Steve Abel, Geoff Maddock, Mike Hall, Milan Borich, Gareth Thomas with special singing guest appearances by Jolie Holland, Kirsten Morrell, Anika Moa, Mardi Potter and Renee Louise Carafice.
Etkilendikleri
above video from the feature film Woodenhead by Florian Habicht. Mardi Potter sings with Steve Abel. Song from LP Little Death (2006)
other influences: drink, waiata, waking dreams, duende and faerie, Leadbelly, Guided by Voices, broken stuff, living stuff, Ray Davies, mr L Cohen, near anything flying nun, Li'l Chief, Arch Hill, The Clean, The Puddle, Hank Williams (p.b.u.h) and Johny Cash, John Rowles, the big O, the King, the Boss, Randy Newman, T Rex, Nina Simone, Patti Smith, Morrisey and Bonnie Billie, VU, Bob Dylan, Van Zandt, punk and post, folk & anti-folk, Nashville, Sun, Tamaki Makaurau, The Kosmokrator, love, depression etc... also thanks to Steve Albini, Bowie, Nick Cave, Neil Young, Led Zep, Scott Walker and all the destitute lovers.
Neye Benziyor?
"Shimmering."- This Metal Sky
below spontaneous song with Jolie Holland at her London gig Dingwalls June 09 feat. Shahzad Ismaily + Grey Gersten - something like what the CMJ band will be in Oct 09...
UK Booking: Howard Monk / Localism: howard[at]localism.org.uk
UK Press: Sean Newsham / Mutante Inc: sean[at]mutante-inc.demon.co.uk
above clip feat. Kirsten Morell and Chrysalids band. Shot by Florian Habicht + Chris Pryor at Unitec, puppets by Oly Smart from LP Little Death (2006).
Heart of Misery wins Saddest Music in the World Competition in Berlin 2009. Live in London feat. Mika Doo and Delaney Davidson.
"Impressive simple beauty." - Organ Magazine UK
"Shimmering – one of the most perplexing and stirring efforts you will ever hear." - This Metal Sky
"Flax Happy seeps stealthily into the mind and takes root." - Rock ‘n’ Reel Magazine UK
"Stirs, swirls and seduces. Something of an essential purchase" - Mark Barton, losingtoday.com
"Lush and beautiful. Dark but uplifting." * * * * - Leeds Guide UK
"The escalating-in-excellence Steve Abel – equal parts disturbing and lullaby-esque. Sparse but dense, quiet but intense. Consummately relaxed danger." - The Quietus UK
“Abel is an extraordinarily good songwriter” - Alternatui Awards which named Little Death 2006 Album of the Year
“Abel is a refined writer whose lyrics have a bone-bare quality – the sound of someone writing and singing from a place where there is no guile, just hard truth and clear eyes.” - Graham Reid, elsewhere.co.nz
“Steve Abel’s part of cultural thing…which is a little bit about the reinvention of New Zealand. His music, its threads…it ties in with Tom Waits and all this stuff in America, but…there’s also something that’s been plucked out of Northland, some sort of seam or reality that’s been pulled out of the northern Wairoa river that’s just outside Dargaville." - Poet Greg O'Brien on Radio NZ
FLAX HAPPY (2008, Kin'sland Records)
Steve Abel's universally acclaimed sophomore release is "A fine collection of dark, otherworldly tunes - Sparse, spellbinding and special"**** (Marty Duda, Real Groove Magazine). FLAX HAPPY, which features Texan alt-folk chanteuse Jolie Holland and New Zealand's Anika Moa, foments the first album collaboration with the same band of musicians - newly named The Chrysalids. FLAX HAPPY was named in the Amplifier.co.nz best albums of 2008.
"Wonderful. Actually, beyond wonderful." - Andrew Tidball, www.cheeseontoast.co.nz
"Sublime" * * * * - Dominion Post
"A Rarity" * * * * - NZ Herald
"Steve has the balls and courage to examine everything, past, present, and most importantly, future. There is an inner-struggle going on here, and as noble as his intentions are, there’s got to be a collision of guttural emotions before anything can really be resolved, and the more I listen to this album, it’s this struggle within the grand confines of whatever the hell the future holds for him that is the guts of 'Flax Happy". - Pennyblack Music UK
Little Death (2006, Kin'sland Records)
Little Death was named 2006 Alternatui Album of the Year and listed in the NZ Herald's Best Sounds of 2006. The album features the seminal Duet (Lonely I Be) with Kirsten Morrell, and the rollicking Sweetheart among many other heart-rending tracks.
"Arrant musical hypnosis...a treasure" - William Dart, Radio NZ Concert FM
"A melancholic masterpiece" - Pavement Magazine
"Beautifully crafted" - Southland Express
“Richly poetic lyrics create a mood that is sometimes dark, sometimes mystical and bordering on the avant-garde. Listening to these songs is like viewing pictures in a gallery.” - NZ Musician Magazine
Described as “In a community of poet troubadours,” (Nick Bollinger, Radio NZ) Abel draws on old and new world alternative traditions. Both FLAX HAPPY and Little Death embody the alt-folk essence like few albums anywhere. The musical collaboration born has become a hypnotic live outfit described by the New Zealand Herald as a "kiwi supergroup" and newly named The Chrysalids: Gareth Thomas (Goodshirt), accordion; Geoff Maddock (Bressa Creeting Cake, Goldenhorse), electric guitar; Milan Borich (Bic Runga band, Pluto), drums; Mike Hall (Brunettes, Dimmer, Pluto), double bass; Steve Abel, acoustic guitar – and all sing. In the US and UK Abel has been variously joined onstage by Jolie Holland, Shahzad Ismaily, Patrick Nicholson (ROC) and Max Corradi (Rollerskate Skinny).
Steve has also played support and shared stage in recent years with Kristen Hirsch, Mark Eitzel, Malcolm Middleton, The Haints of Dean Hall, Micah P Hinson, Richard Buckner, Hayden, The Brunettes, Samuel Flynn Scott, Goldenhorse, The Vietnam War, Age Pryor, Don McGlashan, The Sami Sisters, Delaney Davidson and Paul McLaney, among many others. His song Hospice for Destitute Lovers features in the gothic fairytale feature film Woodenhead by Florian Habicht. He is currently based in Europe.
above clip shot by Nick Young at Harbourlight in Lyttleton
below shot by Ila Couch at Shahzad Ismaily's apartment NY April 09 feat Jolie Holland, Shahzad and Ryan Sawyer. Song from Flax Happy (2008).
STEVE ABEL & THE CHRYSALIDS | Arkadaşlar (En İyi 24)
STEVE ABEL & THE CHRYSALIDS, 1213 kişiyle arkadaş.
....FRIZZ RECORDS is proud to announce our fourth LP release...
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...
....FRIZZ RECORDS is proud to announce our third LP release...
"Anutha Kinda Brotha" is the debut LP from underground legend ART TERRY. Since moving to the UK from his native Los Angeles in the early 90s, Mr Terry has established himself as one of London's characters.
Describing Art's sound to the uninitiated usually involves debunking some of the stereotypes of what the 'typical' black Californian might play. Despite his jazz training, and coming of age to the sounds of classic soul and funk, these styles are only a part of his musical vision. His fascination with folk styles, classical music, punk rock, pure pop, easy listening, musical theatre and the European avant garde have taken him on different paths from most...
The result is an orchestral pop record full of sonic inventiveness, whether it's the blend of Shuggie Otis's 60s California and Sun Ra's ancient Egypt on 'Bible', Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons leading a mariachi band on 'Escort', or the Walt Disney music box orchestra of 'Miss Dominatrix', but whilst this is very much a sonic feast, we shouldn't overlook Art's extraordinary lyrical adeptness, and the distinctive character this brings to the proceedings, with a knack for unique and colourful imagery, and how like a great short story writer he is able to paint an engaging picture whilst keeping back from casting judgement on his characters, always leaving open ends for the listener to tie; giving us the feeling that however far astray someone might have gone, there is always sympathy and human feeling for them in Art's mind...
....FRIZZ RECORDS is proud to announce our second official LP release...
"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
....FRIZZ RECORDS is proud to announce our first official LP release...
"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
Congratulations, you deserved that 1st place in the contest! I really love that song, and I would love to join your choir one time!! So i hope to see you soon, come to Paris any time...Or then i'll have to go in London to see you and Mika and all the Sad friends... XXX
Hey Steve et merci pour la request ;)
On fait la release party de notre EP Mercredi prochain, le 09.09.09 au Motel à Paris!
Pour l'occaz, on jouera, on passera des disques et on boira des coups avec vous!
@ très vite ;)
Bises.
Arnaud.
i be there on the 22nd to sing with you on brighton ground. we indeed sang that song very beautifully. hoping for another moment like this...with you and mister laney some day.
i've almost forgotten about swiss luxury... what a pleasure so sweet.
Will Scott's new album, GNAWBONE is here!!! The CD is available at CDBaby and other online retailers.
Over three years in the making, GNAWBONE is Scott's fully-produced studio debut and features a crack team of hand-picked musicians as well as guest performances by Jan Bell, Jolie Holland, Samantha Parton, and Preacher Boy (the album's producer).
