting conscious obstructions to provoke innate reactions. Andrew Carew INPRESS, 2000 This album was also listed as # 1 on Triple J's "Tran Charts" on 23/8/00