Urchin PR
New Member
Choice Music Prize winner 2009
Adrian Crowley
& very special guests:
DM Stith
At Last An Atlas
Whelan’s, Wednesday April 7th, 8pm
Tickets €15 (incl booking fee) from www.tickets.ie, City Discs, Road Records, WAV box office [lo-call 1890 200 078] & Ticketmaster outlets nationwide
If ever there was a worthy winner of the prestigious Choice Music Prize then it is Ireland’s Adrian Crowley and his fifth and finest song-cycle craftwork 'Season Of The Sparks'. A collective cheer of goodwill resounded the Irish music industry when the result was announced in February. It caps an amazing and bizarre year that witnessed Adrian being beaten and mugged on the Dublin streets, finishing and releasing a new album, signing to Scotland’s eminent indie label Chemikal Underground, curating his own Homelights festival and welcoming a new arrival to his family.
Adrian's fifth album and the follow up to his rightfully lauded fourth, 2007's 'Long Distance Swimmer', 'Season Of The Sparks' is a languorously melodic piece of work. Recalling Bill Callahan, Robert Wyatt and Leonard Cohen, the album's beauty lies not only in the evocative melancholy of the lyrics but in the way they're brought to life by an idiosyncratic array of instruments like the Marxophone, harmoniums, Mellotrons and the odd shruti box. Much of Adrian's music often references nature and Season Of The Sparks is practically gorged full of Arcadian imagery with dreaming horses, bees, vines, honeycombs and kindling set against a backdrop of Robert Kirby-esque string arrangements courtesy of London duo Geese.
It's not all pastoral dreaminess though, with songs like The Wishing Seat and Liberty Stream offering stirring choruses and gloriously swirling piano to break up the tempo and in Squeeze Bees Adrian also manages to sneak in a cheeky Ivor Cutler song - and that can never be a bad thing.
DM Stith
David Stith comes from a musical family: his father is a college wind ensemble director and former church choir director; his grandfather is professor emeritus in the music department at Cornell University; his mother is a pianist; his sisters sing opera, play piano, tap dance, play timpani and are excellent soft ball players. David Stith grew up dreading the family ensemble's appearances in church, preferring instead to draw mazes on the blank sides of church bulletins during services. In fifth grade, a harrowing performance of Phantom of the Opera at a school assembly (accompanied by his mother on piano) nearly turned him off to music for good. He started a noise band in high school, called Starchild (or Starchildren, or The Pool --they never did quite decide); but they preferred painting their guitars over playing them. David wrote a lot of bad poetry during this time. In college, David attempted writing a novel and a children's book, illustrating his work with original woodcut prints. His pursuit of writing and illustration brought him from Rochester to Brooklyn, where he took up work as a graphic designer. While in Brooklyn, David befriended Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond), and soon after began facilitating, in small technical ways, the recording of her album Bring Me The Workhorse. This, in turn, spurred David to begin writing and recording songs of his own. It was a casual, private affair. He spent countless days stored away in his bedroom, sketching folk songs with epic electronic gestures, a rekindling of passions for his first familial love: music. David completed his first catalog of songs for an album called Ichabod and Apple, written and recorded in the first month of his song-writing experiments. Since then, he has set out to record his first album with Asthmatic Kitty, available sometime next year. It was no grand injunction that encouraged David to return to music. He writes songs for the same reasons he enjoys a good conversation: it's just natural. His songs come out of a knock-about life, pressed by the urge to overcome insecurities, to probe questions, to revisit dreams and visions.
http://www.dmstith.com
www.myspace.com/dmstith
At Last An Atlas
At Last an Atlas was born and lives in Dublin, Ireland. Currently he writes and records music in the house he grew up in using an organ, synths, sampler, nylon string guitar, vocals, noises and field recordings.
At Last an Atlas' first release is called "Ships Leaving", it is a split album with Paul O'Reilly, which was released on April 3rd 2009. His debut album "From Which We Were Raised" was released on February 6th 2010.
www.myspace.com/atlastanatlas
Adrian Crowley
& very special guests:
DM Stith
At Last An Atlas
Whelan’s, Wednesday April 7th, 8pm
Tickets €15 (incl booking fee) from www.tickets.ie, City Discs, Road Records, WAV box office [lo-call 1890 200 078] & Ticketmaster outlets nationwide
If ever there was a worthy winner of the prestigious Choice Music Prize then it is Ireland’s Adrian Crowley and his fifth and finest song-cycle craftwork 'Season Of The Sparks'. A collective cheer of goodwill resounded the Irish music industry when the result was announced in February. It caps an amazing and bizarre year that witnessed Adrian being beaten and mugged on the Dublin streets, finishing and releasing a new album, signing to Scotland’s eminent indie label Chemikal Underground, curating his own Homelights festival and welcoming a new arrival to his family.
Adrian's fifth album and the follow up to his rightfully lauded fourth, 2007's 'Long Distance Swimmer', 'Season Of The Sparks' is a languorously melodic piece of work. Recalling Bill Callahan, Robert Wyatt and Leonard Cohen, the album's beauty lies not only in the evocative melancholy of the lyrics but in the way they're brought to life by an idiosyncratic array of instruments like the Marxophone, harmoniums, Mellotrons and the odd shruti box. Much of Adrian's music often references nature and Season Of The Sparks is practically gorged full of Arcadian imagery with dreaming horses, bees, vines, honeycombs and kindling set against a backdrop of Robert Kirby-esque string arrangements courtesy of London duo Geese.
It's not all pastoral dreaminess though, with songs like The Wishing Seat and Liberty Stream offering stirring choruses and gloriously swirling piano to break up the tempo and in Squeeze Bees Adrian also manages to sneak in a cheeky Ivor Cutler song - and that can never be a bad thing.
DM Stith
David Stith comes from a musical family: his father is a college wind ensemble director and former church choir director; his grandfather is professor emeritus in the music department at Cornell University; his mother is a pianist; his sisters sing opera, play piano, tap dance, play timpani and are excellent soft ball players. David Stith grew up dreading the family ensemble's appearances in church, preferring instead to draw mazes on the blank sides of church bulletins during services. In fifth grade, a harrowing performance of Phantom of the Opera at a school assembly (accompanied by his mother on piano) nearly turned him off to music for good. He started a noise band in high school, called Starchild (or Starchildren, or The Pool --they never did quite decide); but they preferred painting their guitars over playing them. David wrote a lot of bad poetry during this time. In college, David attempted writing a novel and a children's book, illustrating his work with original woodcut prints. His pursuit of writing and illustration brought him from Rochester to Brooklyn, where he took up work as a graphic designer. While in Brooklyn, David befriended Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond), and soon after began facilitating, in small technical ways, the recording of her album Bring Me The Workhorse. This, in turn, spurred David to begin writing and recording songs of his own. It was a casual, private affair. He spent countless days stored away in his bedroom, sketching folk songs with epic electronic gestures, a rekindling of passions for his first familial love: music. David completed his first catalog of songs for an album called Ichabod and Apple, written and recorded in the first month of his song-writing experiments. Since then, he has set out to record his first album with Asthmatic Kitty, available sometime next year. It was no grand injunction that encouraged David to return to music. He writes songs for the same reasons he enjoys a good conversation: it's just natural. His songs come out of a knock-about life, pressed by the urge to overcome insecurities, to probe questions, to revisit dreams and visions.
http://www.dmstith.com
www.myspace.com/dmstith
At Last An Atlas
At Last an Atlas was born and lives in Dublin, Ireland. Currently he writes and records music in the house he grew up in using an organ, synths, sampler, nylon string guitar, vocals, noises and field recordings.
At Last an Atlas' first release is called "Ships Leaving", it is a split album with Paul O'Reilly, which was released on April 3rd 2009. His debut album "From Which We Were Raised" was released on February 6th 2010.
www.myspace.com/atlastanatlas
