This is a RSS file. Copy the URL into your aggregator of choice. If you don't know what this means and want to learn more, please see: http://platial.typepad.com/news/2006/04/really_simple_t.html for more info. http://platial.com Places tagged music videos on Platial.com http://platial.com/post/38100 Blue Monday (Quicktime / 7.8Mb) Flunk is a Norwegian electronic band consisting of members producer Ulf Nygaard, guitarist Jo Bakke, drummer Erik Ruud, and vocalist Anja Oyen Vister. The band began as a project between Ulf, and Jo in Oslo, Norway in winter 2000/2001. Beginning as an instrumental and sampled vocal project, they were signed for a track on a compilation by Beatservice Records in winter 2001. On hearing the finished track, label manager Vidar Hanssen signed the unnamed band for a full album. During early summer 2001, Ulf and Jo recorded most of the album and Anja improvised the vocals. After their vocals, Jo layered the guitars, but it would be a year before the album would be completed and released. In spring 2002, the band was known as Flunk and they released their first single, a cover of New Order's Blue Monday in April. The track was well received in the UK and was included on numerous compilations in North America and Europe. Later in April, their debut album For Sleepyheads Only was released which garnered great reviews in Norway. With the success of their album, BBC invited them to do a recording session for the Radio 1 show The Blue Room in London. Shortly after Notting Hill Art's Club would become the location to their live debut. In the United States, they became signed to Guidance Recordings. By summer 2002, raving reviews were being returned by British electronica magazines and in July they played Norway's finest rock festival. In October For Sleepyheads Only was released in the US through Guidance Recordings. By November they played the London Jazz Festival. Throughout 2003 their debut, For Sleepyheads Only was still being echoed across the globe in staggered releases with special editions released to Russia and Greece. Beatservice Records then went on to release Treat Me Like You Do - For Sleepyheads Only Remixed in June. While their debut continued to make it's way around, the band wasted no time and began work on their second album for the majority of the year, which was recorded in Paris in October. Their sophomore album, Morning Star was finished in March 2004 and saw a Norwegian release in May while the rest of the world received it in June. In 2005, Play America was released on Beatservice Records which included bonus tracks from the US version of Morning Star along with remixes.
Tags: norway, trip hop, downtempo, flunk, true faith live, ulf nvgaard, jo bakke, anja oyen vister, mp3, music videos

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]]> 62.186014 9.667969 platialUser:baostar 2006-05-05 22:01:02.627637+00:00 http://platial.com/post/38266 Thinking About You (Quicktime / stream) The New York-based pop group Ivy came together in 1994 when multi-instrumentalist Andy Chase placed an ad in the Village Voice in an attempt to start a band. Musician/songwriter Adam Schlesinger answered Chase, for the two had mutual musical tastes -- both liked Prefab Sprout and the Go-Betweens. Within months, the two met Parisian-born Dominique Durand. Durand had come to New York in 1989 to learn English, not join a band. Ironically enough, Durand was a massive music fan and adored the sounds of the Smiths, the Pastels, and House of Love. This allowed her to click with Chase and Schlesinger. She'd never sung before, but Chase and Schlesinger encouraged her to sing on the demo for "Can't Even Fake It." It was a pleasant surprise -- Durand had found her voice -- one that would become one of indie rock's finest and most artistically well-regarded voices of the decade -- and Ivy was born. Ivy inked a deal with local label Seed Records in 1994 and issued the "Get Enough/Drag You Down" single. Melody Maker in the U.K. jumped on it immediately and Ivy's debut earned props as the Single of the Week. Several months later, the trio released the Lately EP. Their rendition of Orange Juice's "I Guess I'm Just a Little Too Sensitive" was a moderate hit among the indie rock circuit. Ex-Orange Juice frontman Edwyn Collins also enjoyed the track and asked Ivy to be the opening act on his North American tour in 1995. Ivy's first studio full-length, Realistic, appeared that same year. Tours with fellow indie darlings -- Saint Etienne, Lloyd Cole, and Madder Rose -- allowed Ivy's name began to soar. By the time the band readied for a sophomore effort, they'd signed to a major label. In 1997, Ivy issued Apartment Life on Atlantic. This particular album highlighted Chase and Schlesinger's impressive studio skills. Ivy was winning critics over with their sugary, sweet sound and Apartment Life was regarded as one of the year's standout albums. Their star power was unstoppable, but gracefully so. "I Get the Message" and "This Is the Day" were featured on the soundtrack to the Farrelly Brothers' comedy There's Something About Mary. Their cover of Steely Dan's "Only a Fool Would Say That" was also included in the Farrelly Brothers' soundtrack for Me, Myself and Irene. Fashionistas got a taste of Ivy, too. A worldwide Volkswagen campaign catapulted the band's name into stardom. Ivy never lost face, though. What made them so impressive was how they kept things simple and followed their own formula. It would work against them in the majors, but it wouldn't break up the band. Ivy founded Stratosphere Sound, their studio with Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, before the '90s came to a close. Chase and Durand had also married; Ivy was focused on the band's musical atmosphere and the texture of their sound, and this space allowed them to focus. Sony let them go, so they had complete creative control. Unfortunately, things didn't go so smoothly. Stratosphere Sound was subject to arson while the band was recording a third album in 2000. Countless dollars and valuable recording equipment were lost in the fire, but this didn't delay the completion of the record. Long Distance arrived in fall 2001, four years after Apartment Life. This marked Ivy's first release with Nettwerk and the trio's classic pop sensibility was at its finest. Durand and Chase became parents of daughter, Justine, while also finding a new home with the Nettwerk label. That same year, the band composed the film score for the Farrelly Brothers' Jack Black comedy Shallow Hal. In fall 2002, Ivy returned with an all-cover album, Guestroom. On December 17, Chase and Durand welcomed their second child, Julien. Over the next few years, Schlesinger released another album with Fountains of Wayne, 2003's Welcome Interstate Managers. Durand and Chase collaborated on a trip-hop album in 2004 under the Paco moniker. A year later, Ivy issued In the Clear. - allmusic.com
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]]> 40.714167 -74.006389 platialUser:baostar 2006-05-06 02:07:57.830532+00:00 http://platial.com/post/38267 I Was Made To Love You (Quicktime / stream) Over The Hill (Quicktime / stream) Live Review: Slaughtered Lamb 26th January 2006 17 February 2006 reviewed by Rich Barnard on the VAC website www.thevac.co.uk The last time I saw Polly Paulusma, she was playing a packed out Lock 17, sporting full band and string quartet. Riding high on good reviews for her debut album 'Scissors In My Pocket' and after a summer of festivals, she was about to embark on her first tour of America, and would land support slots with Jamie Cullum, Divine Comedy and Joseph Arthur. Eighteen months on, it's an unbelievable treat to see her back, playing solo in the kind of small, cold, candle-lit acoustic club that she started out in. It's a conspicuously low-profile gig, showcasing all new material, but there is standing room only at the back and you get the sense that quite a few people have been turned away. The basement of the Slaughtered Lamb has an understated cool, far removed from the clatter of the city clientele rattling their jewellery upstairs. Down below it's a black brick-walled affair with an eclectic assortment of bohemian seating (when was the last time you saw a chaise longue at a gig?) It reminds me of the River Bar on Tower Bridge before they tarted it up and took its soul. The setting suits the sophisticated and intimate nature of Paulusma's poetic and often dark songs. Weaving smart rhymes like 'bathroom / half-gloom' and 'extinguish / unencumbered English' against complex-but-not-in-the-least-bit-jazzy chord progressions is evidently (still) what Polly does well. Her secret weapon though has to be her exquisitely English singing voice, which when pushed is on the verge of '60s singer Melanie; and when soft, is as sultry as Suzanne Vega. But back to basements and gloom... This is Paulusma's first gig in six months and she has pre-warned us that her second album - which has already been some time in the making - will have a darker, louder edge. Although there is (deep breath) an electric guitar on stage, I'm glad to discover that the new material does not reveal any Cradle of Filth or similar influences. And aside from the gloriously discordant moments in a song about killing babies, which features the aforementioned electric axe, there is seemingly little change in her style. That is not to say that there is no evidence of evolution, because Paulusma is the kind of songwriter that will challenge herself as a matter of course. Anyone who brings out three guitars and a piano to play a solo half-hour set is someone who has constant development on their mind. Likewise the subject matter veers far and wide from identity, love and quarter-life crises; to being invisible, hide-and-seek and yes, you did read it right the first time, killing babies. It's nice to see the rawness of an artist grappling with new, freshly arranged songs, especially as none of these are basic three-chord wonders. One of the songs has been in Polly's live set for a while, but in the others you can just catch the concentration of a performer whose music so often seems effortless. These have a vitality to them that will inevitably be diminished after another two years of hard touring gets its hands on them. You can tell that this crowd, myself included, feel lucky to be here at their inception. UNCUT Magazine Dec 2004 01 November 2004 Never mind all the fuss about Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse. As far as Uncut is concerned, the finest young British female singer-songwriter to emerge over the last 12 months is the brainy Cambridge graduate Polly Paulusma, with a debut album of mature and literate songs brimful of emotional resonance, potent melodies and meltingly heartfelt vocals. ROLLING STONE Magazine (USA) 10 October 2004 Polly Paulusma Scissors in My Pocket (One Little Indian) by Leslie Hermelin From the charming opener Dark Side, Polly Paulusma declares herself in league with articulate folk-pop contemporaries such as Paula Cole and Shawn Colvin. And while these comparisons, as well as those to Joni Mitchell and Carole King, are well deserved, Paulusma's talent is strong enough to stand on its own. Scissors in My Pocket is an enchanting debut of understated, intelligent folk pop from a promising newcomer. Holding true to the singer-songwriter ethos, Paulusma opts for authenticity over production wizardry. Many of the album cuts were recorded in only one take, and some, including Dark Side and the stunning One Day, are the original demo recordings. She Moves in Secret Ways is an intimate, softly spun bit of folk poetry as is the bittersweet Anywhere From Here. This Cambridge educated songstress proves once again that a well-penned ballad trumps an over-produced pop song any day. PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Online (USA) 26 September 2004 * * * * Polly Paulusma Scissors in My Pocket (One Little Indian) by A D Amorosi Given her arcane sound, you could easily assume that Polly Paulusma is part of the dark British folk revival. But she is lighter. She's also sexy and spare. The quiet psychedelia and queer optimism of her gauziest vocal melodies are touched by faint curlicues of jazzy interplay. She weathers the impending storm of Dark Side with a whispery voice, promising "golden lips" for her lover's final approach. Through rushes of acoustic guitar, bubbling double bass, or cosmopolitan chamber-jazz arrangements (I Was Made to Love You), Paulusma's smoky yet vivid voice is so alive that the sadness of Perfect 4/4 resounds through your head. She cries on your shoulder without playing to your sympathies. PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER 26 September 2004 Polly Paulusma fits the bill as ideal singer-songwriter by Jonathan Takiff I'll gladly admit it. I'm a sucker for a smart, poetic, darkly melancholic and slightly unhinged female singer-songwriter. For an artist with a smokey, soulful sadness in her voice and a rejuvenating melody in her heart, with a vibrant vision for how she wants her life to soar and the will to make it so - at least within the context of a four-minute song. Joni Mitchell set the mold for me with her classic album "Blue." Young disciples like Dar Williams, Beth Orton and the late Kirsty MacColl have kept the fires burning. Now I bow in supplication to another English export by the name of Polly Paulusma (pronounced pallsma) who'll be popping up Sunday at the Point to showcase material from her altogether compelling album "Scissors in My Pocket." One of my favorite debuts of the year, the disc is chock full of feather-light, but delicately filigreed songs that are at once literate and emotional, tender and tough-minded, like "She Moves in Secret Ways," a song about not giving up her willful nature, personifying herself as a hoof-stomping horse. At other extremes are spritely entreaties for gentlemen friends to explore her "Dark Side" and take her "Over the Hill," blessed with super catchy choruses you can't get out of your head. And the set caps with haunting, bittersweet ruminations about life's brief passages (this from a 28-year-old!) like the riveting hospital bedside refrain in "Perfect 4/4." Daughter of a noted portrait artist (who did all the highly evocative pen sketch illustrations for the album package) and a Cambridge University professor dad who specializes in crusading (ecclesiastical) history, Polly Paulusma has gleaned from both sides, she allowed in a recent chat. She's been making music since she was 10 - first "improving" on a classic Paul McCartney song with new lyrics, later singing in college in a soul cover band that was "a bit like the Commitments," before discovering her own, more pensive voice while singing backing vocals for an album by her friends Ben & Jason. And yet, Polly was also being her father's daughter by majoring in English lit at Cambridge, pursuing a career in journalism with the BBC, writing a novel and then returning briefly to university for a Ph.D program, before giving it all up to pursue music full time. "I spent a lot of time denying I should do this, but it wouldn't let me run away. It kept coming back and biting me in the ass, so I eventually gave in," she shared with a laugh. When Paulusma started the writing and recordings that would turn into her album, "trashy pop" was still all the rage in Britain, while like-minded singer-songwriters such as the long-suffering David Gray were just starting to make a belated breakthrough. "Now there's a whole scene going, with lots of clubs to play and buzz artists like Tom Baxter and Adem. But four years ago, no one would fund my project, so (as Gray did)] I set up a recording studio in the shed at the end of my garden and started doing it all myself. I wasn't trying to make it sound low-fi, just the music I could hear in my head with the equipment I had available - basically one good microphone feeding into a computer hard drive. I played almost all the the guitars, did all the vocals and also added funny litle things like shakers and tambourine, mandolin and the sound of tinkling wine glasses." Friends came in to dress up the works with brush-tapped drumming, jazzy acoustic double bass, a hammered dulcimer flourish, and chamber music styled strings and brass evoking the likes of Damien Rice (a major Polly fave) and vintage Beatles recordings. The origin of the album's title "Scissors in My Pocket" relates to an incident that happened when Polly was just 8, and "obsessed with sailing," (a theme that's still showing up in her lyrics). "I wanted a boat, so I decided to build a raft in our back garden on a piece of old, flat fencing. My parents could see it wouldn't float, but I didn't believe them. After decorating it with a cabin and putting on lights, I somehow persuaded my mom to take me to the river to launch it. She was great, I was adamant. I tied a piece of rope to the raft and gave her the other end to hold, ostensibly so she could pull me back when I got to the middle of the river, to calm her nerves. But I didn't tell her I'd put scissors in my pocket. I was going to cut the rope and run away to London. But of course, the boat sank instantly as soon as I pushed it into the water. "When I started making this record, I felt a similar kind of condescension," Polly added. "A lot of people saying 'That's very nice dear, but you can't really make your own record.' You have to stick fingers up to people like that. 'I know this will float, so up yours.' And luckily, this time it worked." LA DAILY NEWS 21 September 2004 by Rob Lowman, Entertainment Editor Polly Paulusma took a novel approach to becoming a heralded up-and-coming singer-songwriter. OK, maybe that's a bad joke. After graduating from Cambridge University, the 28-year-old British singer-songwriter began a Ph.D program and turned her attention to writing fiction. But that novel was packed up and put in the attic about a month ago. "I hadn't touched it in four years, and I was quite curious to see what it was like ... so I peeked at it. It was really bad,' says Paulusma, being her own worse critic. Luckily, music critics are raving about "Scissors in My Pocket,' Paulusma's self-produced album that was released early in the year in the U.K. and last week in the U.S. When talking about the album, with its winning acoustic sound and clever lyrics, heavy hitters like Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake are often evoked -- and with good reason. There are many colors on Paulusma's palette as she moves from the intensity of "One Day,' with her voice nearly cracking with emotion, to the dreamy "She Moves in Secret Ways." Nic Harcourt of KCRW-FM (89.9) has been featuring songs from "Scissors' on his show, "Morning Becomes Eclectic,' for a while now, calling it "the best thing I've heard from a songwriter out of the U.K.' A Brit himself, Harcourt says, "I hear a lot of music from everywhere, and most of it I don't like, but once in a while a record like this comes along that grabs you. ... (Paulusma's) songs have depth to them, and she has a singing style that's very engaging.' (Paulusma will be at the Troubadour on Monday night as well as on Harcourt's show that day during the 11 o'clock hour.) Since "Scissors' had "such humble beginnings,' Paulusma, who has been into music since the age of 10, says she is amazed at its reception. "I have this little shed at the end of my garden, and that's where I made most of the record. So it seems incredible, thinking there I was last summer, without a record deal, just really making it for myself. I knew I could sell it at shows. I was doing a lot of gigs and selling a lot of records to people who came around the stage. I could see I could make a little living out of it. That's all I ever thought it would be.' Now "Scissors,' which is on Bjork's record label, One Little Indian, is the hottest acoustic album in Britain since Damien Rice's "O.' "I think what happened was the music industry became so closed that there was a backlog,' says Paulusma about why she and artists like Rice are gaining popularity. "It's like there was a dam put up, and it's suddenly bursting now. But in fact, that sound never went away -- it was always there. It's just because it was ignored for so long and unnurtured.' That sound is the sound of people like music legends Mitchell and Drake. "There was a real purity to what they were doing then. And you can see almost a family tree down to various people now like Wilco that I find inspiring. ... I've always really loved recordings where the instruments are all acoustic. ... I think there is something that doesn't date about music like that.' But it isn't easy to pigeonhole Paulusma, and it's clear she wants to keep it that way. She says she was looking forward to visiting the U.S., because a woman with a guitar in England is "often typecast as a folk artist, which is rubbish. They don't do that to men like Van Morrison. It's acoustic music; it's pop music on the guitar. I get the feeling there is a deeper understanding over here.' So here she is, guitar in hand, touring America, which she doesn't mind at all. ("It helps your understanding of your own material.') It's also something she's used to. The daughter of a college professor, Paulusma moved around a lot as a kid before going off to a boarding school at a convent. "My closest friends are the ones from that school still. It's amazing when you live with 500 people. It was all-girls school, so you have a lot of sisters.' But she's not writing more songs here (and certainly not a novel), saying she finds it hard to write when she's away from her friends, who she calls her "motivation.' In the meantime, "I know when I'm traveling I pick up lots of bits that end up coloring things in my songs. I'll just let things sink in for now." BOSTON GLOBE 09 September 2004 Polly Paulusma's acoustic appeal by Christopher Muther You can't blame Polly Paulusma for holing up in the garden shed. After all, she performs in a style of acoustic pop that can't be easily contained in a single category. It's not exactly folk, and it's not at all rock. As a result, record labels weren't exactly queuing up to offer the 28-year-old fame and fortune after she dropped a journalism career in favor of music. So she did what any reasonable musician would do: set up a make-shift studio in the shed at the back of her garden and started recording an album herself. Just as she finished the disc, "Scissors in My Pocket," she landed a deal with Bjork's record label, One Little Indian. Now, the album recorded in the garden shed is becoming one of the most buzzed-about acoustic discs in Britain since Damien Rice's "O." On Saturday, Paulusma brings her hard-to-categorize sound to T.T. the Bear's in Cambridge, opening for the Divine Comedy. Sound Bites: Because your music doesn't fit neatly into a single category, has it been difficult for you to find an audience? Paulusma: Not exactly. I'm very lucky that I can dip my toe in all these musical swimming pools. I can kind of jump around between them. In some ways it has been an advantage. People still put labels on my music, which I actually think can be useful. It can be useful for people to have comparisons, but some of the comparisons have been quite wide of the mark. I hear endless Norah Jones comparisons, which I find very odd. I think she's got a beautiful voice. But as far as I can make out she's doing jazz, which is something completely different from me. As long as people are saying something, even if the comparison is a bit weird, I'm happy. Sound Bites: Does your audience tend to be a younger, Damien Rice-type of crowd, or more hippie holdouts trying to catch the next Joni Mitchell? Paulusma: It's a real cross section. I just did this gig in London on Wednesday, it was for about 200 people. Over the summer I had been gathering more and more people who are loyal and want to come along to hear my music. There are people in the front row who know all the words to my songs, which is quite terrifying. They almost know them better than I do. I was looking at the front row at this gig, and I was just really gobsmacked at the range. There were two young girls, one with dreadlocks and one with dyed bright red hair, very punk. There was an older guy, and there were some younger guys in their 20s. Sound Bites: Careerwise, you did many things before you settled on music. Were you hesitant to make singing a full-time job? Paulusma: Music has been not easy. Well, making [music] has been easy, but making it a full-time job was a really big hurdle for me to overcome. I think I was led to believe that acoustic-y pop music was not really a worthwhile calling. It just took me a bit of time to work out that it was really important to me. Because I had no formal training in it, I felt that I just wouldn't be good enough. Now I feel like I have plenty of support. Email Christopher Muther at muther@globe.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company NOW (Toronto) 09 September 2004 Gloss-free Polly - Cambridge grad Polly Paulusma takes a stand against superficial pop by Sarah Liss There's a sudden renaissance in the softer end of the pop spectrum happening across the pond of late. From the tinkly piano stylings of Jamie Cullum to the soulful crooning of Katie Melua to the baroque acoustic ballads of Damien Rice, the UK's cultivating a slew of singer-songwriters who, while not slick enough to give Sir Elton a run for his money, appeal to more, er, 'mature' crowds than to those with art-school haircuts and ironic t-shirts. The interesting thing about this current crop of soft-rockers is that they're barely into their 20s. Like me, they're the kids of the 80s who spent their formative years listening to their parents' Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez LPs. The latest edition to the new acoustic generation is Polly Paulusma, a wickedly wordy guitar-toting belter whose debut disc, Scissors In My Pocket, recently dropped on One Little Indian (home to Bjork and Greg Dulli) and who's already opened for Dylan (!). Similarly raised on passionate, intelligent strummers (Nick Drake is her hero), Paulusma claims she and her peers are reacting to Britain's lamentable tradition of pre-fab pop. "When I was making my record, the music industry, especially in the UK, was all about Pop Idol," she says ruefully over her mobile, en route to check out the Edward Hopper exhibition at London's Tate Modern. "It was so depressing - they just wanted glorified karaoke and had no interest in anyone who played their own music and wrote their own songs. All these talented people washing about in London, and nobody was signing them. "What came out of it were loads of self-sufficient people. Katie Melua went through the same thing. Necessity has forced us back to basics, because the industry let us down. It gave us a chance to explore things by ourselves and find a whole different voice that we wouldn't necessarily have found if we'd been scooped up by a label after the second gig." The result is a record that, like Paulusma herself, doesn't pander to trends. Scissors In My Pocket is charmingly quaint, with none of the saccharine overproduction that makes folks like Jamie Cullum hard to stomach. Recorded in a shed in Paulusma's backyard, the album homes in on gently strummed acoustic guitar and quiet piano, with periodic flourishes of Hammond and dulcimer alongside the singer's terribly sweet girlish coo. Several tracks are fleshed out by string and horn sections, but unlike the high-drama orchestration on, say, Damien Rice's O, Paulusma ... keeps them low-key, which works well with the disc's intimate folkiness. It may not be the most efficient way to work, but Paulusma insists on keeping a 'wobbly' homespun aesthetic. "All of the songs are done in one take," she crows proudly. "I worked with a producer recently and watched him clumping a track together - he'd do five takes and then take the best bits of each one and hack it all together like a patchwork quilt. I'd rather have a full performance, cuz even if there's a little blemish in it, it's real." Paulusma's also mastered a subtly spiky wordplay - lead track Dark Side nods to Pink Floyd with a chorus about "the dark side of my moon" - which is no surprise, considering she graduated from Cambridge with a degree in English lit. With the horror stories I've heard about the icily snotty profs peppering UK academia, I figure the experience must've been good preparation for dealing with cranky critics. "Um, no," she states matter-of-factly. "I think a lot of gigging in London did, actually. London crowds are so standoffish - they just fold their arms and stare at you with these blank looks on their faces. "But you know, out of all my friends, I'm the only one who uses my degree every day," she continues. "Alll these people studied these obscurely wonderful things, like medieval history, or some proper academic subject, and then they end up becoming accountants." AllMusic.com 11 August 2004 * * * * Nearly 35 years on, and the folk and twining soft rock of the early '70s is being birthed again in a stylized new version. Suddenly young women with unruly mops of dark hair and a flair for dusky vocal phrasing are handily making their way in pop music. They're clad in comfy boat-neck sweaters, dainty scarves, and those boots Emmylou Harris wore on the cover of Elite Hotel; their antidote to plastic club/dance divadom is a holistic amalgam of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, James Taylor, and Tim Buckley. Englishwoman Polly Paulusma joins their ranks with Scissors in My Pocket, her charming debut for One Little Indian. It always starts with the voice, and Paulusma's never disappoints. Mitchell is a significant influence in both vocal style and phrasing, but there's a bit of Edie Brickell's reedy grace in there, too. Accompanied principally by subtle acoustic guitars or piano, she doesn't need to prove how strong her voice is, and doesn't skip through styles on the whim of a marketing director. This means Scissors lacks the pretentiousness that tinges some of its contemporaries' work. "Perfect 4/4" is a gorgeous piece that had to be recorded live -- you can hear Paulusma's voice echoing off the walls, almost see her hand resting on the piano's lacquered finish. Opener "Dark Side" unfolds one of the album's prettiest melodies, its bed of robust acoustic instruments supported with slight vocal overdubs and clever Pink Floyd lyrical references. Conversely, the powerful, string-tinged "One Day" moves toward some smoky cabaret. Rich acoustic bass and softly brushed percussion appear for "She Moves in Secret Ways," and stick around for the quietly confessional "Carry Me Home." Though it's nearly flawless, that very trait can also make Scissors in My Pocket lack sharpness and threaten to become one long nap in the sunlight. Luckily, Paulusma inserts a track like the rousing "Give It Back" just in time, getting carried away in its horns and the keening organ of its overture; she sounds like Phoebe Snow covering the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want." All in all, Scissors in My Pocket is a spectacular debut. It's a child of past masters, no question. But Polly Paulusma knows what's what, and how to make the sky come tumbling down again. RIP IT UP (Australia) 04 July 2004 From the first moment I placed this debut release called Scissors In My Pocket from London-based singer-songwriter into my CD player, I was captivated. A sweet love song, Dark Side, boasting a moving Celtic feel, is the opening gambit and the album continued to impress me. Recorded independently before joining the ranks of Indian Records in the UK, 28-year-old Polly has created an impressive collection of hook-laden melodies wrapped around insightful lyrics and her own distinctive vocals. From Celtic to jazz through to pop and folk. Scissors In My Pocket highlights Polly's talent for blending word and music to create some very sweet listening. Polly plays most of the instruments on the album, which include acoustic guitars, piano, mandolin and wine glasses, while Oli Hayhurst plays double bass with Rastko Rasic on drums. Mea Culpa is delightful and you could almost hear Norah Jones singing her own rendition of it one day. Anywhere frmo Here is thought-provoking while Dark Side is my favourite. Polly possesses great imagination that has allowed her to create some enchanting songs. Musically she can be compared to Joni Mitchell, The Corrs and The Waifs and vocally she's a blend of Ani Di Franco, Macy Gray, Norah Jones and even Bjork. The pencilled artwork on the album booklet was drawn by Polly's mother, an artist by trade, and has really helped to capture the naturalness and simplicity with which Scissors In My Pocket was recorded. Lovers of the female voice are really going to enjoy this quirky, self-produced album. Birmingham 101.com review 21 June 2004 The latest slightly skewed girl singer-songwriter to challenge for a place on the scene, Cambridge grad Paulusma's made a strong start with her debut album, Scissors In My Pocket (One Little Indian). Confessional stuff built around strong melodies, literate wordplay and breathy vocals, she draws on such influences as Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Sheryl Crow, Victoria Williams, and even Stephen Duffy while injecting the occasional jazz inflections into the arrangements. There's brass and strings too, giving extra rich textures and emotional resonance to such breezy, sometimes dark tinted English pastoral songs as I Was Made To Love You, Over The Hill, She Moves In Secret Ways and Something To Remember Me By. Poignant shivers can be felt on Perfect 4/4 as she details someone hooked up to drips and monitors in a hospital bed while fragile insecurity ripples through the bluesy Anywhere From Here but it's the way she captures the giddy whirl of being caught up in love and life on the acoustic strummed Carry Me Home and gloriously folk pop waltzing debut single Dark Side (shades of Fairground Attraction here) that really shows you just how brightly her star is beginning to glow. Amazon.co.uk review 25 May 2004 by Kevin Maidmen Recorded in the floricultural intimacy of a Clapham garden shed and warmly etched with breezy acoustic guitar, fathomless double-bass, light string arrangements, recorders, brass ensembles and even wine glasses, Scissors In My Pocket is the lovely debut album from Cambridge University English literature graduate Nick Drake-afficionado and former Ben & Jason backing singer Polly Paulusma. Scholarly rock analysts, much taken with Paulusma's vocal style and folk-jazz idiom, are already drawing flattering parallels with deities such as Joni Mitchell, while also suggesting that Alanis Morrisette and Norah Jones ought to be glancing over their chick-pop shoulders. While none of these comparisons are discreditable, Polly Paulusma is patently not hanging onto anyone else's petticoat tails. Yes, there's something about her kittenish voice, which recalls Rickie Lee Jones or a more effervescent Beth Orton, and at times her technique suggests that the world may have found Damien Rice's lost spiritual sister. However, the songs - bustling pictorial narratives which unpeel with every listen to reveal an intuitive personal core - are fragrantly fresh pleasures. One Day finds our heroine jettisoning a bottle of negative thought processes from a hot air balloon in an act of pyschotherapeutic detoxification while Something to Remember Me By nods at Percy Bysshe Shelley and ponders the viability of artistic expression as a means of immortality. BlueYonder.co.uk review 13 May 2004 They say that the UK's music scene is currently in retrograde. That the new zeitgeist is in an easy listening mood, demurely reclining in a comfy armchair, quietly dozing off into middle of the road territory. Thankfully, it seems we're slowly edging away from cheap, manufactured 'music' for the lowest common denominator - you've only to look at the album charts as it's a veritable hotbed of precocious, seminal twenty somethings setting a different spin on the way records are made. Enter Polly Paulusma, who looks set to follow Katie Melua and Norah Jones into modern easy listening legend when the world gets to hear 'Scissors In My Pocket'. Like Melua and Jones, Paulusma's music is delicately interwoven with warm, sensual vocals that suggest a talent that has been around for decades. Her first single 'Dark Side' opened proceedings with a rich melody that nags relentlessly at your pleasure zones and is joined by another ten tracks of equally affecting beauty. 'I Was Made To Love You', 'She Moves In Secret Ways' and 'Give It Back' also standout, but this isn't an album about individual tunes, rather it is a fully complete work of true genius that will mark Paulusma out as one of the finest singer-songwriters of her generation. Polly recently showcased her album at a packed out Bush Hall, London. With only a smattering of songs to perform, you'd be inclined to think she couldn't carry the gig alone, but this lyrical impresario had other ideas. Characterised by hook-laden melodies, insightful lyrics and distinctive vocals, Polly ploughed her way through her repertoire with consummate ease and style - leading many to draw comparison with Joni Mitchell or Norah Jones. Anybody would be flattered by the comparison. Yet Polly is also an unique voice. Whilst belting out her new single, Give It Back, Paulusma grabbed hold of her acoustic guitar, tossed back her curly mane and threw herself into the music. Witnessed by a crowd of enthusiastic listeners, she seemed to be having the time of her life; giggling and chatting to the audience between songs. As with any great artist, Polly is very much about the lyrics. A Cambridge graduate who got a first in English, it's easy to understand her ability to craft sophisticated lyrics where every word has resonance. Combine this with hook-laden melodies and lush vocals, and you have the makings of a great singer who is already winning over music taste-lovers. DAILY TELEGRAPH 12 May 2004 No clone of voice by Nick Cowen A little more than half way through her performance at Bush Hall, Polly Paulusma tells her rapt audience a white lie. As the lights dim on her backing band, the young London-based folk singer says, "this is the part where they abandon me," and begins picking out the opening chords to the sombre Mea Culpa. As anyone with a set of ears in the venue knows by now, Paulusma's band isn't so much abandoning her, as much as getting out of the way. This is to take nothing away from the talent of her ensemble of musicians, but the fact is that the finest instrument up on that stage is Paulusma's voice. Over the last year or so, thanks largely to Norah Jones's sweep at the Grammies, any folk album released by a new female artist seems to creak under the weight of comparisons to the North American chanteuse. In the case of Polly Paulusma, this comparison is less deserved than most. Unlike a great deal of what's on offer from most folk-jazz crossover divas currently being shovelled onto mainstream radio, Paulusma has two outstanding qualities that set her apart. The first is that her music contains enough varying moods and catchy hooks to keep you interested. The second is her aforementioned voice, which in a live setting stamps authority on every song far more thoroughly than was managed her debut album, Scissors In My Pocket. The music in some numbers - most notably the haunting, jazzy She Moves In Secret Ways, and the breathy single Dark Side - seems to act like an anchor for Paulusma's vocal acrobatics, turning her voice into an extra instrument. Other songs, including the searing One Day and the mournful Anywhere From Here, derive their power from her passionate delivery. Whether Paulusma's vocals on her debut album have been deliberately pressed into the mix to stop them overriding the musicianship on display, or whether they turned out that way because the album was recorded in the shed at the bottom of her garden is hard to say. What is clear is that her talents would probably have been enough to gain her a sizable following even without the likes of Norah Jones hitting the jackpot. THE TIMES 07 May 2004 A couple of years ago, Polly Paulusma might have been stuck to playing folk clubs and festivals. With female singer songwriters back in fashion, however, the 28-year-old South Londoner has a pretty good chance at the pop charts. Her debut single, Dark Side, was a near miss recently, while her album Scissors In My Pocket, released a fortnight ago, has been picked up by Radio 2, received rave reviews and won the singer a prestigious slot supporting Bob Dylan in Belfast next month. There have been other tour supports already – notably with Jamie Cullum and Gary Jules – and it’s live that Paulusma’s songs really come to life. Rather than appealing to the cosy, middle-aged masses like Katie Melua’s, her songs, at a well-attended Bush Hall, were raw, sparsely accompanied and surprisingly sassy. During the show’s opener and forthcoming single, Give it Back, Paulusma attacked her acoustic guitar, shook her dark curly hair and jumped about on the spot. Wearing an odd combo of trousers and shiny, knee-length dress, she was certainly no wallflower, chatting to the audience between songs, giggling at what a good time she was having, constantly switching guitars and taking a turn on the electric piano and introducing a band who, to be honest, didn’t get much of a look-in otherwise. Part of Paulusma’s strength is her lyrics. Admittedly it was hard to know what the Cambridge graduate and one-time novelist was on about a lot of the time, but there was clearly some clever thinking behind what were never traditionally love songs, On the sweet, slightly jazzy She Moves in Secret Ways Paulusma sang of girls who move with grace and guys in choirboys’ attire: on the striking, stripped down, country-tinged One Day she crammed on lines about sailing boats and whiskey bottles: and on the stand out song Mea Culpa, skirted around a friend’s suicide. Although she has been compared to Norah Jones, Paulusma’s poetic lyrics – and, at times, her vocals – had mush more in common with Joni Mitchell. Then again, a couple of her numbers recalled Aimee Mann, you could hear Sophie B Hawkins in her ballads and you wouldn’t go far wrong calling her a female David Gray. Presumably, she just wants to be Polly, and it’s fair to say that she could certainly have carried the gig alone. As it was, she had a bass and double-bass player and a drummer crammed in a corner, and a trio of songs brought out a string quartet. She should have used the strings players more, but no doubt there will be other opportunities. Paulusma has the potential to be a huge word-of-mouth success. Rockfeedback.com 06 May 2004 Bush Hall, 5th May 2004 The ground beneath your feet is shaking, your pint visibly disturbed on the table. And you’re a little confused, given that your line of sight encompasses only audience members sat, similarly, at their tables, and a rather pretty girl on the stage with an acoustic guitar. For a moment you wonder if, as Carole King so famously sang, you’re feeling the earth move under your feet… but in fact this curly-haired songstress is merely stamping with such forceful enjoyment in her simple chords, you can feel it three rows back. The smile on her face, the rhythmic strumming and her exemplary stomping already have most tapping their feet, but it’s now that it kicks in: her voice has been slowly turning attention from the bar with its palpable honesty and melody, but it suddenly breaks into full flight, along with the drums and double-bass you hadn’t noticed before… and it’s indefinably breathtaking. What it might be is the contrast. Polly Paulusma’s been blessed with many talents… superb songsmithery and lyrics, the looks and locks of a Greek goddess, and angelic tone. But she also laughs as abrasively as a cockney cab-driver, screws her face up like a leprechaun when she’s enjoying herself, and describes having her own guitar technician as ‘like wiping your ass with silk’. Her outfit is a shimmering display of flawless wardrobe, until rockfeedback catch a glimpse of her trainers as she walks to the piano. These attractive contradictions are not in such evidence in her songs, however. Every number Polly sings is simultaneously heart-rendingly and heart-warmingly sincere. In ‘Mea Culpa’, a song of rail-track suicide, she’s practically in tears, emotion welling in her voice. It’s a mood she revisits later, but elsewhere she’s vibrant and grinning, singing of love for old loves with infectious happiness. It is, in fact, a string-quartet, hired in for the night’s performance, which provides the most captivating moment. Abandoning both guitar and piano for the encore, we’re left with an exquisite rendering of ‘Perfect 4/4’, with but the quartet and Polly’s tortured vocals echoing the agonies of the song’s hospitalised subject. But, best of all, even with such an unfathomable well of empathy and a beneficent muse, she still can’t help but introduce the song by exclaiming, ‘Ah bollocks, it’s the last one’. The gig ends as it should: Polly’s debut album, Scissors In My Pocket sells out, and those who already own it are left with the pang of desire for more material, despite it only having been released last month. The girl is certainly on the train to acclaim. But there’s that feeling in your stomach, as if something internally has been challenged and changed during the course of the night, that leaves you confident that Polly Paulusma could soon move on to become groundbreaking, not long to be content with merely moving the earth beneath our feet. UNCUT Magazine (UK) 01 May 2004 Astonishingly mature debut from Britain's brainiest new singer-songwriter * * * * by Nigel Williamson Frighteningly clever with her first in English from Cambridge, Polly Paulusma might have become and academic or a novelist. Fortunately, she turned instead to music. Scissors In My Pocket is an album for connoisseurs of grown-up songwriting, littered with arresting references, both literary and musical. Something To Remember Me By is inspired by Shelley's Ozymandias. The lovely string arrangement on One Day subtly acknowledges Eleanor Rigby. Yet Paulusma's songs are also strikingly original, and full to the brim with potent melodies, unusual chords, meltingly heartfelt vocals and sharp emotional resonance. Joni Mitchell gave up songwriting after 1994's Turbulent Indigo. A decade on, we may finally have found a worthy successor. MOJO Magazine (UK) 01 May 2004 Ben & Jason/Beth Orton associate steps out alone * * * * by Martin Aston With chart-topping Katie Melua reaping all that Radio 2 support, by rights, Polly Paulusma should join her. Parkie's a fan, and you'd imagine R2's DJs should concur, given that she belongs more to the John Martyn-Nick Drake school of folk-jazz intimacy than Melua's Mike Batt-created MOR. Polly's extra arranging, producing and engineering skills explain why this debut feels complete, pure and personal. Give It Back swings while Over The Hill is as carefree as larks, but the girl's a born troubadour. Buoyed by elastic bass and the lightest of strings, the album's four key ballads One Day, Mea Culpa, Perfect 4/4 and Anywhere From Here are irresistible. Lyrically an unashamed romantic but rarely too florid ("wires fan before you, they draw you/In deep troughs and sharp peaks of green" is a gorgeous image) and vocally a smokier, breathier Melanie, she's got the tools for scaling giddy chart heights. INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 30 April 2004 She’s just finished touring with Jamie Cullum (“He’s so brilliant at what he does – a real fire cracker!”) and Michael Parkinson loves her (these days, a sure sign of success), but it was a while before singer songwriter Polly Paulusma realised her future lay in music. “For ages I was convinced I’d be a journalist,” she admits. “Then I started an MPhil, hated it and started writing a novel in between playing gigs at a pub, I got an agent and was on draft seven when I realised that I hated that too and had to do music.” So the 28-year-old Cambridge graduate swapped dusty libraries for her garden shed, where she wrote and recorded the folk-pop album Scissors In My Pocket. Paulusma (pronounced “Pole-sma”) is hoping it will be well received: “My parents have always been a bit funny about me doing music,” she says. “I had to upset a lot of people to do it.” Still, at least if it goes horribly wrong, at least she has a career plan C to fall back on. “Although,” she whispers, “I had a look at the novel the other day and it was awful.” The same, luckily, cannot be said for her debut album, out this month. Logo-magazine.com 26 April 2004 There’s something disconcertingly familiar about Polly Paulusma, and it’s immediately obvious. Though her voice is unique, it bears the hallmarks of every female singer-songwriter of note to have emerged in the last thirty years: Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Suzanne Vega, even Alanis Morissette. It’s disconcerting because she’s adept at summoning the spirits of all of them, yet never quite descends into homage, pastiche or parody. Far from it, her poetic lyrics are the result of a good education (a first in English at Cambridge), her presence the result of an apprenticeship served as backing singer for Ben & Jason, and her impact the result of that charismatic, chameleonic voice. Jason and The Argonauts were warned about the Sirens whose irresistible songs would lure them onto the rocks; it seems one of them has been reborn. MSN.co.uk 26 April 2004 The singer-songwriter is something of a resurrected breed for the 21st Century. Particularly the laid-back female variety. Polly Paulusma is the UK's latest and fits firmly into the old school bracket with cryptically poetic lyrics (she has a first in English from Cambridge and knows how to use it!) and gently lilting melodies. Her voice is decidedly distinctive. Inevitable Norah Jones comparisons aside, this is a girl with a south London accent, giving her songs such as Dark Side and One Day an endearing naivety with an underlying sense of experience and passion. Musically she's closer to many a female vocalists icon, the young Joni Mitchell rather than the jazz and country greats often referenced by other singers. She's adventurous enough to incorporate elements of Latin (Mea Culpa) and rock (Perfect 4/4). An enchanting debut from a very bright British talent. UNCUT Magazine (UK) 01 February 2004 Also, listen out for the forthcoming debut album on One Little Indian from an extraordinary new British singer-songwriter called Polly Paulusma. And remember you read the name here first. Polly Paulusma: The Making of Scissors In My Pocket 01 January 2004 Polly's first album, released on One Little Indian in April 2004, was recorded largely in Polly's garden shed during the glorious summer of 2003. Polly had sung backing vocals on Ben & Jason’s 2001 album ‘Ten Songs About You’. “It was meant to be one last hurrah in my musical career before I got a proper job,” she recalls. “Instead, after singing with them it became blindingly obvious to me that I had to do music. Everything else felt wrong. I realised I wasn’t facing up to the truth.” It wasn't long before she was making her first album by herself. As chance would have it, while she was making the record, One Little Indian heard an earlier demo and approached her. “It was ironic, really,” she says. “It was only once I’d decided to make the album on my own that a record label came along.” By the time the deal was done, the recording had already been finished, entirely on Polly’s own terms. Oli Hayhurst on double bass and Rastko Rasic on drums came in “to colour in all the black and white parts”. And thanks to some tolerant neighbours, organ, dulcimer, trumpet and a variety of other textures were added in the garden shed during the summer of 2003. There are 11 songs on the album, and all are characterised by hook-laden melodies, insightful lyrics and Polly’s distinctive vocals. Scissors In My Pocket is a record that has led many to describe her as a modern-day Joni Mitchell. On some of the tracks Polly, who produced most of the album herself, went back to her original demos. Dark Side, the album’s captivating opener, is the original recording from her first demo three years ago, produced by Ben Parker (Ben & Jason). One Day and Over The Hill are also the original demos. “There was such a vibe to them that it seemed ridiculous to try and redo them,” she explains. Together with newer songs such as the lyrical She Moves In Secret Ways, Mea Culpa and the intoxicating Anywhere From Here, the result is a debut album of extraordinary craft and imagination from a naturally gifted storyteller. Where do these enchanting, insightful, beautiful songs come from? She really isn’t sure. “I’m mystified by it. I’ve no idea how it works. You have to make a window of time every day and hope something comes in. And you can't allow life to get in the way.” But mystery or not, you surely won’t hear a better new singer-songwriter in the whole of 2004. Polly Paulusma: Biography 01 January 2004 “When I was eight, I built a raft at the bottom of the garden from a bit of old fence,” Polly recalls. “I nagged my mum to take it down to the river. She eventually gave in but she insisted it had to be attached to a rope and she would hold on to it. So I hid a pair of scissors in my pocket. I was planning to cut the rope and sail off to London. I didn’t get very far. But I had the same feeling towards making this record. It was about defiance and taking your life in your own hands. I was a real handful, I can tell you.” Which perhaps explains why soon after the raft incident, Polly was packed off to an all-girl's convent school. But if the sisters entertained hopes of taming her maverick spirit, their ministrations had a different effect. "They taught me how to be self-contained, how to stand on my own two feet. I also had a pretty wild time," she recalls. She also began to find her musical voice. Polly rebelled against formal piano lessons at an early age and wrote her first song at ten (actually a re-write of a Paul McCartney track - “I liked the tune but I decided he’d written the wrong words, so I wrote my own. Something about swans. Much better than his”). The onset of her teens coincided with the rise of 'baggy' – the musical scene that grew out of the clubs in Manchester, England. She loved everything about it, learned guitar and was soon "entertaining everyone at school and showing off," as she puts it. Baggy didn't last long. But it was the starting point of a musical journey. "I began to work my way back through the annals and I came upon people like Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake. That moment of discovery is amazing. It's something you can never recapture," she recalls. It inspired her own songwriting, although when she left school and went up to Cambridge she joined a ten-piece soul-funk covers band, “a bit like the Commitments,” and suffered regular bouts of laryngitis shouting herself hoarse doing Janis Joplin impressions. After graduating, she moved to London and formed a new band doing original material. But music was still only a hobby. “I convinced myself I had to have a proper grown-up respectable career,” she remembers. She considered becoming an academic and began a PhD, only to abandon it after a term. She could have been a journalist, and briefly took a job at the BBC World Service as a researcher. She also considered a career as a novelist, and even got as far as placing her manuscript with a literary agent. By the time she was asked to sing backing vocals on Ben & Jason’s 2001 album ‘Ten Songs About You’, she had quit the band. “It was meant to be one last hurrah in my musical career before I got a proper job,” she recalls. “Instead singing with them it became blindingly obvious I had to do music,” she recalls. “Everything else felt wrong. I realized I wasn’t facing up to the truth. I was like a moth going round a flame and I had to plunge in.” The novel was cast aside and she began playing solo gigs at acoustic venues such as the late-lamented Kashmir Klub. Two years of gigging and selling hand-made recordings from the stage meant that when she came to record her first album, she had 40 songs to draw upon. Oli Hayhurst on double bass and Rastko Rasic on drums came in “to color in all the black and white parts”. And thanks to some tolerant neighbours, organ, dulcimer, trumpet and a variety of other textures were added in the garden shed during the summer of 2003. The basic philosophy was no click tracks, as few edits as possible and as much playing live as was feasible. On several tracks, Polly, who produced the album herself, went back to her original demos. Dark Side, the album’s captivating opener, is the original recording of the song from her first demo three years ago, produced by Ben Parker (Ben & Jason). One Day and Over The Hill are also the original demos. “There was such a vibe to them that it seemed ridiculous to try and redo them,” she explains. Where do these enchanting, insightful, beautiful songs come from? She really isn’t sure. “I’m mystified by it. I’ve no idea how it works. You have to make a window of time every day and hope something comes and not allow life to get in the way.”
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]]> 52.955073 -1.1493 platialUser:baostar 2006-05-06 15:32:47.768171+00:00 http://platial.com/post/38270 Videos: Eighties Fan (Real / 7.63Mb) Keep It Clean (Real / 2.47Mb) Teenager (Real / 6.41Mb) I Love My Jean (Real / 12.1Mb) Hailing from sunny Scotland, Camera Obscura have ploughed their furrow writing slightly offensive pop melancholy. Perhaps the best example of this on their debut release, Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi, is Eighties Fan. If you haven't heard it (and you undoubtedly have), it is probably the best pop song ever. The aforementioned melancholy runs through its string veins with the lightest of bobbing flows. An impossibly pretty and well-recorded string section (arranged by Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian) provides the soul here, in a way that Tompaulin have surely learnt from and replicated. This song could mean something to everyone, such is its grace and deftness of craft. You too will think that 'life will be the death of you'. Unfortunately, having Eighties Fan as the second track on the album means that the listener is consistently under-whelmed by everything that follows it. This isn't to say that any of the material is spectacularly bad, but it inevitably fails in comparison to the glory of that one song. The album does enough to suggest that Eighties Fan wasn't a fluke (the terribly sad tale of a Smiths-obsessed boyfriend in Pen and Notebook probably comes closest), but there is a definite lack of the extreme coherence that would catapult them into the indie-pop superleagues. There are flashes of arch-knowing that take them steps closer to that special kind of personal relationship between band and listener, but there is also the feeling that they are capable of so much more. The sullen beauty of Tracy-Ann Campbell's voice could be the charm that wins the day with the casual listener, but the longevity really needs to come from the songs. A fine testament to the influence of Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura could be something pretty special if they get out of first gear. -TweeNet
Tags: camera obscura, tracyanne campbell, john henderson, gavin dunbar, mp3, music videos, indie pop

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]]> 55.865627 -4.257224 platialUser:baostar 2006-05-05 14:33:24.739442+00:00 http://platial.com/post/38271 Videos: Do What You Want To Do (Quicktime / stream) Sweden’s no 1 guitar pop band. Acid House Kings was started by the teenagers Joakim Ödlund {also in Poprace, Starlet and Doubledan}, brothers Niklas {also in Red Sleeping Beauty} and Johan Angergård {also in Club 8, Poprace and The Legends} back in 1991 inspired by the English anorak scene {most bands on labels like Sarah, Subway and Heaven would be considered as favorites at this time}. The band recorded their first songs and sent them only to one label, the German pop label Marsh-Marigold. A few months later their debut single »Play pop! EP« was released. In 1992, Acid House Kings set up a 10 year plan: a trilogy of albums with one album released exactly every 5th year. Each album was to be filled with catchy guitar pop songs but with new themes and a growing maturity from album to album. The first album in trilogy was the twee »Pop, look & listen« released on Marsh-Marigold in 1992. The album was followed by the 6-track ep »Monaco G.P.« and a European tour in 1994. With the 2nd part of Acid House Kings album trilogy the band wanted to create catchy quality pop {a bit like The Smiths for summer days instead of lonely autumn nights looked up in your room}. That album was »Advantage Acid House Kings«. The band changed labels for this album to Shelflife in the US and Harmony in Japan. On this album the singer Julia Lannerheim was introduced in the band as a guest singer on a couple of songs. The album was released in rather small quantities and sold out quickly. It's now been re-released by Labrador Records. In 2001 Acid House Kings built a studio of their own, Summersound Studios, in order to make a perfectly sophisticated pop production for the 3rd installment in the trilogy. Joakim was unable to make it to the recording studio because of the fact that he was living too far from it. But on the other hand Julia became a full-time member of the band. The year was a creative burst for the Kings. The result was »Mondays are like Tuesdays and Tuesdays are like Wednesdays«. It's an easy, breezy, beautiful album with more lasting qualities than any of the other albums in the trilogy. It was released in 2002 on Parasol (US), Quince (Japan), Magnum (South East Asia) and Labrador (Europe). ALL MUSIC described ‘Mondays...« as “…yet more proof of the emerging, Swedish indie pop scene. “ and gave it Rolling Stone praised it as regal and “full of sugary, yet bittersweet hooks”. Spurred by the wide acclaim for »Mondays... « Acid House Kings immediately begun working on the plan for the second 10 year period and on what was to become »Sing along with Acid House Kings”. The new album also saw the return of founding member Joakim Ödlund on guitar. Combining the aesthetics of Kraftwerk with Motown girl groups from the 60’s and musical influences from Burt Bucharach to The Smiths, Acid House Kings have created a classic album of timeless pop perfection. True to their Swedish origin, the Kings cannot hide a certain debt to the stylish arrangements and crystal clear melodies of ABBA. Though the »Mondays...« album sounds just as great today as when it was first heard, there’s no doubt the new album is a big step forward. The vocal duties are charmingly shared between the two singers, Niklas and Julia, the melodies direct and timeless and the arrangements multifaceted and rich in detail. »Sing along with Acid House Kings« is not only a proof of the emerging Swedish pop scene, it’s the cream of the lot. And yes, you can sing along. They’ll even include a free karaoke DVD with the album {the very first in musical history} to help you do so.
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]]> 62.199734 17.637777 platialUser:baostar 2006-05-06 01:46:38.541724+00:00 http://platial.com/post/38273 She's been variously described as "a bummed out angel in the badlands of love" (Details), "the clear eyed oracle of London's breakbeat scene" (Spin) and "Queen of the heartbreak vocal" (Mercury Music Prize judges). There must be something special about Beth Orton that makes people attempt poetry. Ever since her debut solo album Trailer Park was released to critical acclaim in October '96, people have been enchanted by the tall Norfolk broad with the acoustic guitar. 1997 was good to Beth. From working with her all time hero, folk-jazz legend Terry Callier, to singing on the Chemical Brother's number one album Dig Your Own Hole, to touring America with Sheryl Crow and Emmy Lou Harris as part of the Lilith Fair, to performing to a packed-out tent of 10,000 muddy Glastonbury-goers. Not to mention scoring her first Top 40 single with "She Cries Your Name," selling-out her UK tour, and experiencing the perfect movie moment of driving down a sun-soaked Hollywood Boulevard in an open-top convertible and hearing her cover version of The Ronette's "I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine" played on KROQ - then heading home to celebrate a Mercury Music Prize nomination for Album Of The Year! At six foot tall and disarmingly sharp, Beth Orton is not exactly what you'd expect. With an ability to reduce grown men (and women) to tears with her songs, Beth is more likely to steal your last cigarette than cry on your shoulder. As she says, "I don't think my songs are as miserable as people make out. There's a lot of hope in there as well. It depends if you're a half-empty or half-full person." Born in Norfolk, England in 1970, Beth moved to London with her mother at the age of 14 where they settled in Dalston. Her older brothers being punk rockers, the most rebellious thing the teenage Beth could do was "get into folk." She spent her late teen years immersed in everything from Nick Drake to Dexy's, The Stone Roses to Rickie Lee Jones, before toying with the idea of acting and a drama course at the LSU. After a couple of years in fringe theater she hooked up with dance producer William Orbit for her first musical project, a cover of John Martyn's "Don't Wanna Know About Evil." Having worked with Mr. Orbit for two years she co-wrote the first two Red Snapper singles and teamed up with the (little known at the time) Chemical Brothers on "Alive: Alone," the haunting final track from the Brothers' ace debut album. Signed to Heavenly Recordings, Beth blended her guitars with samples and beats on an album of starkly personal songs of breathtaking beauty. Working with producers Victor Van Vught (Tindersticks, Nick Cave) and Andrew Weatherall (producer of the classic Screamadelica) she created her own brand of rhythm-infused folk. Trailer Park struck a chord with everyone from seasoned folkies, country aficionados, teenage clubbers and the brokenhearted, earning her the title (her favorite yet) of "The Comedown Queen." Happiest in charge, she led her new band on a year-long road trek supporting The Beautiful South, John Martyn, John Cale, Mark Eitzel and Everything But The Girl before selling out her own headline tours. The Best Bit EP - released in December 1997 - was Beth's biggest chart success yet and saw her hooking up with her musical hero Terry Callier. It's success won Beth two Brit Award nominations ("Best British Female Artist" and "Best British Newcomer") and the e.p. went on to sell over 40,000 copies. Trailer Park soon went gold and it seemed that suddenly the whole world was talking about the intriguing English girl with the spine-tingling voice and pocketful of heartache. From virtual unknown to magazine front cover star by whispered word of mouth in under two years seems an unprecedented feat, and Beth's latest album Central Reservation will only help cement her growing reputation. She has recorded her second album with producers Victor Van Vught (producer of Trailer Park) and David Roback (from eerie US duo Mazzy Star). Central Reservation features guest appearances from jazz hero Terry Callier, Ben Watt (of Everything But The Girl), Ben Harper and Dr. John. An album of starkly beautiful songs, including the Modern Rock radio hits "Central Reservation" and "Stolen Car," Entertainment Weekly perhaps summed the collection up best by simply calling it "stunning." -artista.com
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]]> 51.500197 -0.126197 platialUser:baostar 2006-05-06 01:34:32.456216+00:00 http://platial.com/post/38274 Videos: Breath In (WMV / stream) Must Be Dreaming (WMV / stream) It's Good To Be In Love (WMV / stream) Part cool 'n' collected statuesque beauty, part thrilled eight year old, Imogen Heap is struggling to contain her excitement. "For the last year, I've had a mission to accomplish," says the former Frou Frou lass, kicking her pink stiletto-ed heels with joy. From the pride glowing from the songwriter's grin, it's clear "Operation Imogen" has been a resounding success. After twelve months of graft in her studio, the bubbly twenty-seven year-old is finally poised to release the glorious 'Speak For Yourself''. Filled with grace and passion, and loaded with hooks, it's a captivating Bjork meets pop-Squarepusher gem of a record and the thoroughly deserving source of her exhilaration. Following on from her 1998 debut 'I Megaphone' and her 2002 Frou Frou collaboration with Guy Sigsworth, 'Details', this is Heap's second release in her own name. But it is her first truly solo album. Out on Heap's own label, Megaphonic, 'Speak For Yourself' has an almighty cast of just one, but it is a triumph of Oscar-winning proportions. Startling lead single "Hide And Seek" is already taking the States by storm. One week after it was played-out in the closing sequence to the season (2) finale of cult drama series 'The O.C.', in a prize slot which last season used Jeff Buckley's heart-rending version of the Leonard Cohen-penned 'Hallelujah', 'Hide And Seek' leapt from No. 98 to No.32 in the Official Billboard Hot 100 Download Chart, making Imogen the No.1 Electronic Act on the chart. Impressively, the track – which was only available on iTunes as oppose to the many music sites which make up the Download Chart – sold 9,700 copies as a download in one week alone, and more impressively, gave Megaphonic the only independently-released track in the entire Hot 100 chart that week. Sitting among the chiffon curtains and butterfly fairy lights of her Bermondsey studio – the very same one in which Dizzee Rascal recorded 'Showtime', though now significantly girlied-up – Heap is the picture of satisfaction. Armed with Pro-Tools, some geeky toys and a room full of instruments ranging from a cello to carpet tubes, she wrote, recorded and produced every glistening note of her remarkable electro-poprecord herself, fulfilling a life-long dream. "I always wanted to find out what I was capable of," she says smiling broadly. In 2003 Heap parted ways with Island records, who released Frou Frou's "Details", though they were keen to put out the next solo album she felt it was "time for a change of scenery". Imogen recalls "I signed my first deal when I was just 17 and I've been on one label or another since then. I didn't think I'd end up releasing it on a label of my very own but once I'd finished I didn't want to give it all away again, specially as I'd put everything I had into it". Working with Frou Frou partner, Madonna and Britney producer Guy Sigsworth had been "an apprenticeship in making amazing records," says Heap. But Heap was adamant that with her next project, she should get the recognition she deserved. "It's not Guy's fault, but with Frou Frou, everyone assumed the man did all the production and engineering, mixing and programming and that the girl – me – just sang," explains Heap. "And I have to say that really irritated me. We did everything together. I'd been programming on Macs since I was twelve and that was more of a love to me than singing ever was." After her break-up with Universal/Island, Heap felt the time had come for change. "I loved working with Guy," she says. "I'd learnt so much from him and all the other various collaborations I'd done over the years. Now I was bursting with ideas and just wanted to get my hands really dirty!" Writing, recording and owning your own music is a noble aspiration. But as Heap discovered, record labels do have their uses and summoning together vital funds was proving a tad problematic. "I traipsed my way round every bank but I couldn't get a loan," she says. "I had £10,000 on my credit card and I couldn't pay my bills" but just before despair could stick in its claws, Heap's luck changed. Clocking a "For Sale" sign outside her block of flats was, she says, like a little light bulb going on: "I couldn't help wondering just how much I could sell my flat to myself for." From that moment on, it seemed as though Fate was smiling on Heap. The artist set about re-mortgaging her flat and thanks to a sympathetic surveyor ("I couldn't believe it," says Heap, "but he turned out to be a Frou Frou fan!") she got exactly the valuation she needed. The value of her humble flat had grown by a hundred grand, and with money to burn, Heap kick-started her year-long mission on her 26 th birthday, December 9, 2003 . "I had all my new gear delivered as a birthday present to myself," remembers Heap, "then I booked my mastering for December 7 a year later. That was my deadline – I was going to make sure I had my new album done in time to celebrate on my next birthday!" The songwriter set about experimenting. "I just wanted to see what kinds of sounds were coming out of me," she says reliving her excitement. Alone with her new toys, the singer found a voice she didn't know she had. And it was a discovery that was to unexpectedly shape the new album. Halfway through the album she set up an online blog www.imogenheap.com to help keep herself in check. "Somedays I wouldn't get much done as I didn't have anyone to answer to," says Heap, "so I thought if I wrote a diary on-line people could see if I'd been crap in the studio and it would keep me from slacking. If I got really stuck on something, just seeing the problem up there would help me tackle it better and one time I even asked those reading the blog to choose a lyrical direction from a poll I set up on my website!" The soundtrack to Heap's cycle rides between her Waterloo home and her studio may partly explain the cross-pollination of genres that is 'Speak For Yourself'. Pedaling to the glitchy electro-sparks of Avril, Squarepusher and Cursor Minor, to contemporary classical composers Arvo Part and Ryuichi Sakamoto to the pop/punk/rock of Cornelius and the Foo Fighters. And though the album's dominant personality is electronic, Heap says, it's also intrinsically vocally-lead. The lyric-based songs are accompanied by vocal segments, layered over each other and treated just like the pianos, strings, guitars, and harps are. And like all the other live instruments, her voice is tweaked, compressed or put through harmonisers to achieve the perfect sound. "I write in terms of the voice being a part of the score more than one vocal line hovering over a backing track," she explains. "I'm so lucky I've ended up with such a bizarre voice. It's distinctive enough to hold itself in whatever music I throw at it." However the real emphasis here is on the minutiae; the fluctuating dynamics beneath the soaring sounds. Aside from textured incidental noises, like trains rumbling past the tracks outside Heap's studio, breaths, sighs, whispers and intimate vocal quirks make this electronic wonder sound human again. And this warmth compliments the intensely personal nature of Heap's songs. 'Speak For Yourself' is vulnerable, exposed and flooded with emotion. So what's it all about? Heap pauses for thought…"It's quite tricky writing lyrics for "love" songs when you are happy and content with your man," she laughs. "The subject matter can get pretty repetitive, so sometimes I found myself running away with a naughty thought or stealing a friend's situation and eventually the song would turn itself into something all by itself". And yet Heap's cinematic vignettes are remarkably vivid. Elusive little fantasies or based on real life? For example, epic closer, "The Moment I Said It" is a tumultuous scene of badly-broken news; stark electro-a cappella "Hide And Seek' a hymn to disbelief, betrayal and grief awhile "Goodnight And Go", which features Heap fan, Jeff Beck on guitars, is a wistful ode to forbidden love. With the album done and dusted, Heap can't help but revel in her serendipity. "Ever since I decided to do this on my own, great things have come my way," she says sitting back in her fluffy studio chair. Not withstanding her star-struck surveyor, other factors have also seemingly conspired in her favour. Last year, Scrubs-star Zach Braff personally selected the Frou Frou track 'Let Go' for the soundtrack to his critically acclaimed indie-hit and directorial debut, 'Garden State', helping fuel the Imogen Heap fire. Musical directors across a variety of television outlets have clamoured for her tracks; in addition to 'The OC', 'CSI' and 'Six Feet Under' have also featured her music and LA's influential KCRW station is already spot-playing album tracks. For a couple of months before release "Speak For Yourself" has been floating in and around the music business and a few household names have been in touch with Heap since hearing 'Speak For Yourself", hoping to book her for knob-twiddling duties. "I thought I might like to get into producing other artists records one day but it seems one day is already here and I'm really enjoying it". It's no surprise Heap emanates a burning self-belief. 'Speak For Yourself' has been a test of her abilities; a test she's passed with glowing colours: "In the past there were times when I wished I had been listened to," she says, "but I've never really known if I was right. This time, from the start I've done things my way." Part cool 'n' collected statuesque beauty, part thrilled eight year old, Imogen Heap is struggling to contain her excitement. "I feel nothing can stop me," she says through a huge grin. "This is just the beginning and I can't sit still with excitement to see how things are going to pan out."
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]]> 51.500197 -0.126197 platialUser:baostar 2006-05-06 01:30:13.846732+00:00 http://platial.com/post/38356 On the heels of critical success for her sublime debut U.S. album, Not Going Anywhere, released on Metro Blue Records, an imprint of Blue Note Records, Paris and New York-based singer-songwriter Keren Ann follows with Nolita, another intimate collection of quietly sung lyrical gems this time with more diverse, multi-textured soundscapes. Six of the 11 songs are sung in English; the rest, including the graceful yet urgent album opener "Que n'ai-je?" ("What Don't I Have?"), in French. Recorded in Paris and New York, the CD, both beautiful and mysterious, pays homage to New York, her adopted home where she spent much of last year. 2004 was a pivotal year for Keren Ann, whose full name is Keren Ann Zeidel and is the daughter of a Javanese-Dutch mother and a Russian-Israeli father. In the late summer, she made her U.S. debut with the release of Not Going Anywhere (the English-language CD was her first album to be released overseas, the first two comprising originals sung in French). Self-described as her "very soft folk record," it made an immediate impact with critics and fans. The New Yorker noted: "Not Going Anywhere is well and truly written-a generosity at a time when technology makes it easy to release an album that is more wish than act…Like a series of epigrams, the music has a masterly brevity…The singing is quiet but drives the arrangements. It's the work of someone who has learned what she's good at." Prior to its release, Keren Ann created a buzz in New York with an extended residency, beginning in May, at the Lower East Side boutique club The Living Room and showcases at Joe's Pub, where she unveiled her songs described by scribes as "luminous," "precise, not wispy" and "captivating." Her whisper-like voice was characterized as "refreshingly unadorned, lacking any studied vibrato or artsy phrasing" and full of "serene mystery and subtle melancholy: cool but never detached." Concurrently Keren Ann was already working on Nolita. Earlier in the year, she spent February and March in the city. She returned to Paris and in her studio recorded pre-productions for each tune-guitar, drums, bass and some vocals. "But I had to get back to New York to fully record the songs," she says. "I had to get back to that atmosphere." So, with her residency on the horizon, Keren Ann set up shop in the lower Manhattan neighborhood of Nolita (North of Little Italy), renting a studio and loft. "When I record, I need to feel a familiarity with the space," she says. "So I hung some of my things on the wall and recreated a home space for myself. I like the idea of having a calm, quiet room to work on my music while knowing that outside there's noise and a lot happening. It's reassuring to know the "everyday" continues even though inside the studio you feel so disconnected from it." A few weeks into her residency, Keren Ann injured her hand, tearing ligaments in her thumb that required her to wear a cast. Initially she felt dismayed by the prospect of delaying the recording. "But a friend told me, 'It's not a big deal; it's just a change of plans,'" she says. "So I went out and bought keyboards and programming equipment that I probably wouldn't have used if I hadn't injured my hand. Naturally, I'd just play my guitars." While the original guitar parts remain, they are embellished with layers of colors and textures as well as cello, violin, guitar and trumpet parts contributed by new acquaintances on the New York scene. Keren Ann cites two examples: electric guitarist Jack Pettruzzelli on the longing "One Day Without" and jazz trumpeter Avishai Cohen on the quietly fingerpicked beauty "L'onde amère" ("Bitter Wave"). When asked about the melancholic vein in her music, Keren Ann hastens to note that it's not necessarily sadness. "I don't think the two have a direct relationship," she says, emphasizing instead a reflective sensibility. "When I think of melancholy, I'm thinking of vocalists like Caetano Veloso, Chet Baker, Billie Holiday. It's there with rock artists too, like Tom Waits, Blur, Velvet Underground. It's true, I'm doing melancholic music, but it's not down." Keren Ann says that Nolita thematically returns to the feel of one of her earlier albums, 2002's La Disparition (The Disappearance): "The themes come back," she says. "I guess I get obsessed with certain things like absence, lust, longing. They come back through different stories and different characters. But I also like how it stays mysterious." Nolita opens with "Que n'ai-je," a tune about a woman who is being stalked, according to Keren Ann, "either by someone she loved in the past or by who she herself was 20 years ago. The song is about that fantasy where people want to erase all the evidence of their existence." The English-language numbers include the slow-smoldering "Chelsea Burns" with a country tinge (violin, mandolin and harmonica); the haunting title track about suffocation and burial; the optimistic pop melody "Roses & Hips," with its sweet sense of longing; the dreamy and indelible "For You and I," a collaboration with longtime writing partner Bardi Johansson (of Icelandic pop band Bang Gang, and Keren Ann's side project band "Lady & Bird"); and the fascinating end piece, "Song Of Alice," where actor/film director Sean Gullette gives a dramatic narration of a Keren Ann story about a disturbed resident of 23rd Street in Chelsea. The tunes on Nolita add up to another remarkable outing for Keren Ann, still a Parisian and now also a New Yorker. "I like to capture moments," she says. "It's like a photograph. Ten years from now you look at the photograph and you don't remember it but rather the whole week or month around the photo. That's what this record is like. Thirty years from now, I'll look back at Nolita and remember that it came from the atmosphere I was longing for in New York." -EMI Music
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]]> 48.86 2.339999 platialUser:baostar 2006-05-06 01:10:15.29754+00:00 http://platial.com/post/38360 Videos: Heartstopper (WMV / 8.4Mb) Session KCRW 2005 (Real / 60Mb) "Home alone and happy / Nothing brings me down" So opens Emiliana Torrini’s second album, a soft-yet-searing collection of twelve intimate and atmospheric songs that will whisper their way into your bloodstream. Back in 1999, when the singer released the critically acclaimed Love In The Time Of Science, Emiliana came out with a gorgeous, electronic trippoppin’ vision of endless summer and moonlit nights out. Following her departure from One Little Indian, there’s a new introspection, closer to Nick Drake or Jolie Holland than Portishead or Goldfrapp. "This whole record is about these four years I was away," explains Emiliana " Very life-changing times. A lot of things happened. I just couldn"t at this stage go back to writing a record like I did before." Indie HQ Rough Trade clearly approved of her new direction: they signed Emiliana immediately after hearing the first demos from Fisherman's Woman. The 27-year-old singer and writer has nonetheless been busy since Love In The Time Of Science. She moved to Brighton, joined the cast of Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers to perform the enchanting ‘Gollum Song’ wrote and toured with Thievery Corporation, and wrote a Number One Hit for Kylie Minogue in the shape of huge-selling pop smash 'slow". "It was a very fun thing to do," she says. "It was an opportunity to dust off my dancing shoes and write music that I don"t normally write but love, and then keep the smokey-little-bar-music to my self." 'slow" was written and produced with Brixton-based producer Mr Dan, midway through the sessions that became Fisherman's Woman. After writing with a number of different artists, Emiliana was introduced to Mr Dan – and they clicked immediately. "it had been so long since the last album, and I was in two minds of doing it again," she says. "I was very nervous about going back, but we had so much fun doing it. It is just one of those collaborations I have been waiting for all my life." Emiliana decided to go back to basics and write with just a guitar and no electronics or programming. The pair jammed out the songs in Dan's dark Brixton basement with Dan on guitar and Emiliana conjuring up the lyrics and melodies. After that they recorded the record in The Exchange in Camden, " well one thing I knew very well is that I wanted a very intimate vocal sound," she says. "This album was recorded with candles, laughing fits and my duvet. We were sad leaving Brixton. I love it there," she says. "It can suck the life out of you and then blow you full again. Depends what mood it's in. Brixton is like a huge "me me me show"." Intimate. It sounds like it: opening gambit "Nothing Brings Me Down" gradually builds from sparse beginnings; Dan's acoustic guitar, light touches of piano - to a textured, gentle circle. Album highlight 'sunny Road" sounds as if it could have leaped out of a dusty, lost Leonard Cohen session, while "Lifesaver" floats along a mysterious, fairy-tale accordion melody, accompanied by the ambient creak of boats on water. "Thinking Out Loud" whispers of Eastern Europe and the Appalachians before album closer, 'serenade" multi-tracks the listener into a moonlit dream which references clouds, dark vines, temptations and new tomorrows. It's evocative and heart-felt – a handcrafted jewel of a record. Fisherman's Woman also includes a song, "Honeymoon Child" written by smog's Bill Callahan, who Emiliana spent some time writing with in America. Emiliana Torrini is half Icelandic, half Italian. She grew up in Iceland in a town outside Reykjavik and spent her childhood summers with her grandmother in the far east of Iceland out in the wild, spacious countryside. Her teen summers were spent in Germany with her Italian uncle. She joined a choir aged seven and sang soprano till she was 15, when she went to opera school. "I got into other music rather late because we didn"t have any records, well except lots of classical, my mum's Greatest Love Songs compilation from the TV and Leonard Cohen whom I love. Then we got MTV. We were the first people in our town to have it and I would stay up all night to record from the late night alternative shows, making tapes to take to school to brag about my musical findings." She recorded a few jazz and blues songs for her father's 50tth birthday which then became an album that sold 15,000 copies in Iceland and remained at number one for many months. She followed this with an equally successful album of which 50% was co-written by her and hence the beginnings of her writing career. "I spent this period singing in restaurants, bars and hotels all over Iceland," and that is how she was discovered by One Little Indian where their MD happened to be eating. Emiliana consequently moved to England where Roland Orzabal from Tears For Fears co-produced her worldwide debut. " I wanted to move to India, learn the classical techniques there, then move to Bulgaria, be a gypsy, and learn the techniques, and keep moving and learning new ways of singing - but instead I came to England and made a pop record." Fisherman's Woman is a very different beast. It is themed around loss, and how it feels to lose people; sometimes it's dripping with sadness but more frequently imbued with almost magical optimism. "Fisherman's Woman is a letter I wrote to a person that I lost at that time. I coped by thinking I was with a fisherman. They can go on sea for months like my friend's dad. Her mum saw him twice a year maybe for a fortnight at a time," she says. "It was a little bit like Alice in Wonderland. The falling into a hole, the madness of it all." Despite the sadness, Emiliana remains positive. "I could never write a wholly sad album," she says laughing. "There are too many moon rivers to see and life to live. Fisherman's woman has been a way of making things whole again." This album is sincerely honest and as endearing as they come. And it's lovely, too. -emilianatorrini.com
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]]> 64.963051 -19.020835 platialUser:baostar 2006-05-05 23:50:17.583393+00:00 http://platial.com/post/38363 Videos: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan: Ramblin' Man Isobel's wistful manner and sensational talent and taste makes her an absolute Indie Pop icon.
Tags: music, singer, belle sebastian, isobel campbell, cellist extraordinaire, mp3, music videos

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]]> 55.865627 -4.257224 platialUser:baostar 2006-05-05 22:31:18.764871+00:00 http://platial.com/post/2580378
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]]> 30.241969 -92.269712 platialUser:derwin2k 2008-01-21 00:21:48.477282+00:00