Silence - Day 18 on Musical Advent Calendar

Today, Day 18 on the Musical Advent Calendar, brings “Silence” – in two forms. Allison Crowe’s brilliance as composer and performer is wondrously evident in each recording – captured a decade apart – and both created in the same, real-time, as the experience of listening.

Firstly, here’s Allison solo, singing and playing in a friend’s log-home on Salt Spring Island, Canada. This 2006 recording was released just last year on her “Sylvan Hour” album – described by pioneering culture blog Muruch as “truly a masterpiece” (http://music.allisoncrowe.com/album/sylvan-hour).

Second version of “Silence', open Day 18 on the Musical Advent Calendar, is this recording, live-off-the-floor – found on Allison Crowe and Band’s 2016 debut, “Heirs+Grievances” (http://music.allisoncrowe.com/album/heirs-grievances) – an album that’s marvellously enjoyable testament to Crowe’s “absolute personal commitment" to song (Some Diurnal Aural Awe) and “artistic genius” (The Celtic Music Fan):

Each day through Christmas delivers a new song – and today, a pair of recordings - opening on Allison Crowe’s Musical Advent Calendar @ http://allisoncrowe.com/MusicalAdventCalendar2016.html

2016

“Allison Crowe is an indie darling,” says Kyle Northrop, “grizzled veteran of the radio broadcasting industry”, in “iAm Indie: 15 for ’15”. Northrop’s album round-up for “BackLog Adventures” blog finds Crowe’s super, solo, “Sylvan Hour” keeping time with releases from Mountain Goats, Mumford and Sons, Alabama Shakes, Father John Misty and fellow Canadians Metric, & Ben Caplan among others. “With a voice on par with Sarah McLachlan or Joni Mitchell, Allison Crowe is a true hidden gem.”

http://backlogadventures.com/2015/12/31/iam-indie-15-for-15

A singular artist, touring and recording on her own for much of this century, in 2015 Allison Crowe (vocals, piano, guitar, fiddle, bodhran) made the transition to fronting a freshly creative and exciting musical group featuring: cellist/vocalist Céline Greb, guitarist/vocalist Billie Woods, multi-instrumentalist Sarah Melanie White, and bassist Dave Baird.

This news lands Crowe in “Monday Magazine's Top 20 stories from 2015”: http://www.mondaymag.com/news/363877541.html Laura Lavin, Editor of Monday, arts and culture monthly of Victoria, (capital city of British Columbia, Canada) – traces Crowe’s path from school bands in her birthplace of Nanaimo, BC to current work with Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador in her home of Corner Brook, NL and Summertimes as part of the Gros Morne Theatre Festival for which she musically directs TNL’s hit show, “Newfoundland Vinyl”: http://www.mondaymag.com/news/328960261.html (“Allison Crowe says so long to solo”).

2016 promises, firstly, “Introducing” / “Heirs & Grievances” – a double album, (one live set plus one studio set), from Allison Crowe and band – and then the galactically great show goes on the road. Happy New Year!

Circular Reasoning - Comes 'round Again

“Circular Reasoning” spins here with a 1933 and 1/3 Betty Boop classic from Fleischer Studios.

Musical time starts counting again with Allison Crowe’s “Sylvan Hour” wonderland: http://music.allisoncrowe.com/track/circular-reasoning-sh


Circular Reasoning from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

“Sylvan Hour is truly a masterpiece” says pioneering culture blog Muruch. (http://www.muruch.com/2015/05/allisoncrowe-sylvanhour.html)

Discover this music from a remarkable artist at a personal and creative crossroads in her life. “Sylvan Hour” is an album of songs bridging west and east, piano and guitar, then and now…

For fans of Allison Crowe at her purest, this is voice, one accompanying instrument – one take. Real-time performances in the sequence they’re played and sung by Allison in a log-home on Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada.

That afternoon the musician was in the midst of migrating from her birthplace of Nanaimo, BC, on Canada’s Pacific, to a new nest in Corner Brook, NL, on the Atlantic coast. Soon to fly east, Crowe bade farewell to those near and dear on western shores – including compatriot Kayla Schmah on Salt Spring, neighbouring Vancouver Island.

Decades earlier Schmah’s parents had made an epic trek to the Pacific Northwest from Central Canada – in a repurposed donut truck. Planting themselves in the Gulf Islands archipelago, they lived at first in a converted parachute in the woods. From the ground up the home-steaders then built a family dwelling out of Douglas Fir – their “sylvan castle”.

Allison and Kayla, as musicians had shared stages together from their teens onward (and, years later, becoming a film-scorer in Hollywood, Schmah brilliantly orchestrated and produced Crowe’s album “Spiral”.) Among the friends together on SSI this day was Ryan Adams (who, like Schmah was a recent graduate of Berklee College of Music and was en route to becoming an in-demand tv/film audio engineer in Los Angeles).

With mics and a laptop set-up in the living-room, Adams captured this set of the newest songs in Allison’s repertoire – originals including “Skeletons and Spirits”, “Running”, and “Silence” as well as a trio of covers (interpreting songs famously by Joni Mitchell, The Lovin' Spoonful and Aretha Franklin).

Also gorgeous, but differently so, essentially group versions of most of these songs were released near the end of that same year (2006) on Allison Crowe’s album “This Little Bird” (the title track a celebration of her migration). “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” is the sole sylvan session recording released before – it’s presented now within the full hour of music for all time.

Enjoy this most natural of talents – in this most natural of settings.

Silence

“Silence”- Allison Crowe from the sylvan castle on Salt Spring Island, Canada:
http://music.allisoncrowe.com/track/silence-sh

Crowe’s musical performance is paired with an excerpt from “Ménilmontant”, the 1925 silent film from auteur, director, Dimitri Kirsanoff and starring his collaborator Nadia Sibirskaia and Yolande Beaulieu as sisters.

Silence from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

A treasure of cinema’s avant-garde, you can find the full (38 minute) movie in the Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/menilmontant1924-25 with commentary by David Badagnani, who notes:

“Its story is told entirely in images, without the use of explanatory intertitles; Kirsanoff was among the very rare filmmakers of the silent era to attempt this. The film makes use of techniques such as montage, hand-held camera, ultra-rapid montage, and superposition to achieve the elusive, transcendent quality of ‘photogenie’ so sought after by the French impressionist film directors of the era. Ménilmontant, thus, comes closer to poetry than to narrative prose.”

“Sylvan Hour is truly a masterpiece” says pioneering culture blog Muruch. (http://www.muruch.com/2015/05/allisoncrowe-sylvanhour.html)

Skeletons and Spirits

Clock strikes 12 for the second time in a “Sylvan Hour” selection – awakening Allison Crowe’s “Skeletons and Spirits” in this recording from Salt Spring Island’s sylvan castle:

          

In 1933 Ladislas Starewitch and his daughter, Irene, produced and directed "Fetiche Mascotte" – in English “The Mascot” – and it’s an excerpt from this classic film seen here with Allison’s musical performance.

Skeletons and Spirits - Sylvan Hour from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

Stop-motion animation pioneer and imaginative genius Władysław Starewicz was born in 1882 in Moscow, Russia to Polish parents. Following the October Revolution of 1917, he resettled in France –adopting the name Ladislas Starewitch (or Starevitch). Creator of the first puppet-animated film, he’s legendary for his use of insects and other animals as film protagonists and for his fantastic, inventive, techniques.

Starewitch died in 1965 while working on “Comme chien et chat” (“Like Dog and Cat”). Since 1991, his granddaughter, Léona Béatrice, together with her husband, François Martin, has been restoring and bringing to the world his wonderfully artful films: http://starewitch.pagesperso-orange.fr

Phoenix

“Phoenix” rises next from Allison Crowe’s “Sylvan Hour”. Snow fell on Newfoundland, Canada this week – and, even in the cold and dark, we’re witness to irrepressible spirit and positive strength. Inspiration!


Phoenix from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

It’s said that “Meet John Doe” represents an attempt by Frank Capra, the great Italian-born American film director, (known for more care-free populist classics - “It Happened One Night”, “It’s a Wonderful Life” and others), to “work out his own fears and questions” about the future of the people. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story, this 1941 movie stars Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Edward Arnold and, as “The Colonel”, Walter Brennan (who rails against “the heelots” – the “greedy-guts’’ in our society, as Buffy Sainte-Marie calls them.)

http://music.allisoncrowe.com/track/phoenix-sh 

There Is

There Is from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

“There Is” – time for the next revolution of Allison Crowe’s “Sylvan Hour”. For visuals we cut once more to “The Chase”. Michèle Morgan and Robert Cummings seek a way out in this 1940s film noir.

A Case of You

A Case of You from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

Allison Crowe uncorks vintage “A Case of You” – off her “Sylvan Hour” album – with passion and artistry recognizing two great Canadian musical inspirations intertwined in the song – its writer, Joni Mitchell, and muse, Leonard Cohen. Cinematically, Frank Borzage directs the adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” –scenes hear featuring the film’s leading stars Helen Hayes, Gary Cooper and Adolphe Menjou.

Effortless

“Effortless” sailing from Allison Crowe's "Sylvan Hour" into scenes from “The Chase”, a 1946 film noir – screenplay by Philip Yordan based on Cornell Woolrich's novel, “The Black Path of Fear”. Directed by Arthur D. Ripley, produced by Seymour Nebenzal, the movie’s stars appearing here are French actress Michèle Morgan and American Robert Cummings.

Sylvan Hour Chimes Darling Be Home Soon

This beautiful solo performance of "Darling Be Home Soon", penned by the great American songsmith and musician John Sebastian - a hit for The Lovin' Spoonful in 1967 - leads off Allison Crowe's Sylvan Hour. The video features scenes from the 1932 film adaptation of  Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" - directed by Frank Borzage and featuring here the wonderful Helen Hayes.

"Sylvan Hour" is now! Simply gorgeous. Gorgeously simple.

Allison Crowe music from the "sylvan castle" is available via:

Bandcamp @ http://music.allisoncrowe.com/album/sylvan-hour
+ CDBaby @ http://cdbaby.com/cd/allisoncrowe12
+ Amazon @ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X0TZPDA
+ iTunes @ https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sylvan-hour/id990555727
+ Spotify @ https://play.spotify.com/album/6aghUiFU1nE7ICTciRLodN and more.

Soon, everywhere :) 

Muruch Intros Subscription Service

Discerning culture blog Muruch, which has been illuminating the riches of music and other popular culture online for near 15 years now, very, very kindly introduces people today to Allison Crowe’s new Artist Subscription on Bandcamp http://www.muruch.com/2015/05/allisoncrowe-bandcamp.html - saying, "no other artist has such a flawless record of artistic authenticity as Allison Crowe".

(And, for folks watching the calendar, we’ve been so overwhelmed with such kindness this week the album release of Allison’s “Sylvan Hour” will be this coming Tuesday, May 5 - to enable some more fun things to come together…)

Sylvan Hour Nears

“Sylvan Hour” arrives this Friday - May 1. Here’s the album’s front and back covers - and some word on a classic song collection:

 

 

Discover this music from a remarkable artist at a personal and creative crossroads in her life. “Sylvan Hour” is an album of songs bridging west and east, piano and guitar, then and now…

 

For fans of Allison Crowe at her purest, this is voice, one accompanying instrument – one take. Real-time performances in the sequence they’re played and sung by Allison in a log-home on Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada.

 

That afternoon the musician was in the midst of migrating from her birthplace of Nanaimo, BC, on Canada’s Pacific, to a new nest in Corner Brook, NL, on the Atlantic coast. Soon to fly east, Crowe bade farewell to those near and dear on western shores – including compatriot Kayla Schmah on Salt Spring, neighbouring Vancouver Island.

 

Decades earlier Schmah’s parents had made an epic trek to the Pacific Northwest from Central Canada – in a repurposed donut truck. Planting themselves in the Gulf Islands archipelago, they lived at first in a converted parachute in the woods. From the ground up the home-steaders then built a family dwelling out of Douglas Fir – their “sylvan castle”.

 

Allison and Kayla, as musicians had shared stages together from their teens onward (and, years later, becoming a film-scorer in Hollywood, Schmah brilliantly orchestrated and produced Crowe’s album “Spiral”.) Among the friends together on SSI this day was Ryan Adams (who, like Schmah was a recent graduate of Berklee College of Music and was en route to becoming an in-demand tv/film audio engineer in Los Angeles).

 

With mics and a laptop set-up in the living-room, Adams captured this set of the newest songs in Allison’s repertoire – originals including “Skeletons and Spirits”, “Running”, and “Silence” as well as a trio of covers (interpreting songs famously by Joni Mitchell, The Lovin' Spoonful and Aretha Franklin).

 

Also gorgeous, but differently so, essentially group versions of most of these songs were released near the end of that same year (2006) on Allison Crowe’s album “This Little Bird” (the title track a celebration of her migration). “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” is the sole sylvan session recording released before – it’s presented now within the full hour of music for all time.

 

Enjoy this most natural of talents – in this most natural of settings.

 

Running

“Sylvan Hour” nears this Spring. Simply gorgeous. Gorgeously simple. It's an album of Allison Crowe music simultaneously familiar and revelatory.

“Running” is one of 13 coming attractions in this traveling fair of song. Drawing us into the Big Top is “Betty Boop’s Crazy Inventions” – calliope and all - helping get the point across.