Torch-singing, guitar-taming, pop-noir songstress Gemma Ray is one of the UK's most maverick and criticallyacclaimed female musicians/songwriters.

On March 2,2012, Shock Records release her new collection “Island Fire”, recorded for the most part at Alberts Studio, Sydney. Gemma, stranded in Australia for the month of April 2010 after the Icelandic volcanic eruption grounded all flights, began shaping this album at Alberts during that time. So pleased was she with the results that she decided to return in 2011 to finish it, after stints recording in the island of Giske in northern Norway and in the Isle of Dogs, London. These circumstances and these environments go a long way in explaining the inspiration behind the album title.

Confounding expectations at every turn, she effortlessly blends disparate genres into unified and grandiose sounds, as with her 2009 album Lights Out Zoltar! (which won an Independent Music Award for Best Eclectic Album). Gemma , though, has a different but equally powerful effect when she strips it back to voice and guitar, as with her 2010 covers album It's A Shame About Gemma Ray, recorded with Matt Verta-Ray of Heavy Trash.

2011 has seen Gemma playing live with the likes of Grinderman, Kitty, Daisy and Lewis and Mick Harvey, but for the most part Gemma has spent the year recording with collaborators as far-ranging as Ron & Russell Mael (yes, Sparks), Thomas Wydler (of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds), and members of CW Stoneking’s Primitive Horn Orchestra.