Bass, loops, pianos and bright ideas-- Todd Sickafoose, Violin-- Alan Lin, Jacob Lawson, depending on which coast we're on... Cello and harmonies-- Yair Evnine. Piano and harmonies, Greta Gertler... Reeds and harmonies-- Jeremy Innis. Dean Sharp, Dan Morris, and Scott Amendola have played drums. Adam Levy, Nels Cline, and Morris Acevedo have played guitars... It varies...
Influences
Old pianos, orchestras tuning up. The woods-- creaky trees, clicking streams, twigs cracking underfoot. Whistling teapots. Screechy subways. Todd Sickafoose. Faun Fables. Emily Bezar. Happy Rhodes. Jane Siberry. Kate Bush. Tom Waits. Arvo Part. Annie Dillard, Henry Darger, Joseph Campbell, David Abram, Henry Miller, Emily Dickinson. & Many friends who are all doing neat things.
Sounds Like
"Here we have a homegrown, full blown young musical visionary, and a window into a part of the new San Francisco sound. This train is headed somewhere..." PURE MUSIC
“She’s the freshest voice in San Francisco” SAN FRANCISCO MAGAZINE
"...Enviaby literate and awesomely disciplined, Venable amplifies her power through a riveting soprano voice that stuns and enraptures so thouroughly that multiple listenings are required to begin unraveling her mysteries of music and meaning..." SF BAY GAURDIAN
“Noe Venable’s shivering, gravelly soprano and ghostly melodies are like poems and exorcisms...” PORTLAND MERCURY
"...the eerie guitar effects and hypnotic loops that haunt the corners of songs such as "Feral" distance Venable even further from the conventional singer-songwriter genre, giving her more in common with Tom Waits and Radiohead than with Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan." ACOUSTIC GUITAR MAGAZINE
"Ravishingly melodic" ANI DIFRANCO in introduction onstage...
Noe Venable is a singer-songwriter, composer, and poet. Having honed her songwriting and musicianship within the context of San Francisco’s rich experimental and jazz music scene, Venable has gone on to wider recognition through the release of five albums, as well as national tours opening for artists from Ani DiFranco to They Might be Giants. Venable has shared stages with artists as diverse as Patti Smith, Gillian Welch, Robyn Hitchcock, Carla Bozulich and Tom McRae.
Venable’s most recent release, The Summer Storm Journals, was four years in the making. Lyrically, its songs often explore the theme of lost or misplaced childhood as a place of wonder, darkness and possibility. Many songs also have a mystical strain. Here Venable cites David Abram and Wendell Berry as influences, as well as a winter spent as a composer in residence Caldera Arts in Sisters, Oregon, recording snowfall and listening to streams.
Produced with Venable’s longtime collaborator, bassist Todd Sickafoose , the album features a stellar cast of musicians, including violinist Alan Lin , guitarist Adam Levy, (Norah Jones), and avant garde marimba virtuoso, Payton MacDonald, (Alarm Will Sound).
As well as performing her own music, Venable often sings on the projects of others. She can be heard on albums by Ani DiFranco, John Vanderslice, Faun Fables, and Vienna Teng. Film credits include Cherish, by Finn Taylor, which used Venable's songs in its score and soundtrack.
In addition to her work as a songwriter, Venable is also a teacher committed to empowering young people through the arts. A passionate believer in the capability of imagination to liberate, Venable has taught creative writing, songwriting, theater and visual arts, working with youth ages nine to nineteen in a variety of settings. In service of this dimension of her work, she holds a masters degree in education from Harvard Divinity School.
Venable's experience as a teacher is the subject of a new work, her one-person play, The Homecomer, which she wrote and performed for the Harvard community in June of 2009. Featuring original music, monologue, and spoken word, the play looks at the challenges and rewards of teaching in a public high school. The play is based on her experience teaching English Language Arts to high school students in Arlington, Massachusetts. Venable looks forward to New York and San Francisco performances of the play some time next year.
She has also started work on a new album, for release in 2010.
“ …soul-stirring, excitingly edgy music…just disturbing (read ‘mind-f**king’) enough to demand attention. There is a whole spice rack of auditory flavors here, served up like fractured poetry on a collection of intensely listenable Hallmark cards from Hell. Bill Margold, Cinema Seen, L.A. X..Press
The new True Margrit CD - The Juggler's Progress - is now available for pre-order, along with t-shirts and artwork, photo and drumheads, as we get ready for our monthlong tour of the Great Northwest! Check it out here: http://bit.ly/7Cu8J
Look for us in Washington, Oregon and California between October 15 and November 15, when our tour wraps up with the big show at San Francisco's best rock club, Bottom of the Hill! For the complete show schedule, check here: http://bit.ly/1UgGqQ
Thank you very much for da Link Up & Sharing the Music
Nice to meet you through cyberlink!
Keep up da Great Work!
Wishes you All da Best in 2009!
Enjoy your Week
Brilliant vid for Midsummer Night, Noe ~ commented at YouTube about it, and also in your blog. Any plans for a dvd performance release (including all your videos, of course)?
I think u'll enjoy this one. It's pretty cool but also a little creepy too LOL. You'll need to follow these directions EXACTLY to get the proper results. Put the followwing into the address-bar of your web-browser. Type ur favorite number between 1 and 999 & then type a dot & then type your favorite color & then type a dot & then type one word that best describes your mood & then type a dot & then type the word retwistic & then type a dot & then type com & then click enter. Let me know how it turns out for you.
aw, bummed i missed your living room show. i got home around 9 and decided to check the schedule that night! maybe i can make it to rockwood before i split nyc at the end of august. i hope your studies were fruitful. you inspire me. keep making art :)
I think u'll enjoy this one. It's pretty cool but also a little creepy too LOL. You'll need to follow these directions EXACTLY to get the proper results. Put the followwing into the address-bar of your web-browser. Type ur favorite number between 1 and 999 & then type a dot & then type your favorite color & then type a dot & then type one word that best describes your mood & then type a dot & then type the word retwistic & then type a dot & then type com & then click enter. Let me know how it turns out for you.
I know you're a Mitsu friend.but please check out my other project Cinerex it's a little pop .A new album just came out.your support is important to me.
1) Audiomachie (6:21) 2) Une ombre vacille en serpentin virevoltant (6:58) 3) Bruissement de griserie (9:55) 4) Propensity to go forward (7:36) 5) Drawing of a Back with a Mouth (4:24) 6) Second Life (3:50)
(39:12)
- The project was about trying to explore different poetry styles, always with different instrumentations and musical structures because I don't want to repeat a single one - An album not directly linked to the four previous ones, but with the impossible to avoid come back to fetish themes - Second Life is about the technological phenomena, but I got better things to do with my life than spending it on the clone of a capitalist society - We might as well hope for a real bankrupcy for all of us, it would be worth it to kill capitalism
Most of you will just want to listen to the music made available. Well, here it is with great streaming (right after MA VIE est ICI which is a reminder of my previous album conclusion) http://www.freakywaves.com
Online Now!