LEILA ADU has been described as 'A Nina Simone for the Noughties', and her two acclaimed albums infuse a broadly 'art-rock' approach with elements of torch song, speakeasy blues, avant garde jazz, gamelan, post-rock textures, and a David Lynch style dreamlike b-movie melodrama. As her website has it, exploring the "dissonant edges of familiar forms", but with that kind of 'dissonance' that they once accused Thelonious Monk or Debussy of, the kind that soon betrays it's own compelling melodic and harmonic logic to the attentive listener...
'Dark Joan', Leila's third album as a solo artist, was recorded in Chicago with the legendary Steve Albini (PJ Harvey, Joanna Newsome, Nirvana, Pixies), and Albini's genius has been to strip her sound back to it's essence, and hold it's most distinctive qualities up to the light. It doesn't hurt that this is by far Leila's most powerful set of songs to date, and if anything we are lead even deeper into her world by the pictures painted with just piano (or in some cases harpsichord or a grime-encrusted electric piano) and that voice...
Capable of anything from delicate heartbreaking purity to a fearsome dramatic power, her powers are seemingly limitless, yet unlike most other singers of her calibre, never does she resort to melodrama or show-boating, or any kind of pastiche, instead she employs her resources fully in the expression of her distinctive musical vision and the deep well-spring of her imagination. Nothing ever sounds as though it could have not been sung...
Download from iTunes, LP/CD from http://www.frizzrecords.com
Hey!
I hope you’re having an exciting week!
What are the greatest concert/s you’ve ever been to?
What are the worst concert/s you’ve ever been to?
Lucy
"Modern Mediaeval" is the third LP from singer-songwriter DAVID GARSIDE, and the first to receive the full Frizz Records vinyl treatment. It’s also clearly the most fully-realised statement of his distinctive vision so far…
It’s an easy route to locate David in the tradition of his ‘classic’ influences (McCartney, Nick Drake, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, The Beach Boys, Love, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Dexy’s…), but there are few songwriters working today that have absorbed these influences so fully, and arrived at a mature style as David has…
This is ’singer-songwriter’ music in the sense that it’s focus is on song-craft and the unfolding of the lyrical vision of a single individual, but if so then it’s definitely at the sophisticated end of the scale (’progressive’ if that term isn’t too loaded…), filed alongside ‘Bryter Layter’, ‘The Hissing Of Summer Lawns’, ‘Pretzel Logic’ or ‘Surf’s Up’...another FRIZZ RECORDS instant classic!
"Modern Mediaeval" can be downloaded from the iTunes Store
The album is also available on heavyweight vinyl LP, or on Digipack CD from www.FrizzRecords.com & all good retailers
Hey ,
I hope you had a fantastic weekend!
I've just uploaded some cover songs to my profile and it'd be awesome if you could please have a listen and let me know what you think?
Lucy aka Lyrical Tigeress
"It's Not The Wand, It's The Magic" is the debut release from AUGUST, the London based band centred around the songwriting partnership between vocalist VEDINA MOSE and multi-instrumentalist / producer RAPHAEL MANN (MR HUDSON / JOY JOSEPH / ART TERRY), with master drummer CLEAN CUT MARK and clarinetist / vocalist MAREE CHOIE completing the core line-up, and a supporting cast including ART TERRY (keyboards), SHOHEI KAWAMOTO (AKA Japanese producer Baraki, Bass clarinet, soprano sax and flute), and KAI HOFFMAN (French horn)
Always an act that juggled a diverse set of influences, the album has been compared to artists as diverse as KATE BUSH, PRINCE, DE LA SOUL, SLY STONE, MADLIB, SERGE GAINSBOURG and THE DELFONICS, for its concoction of wild experimentation and traditional song craft, organic production and futuristic electronic touches, funk bass & drums and jazz & orchestral references, infectious melodies and lyrical flights of fancy...with nods towards classic soul, JB funk, Studio One, 60s pop, psychedelia, left field hip hop, new wave, doo wop, tropicalia, high life, & avant garde jazz, without any song ever fitting squarely into any of those categories...new music, basically...and an instant classic!
"It's Not The Wand, It's The Magic" can be downloaded now from the iTunes Store
The album is also available on heavyweight vinyl LP in a sumptuous gatefold sleeve, or on Digipack CD from www.FrizzRecords.com & all good retailers