Music "We strive to make music an interesting and unique part of our films. We are especially proud of our collaboration with some of the following artists." Little Miss Sunshine Devotchka Devotchka may be the best band in America you've never heard of. This fascinating little quartet from Denver Colorado has made a wistful, beautifully-arranged something that isn't really an indie rock record, and isn't really a jazz record, and isn't really a mariachi/norteno (or Eastern European) folk record. It's the album Calexico should have been making all these years. It's the album you put on when you want to wallow, when you want to brood, when you want to shut your windows and close your blinds and lose yourself in the wistful tragedy of love and loss and hope and nostalgia that bubbles to the surface in all of your darker, finer moments. And though it could easily be the soundtrack to One Hundred Years of Solitude (what, with all the horns and guitars and the crooning Nick Urata), it's actually more spiritually related to the darker and finer moments of, say, Modest Mouse. ("Night on the Sun" the-world-is-ending-right-here-in-this-guitar-delay Modest Mouse, not the newly-minted disco It makes you think. It makes you long. It makes you dream. And if you can listen to the aching troubador ballad "Dearly Departed" without feeling the suffocating sensation of tearing flesh from bone that accompanies any true loss, then you haven't loved and you haven't lost and you shouldn't kid yourself that your better for it. - Mikel Jolet, Nov. 19, 2004 Website: http://www.devotchka.net
Mychael Danna Summary Mychael Danna has been scoring films since his 1987 feature debut for Atom Egoyan's FAMILY VIEWING, a score which earned Danna the first of his eleven Genie award nominations. Mychael is recognized as one of the pioneers of combining non-Western sound sources with orchestral and electronic minimalism in the world of film music. This reputation has led him to work with such acclaimed directors as Atom Egoyan, Scott Hicks, Ang Lee, James Mangold, Mira Nair, Billy Ray, and Denzel Washington. Danna studied music composition at the University of Toronto, winning the Glenn Gould Composition Scholarship in 1985. Mychael also served for five years as composer-in-residence at the McLaughlin Planetarium in Toronto. In addition to film scores, he has composed works for dance and a score for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's Gita Govinda, based on the thousand-year-old classical Indian poem, with choreographer Nina Menon. Danna has worked as composer on nine films directed by Atom Egoyan, including most recently WHERE THE TRUTH LIES, starring Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth. His other recent credits include Deepa Mehta's WATER; Bennett Miller's CAPOTE, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman; BEING JULIA, starring Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons; and Terry Gilliam's upcoming TIDELAND. Website: http://www.mychaeldanna.com
Everything Is Illuminated Gogol Bordello Summary Few bands embody the idea of culture-juggling 21st-century globalism better than Gogol Bordello. Made up of immigrants and refugees from Russia, the Ukraine and Israel, the members converged in New York four years ago with a mission to make a new kind of rock'n' roll that reflected their struggles and peripatetic heritage. Their sound is raucous, sweaty, tuneful and recklessly vibrant, like the punk and Gypsy music that inspired them. Helped by a downtown rock fringe that has been exploring klezmer and other Eastern European sounds for at least a decase, the group has become an underground phenomenon in New York. And as one of the first crossover groups of its kind...its popularity is a sign that interest in music from the Balkan and Slavic regions has stretched into the world of rock. Website: http://www.gogolbordello.com
Paul Cantelon Paul Cantelon, born in Los Angeles , California , started his musical career as a violinist, making his debut at the age of 13 at Royce Hall. Soon after hearing reclusive pianist Donalee Reubenet, he began his intensive piano studies. At 15, Paul started his studies with legendary pianist Vlado Perelemuter, at the Paris conservatory and began his concert career as a pianist. After a very serious bicycle accident at 17, which left him in a coma for a month only to emerge with significant amnesia, Paul began what would prove to be a most unusual evolution as a composer. He signed a recording contract with Capitol Records and released a solo piano record of Celtic hymns titled “In the Morning Early”. After studying under Jakob Latiener at the Juillard School and Dame Mary Berry at Trinity College, Cambridge, Paul began extensive touring in the Far East in support of his second solo piano of all original compositions titled “Paul Cantelon Solo Piano” for the Nippon Columbia label. In the early 90's, Paul formed the eclectic band “Wild Colonials” with singer Angela McCluskey, recording two albums for Geffen Records and performing with such artists as Joe Cocker, The Kinks, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, George Clinton, Rickie Lee Jones, King Crimson & Ry Cooder. The “Wild Colonials” recorded two albums for Geffen selling in excess of 500,000 units. In 1995, after composing a special centenary score for the Eisenstein classic silent film “Battleship Potemkin”, Paul finished a new collection of works for solo piano and piano trio, opening the Montreux Jazz Festival. These works were met with much critical acclaim from artists as diverse as Pete Townsend, Chick Corea and Phillip Glass. World-renowned cellist, Yo Yo Ma recently accompanied Paul for an exclusive performance of Paul's original compositions, as well as works from the standard cello/piano repertoire. Paul is presently working on a new collection of works, which will be recorded this spring under the guidance of acclaimed classical engineer/producer Tom Lazarus. Website: http://www.greatbigisland.com/paulcantelon
The Dana Fuchs Band The youngest of six musical children, Dana was raised in a small town in rural Florida surrounded by music – her older siblings' band playing classic rock in the garage, Ray Charles and Hank Williams on her parents' turntable, and a big dose of 70's and 80's funk at school. At the age of 12 she joined the First Baptist Gospel Choir and was singing, shouting, and praising the lord every week in a small black church on the outskirts of town. At 16 she was fronting a popular local band at a roadside Holiday Inn. It was the beginning of a hunger for singing and the stage that Wildwood, Florida couldn't possibly satiate. Soon she was headed north tellinmg friends and family she was "going to New York to sing the blues". Arriving in NYC alone and broke at the age of 19, Dana soon found herself down and out on Manhattan's Lower East Side. After the wake-up call of her older sister's suicide (Donna was Dana's first musical mentor), Dana pulled herself together, determined to reconnect with her passion for music and began hitting the local blues jams with a vengeance. It was at one of these jams that she met Jon Diamond, an established NYC guitarist who had toured with Joan Osborne and W.C. Handy Award winner Debbie Davies. Immediately recognizing a musical chemistry they formed the Dana Fuchs Band. Within a year the band was a feature act at NY's best blues clubs, often sharing the stage and performing with the likes of John Popper, James Cotton, and Taj Mahal. For another year Dana immersed herself in the blues, playing 3 long sets a night, 4 nights a week until 3 am, honing her already formidable vocal power and performance style, and building a large, loyal following. After 2 years of working the blues circuit Dana knew it was time for a change and decided to tell her own story and create her own music. She and Jon began writing intensively, putting together a solid body of original rock songs. Soon Dana was back on the Lower East Side again, only this time on stage with the band, debuting her songs to a packed house at Arlene's Grocery. The fan response was overwhelming. The band was soon selling out shows at The Mercury Lounge, The Stephen Talkhouse and BB King's, sharing the bill with national acts, Little Feat, Marianne Faithfull, and Etta James. Not long after the producers of the off-Broadway hit'Love, Janis', hearing raves about Dana from various cast and crewmembers, asked her to come in for an audition. Dana went in, sang a few bars of "Piece of My Heart," and, on the spot, was offered the role of Janis Joplin. Playing Janis 4 nights a week garnered Dana a whole new audience who were soon at the DFB's shows listening to Dana performing her own music. These songs can be heard on the band's debut CD, Lonely For A Lifetime, which was released to an enthusiastic response from both press and fans. Drawing from influences ranging from'60s Stax/Volt R&B, Lucinda Williams and The Rolling Stones, Lonely for A Lifetime, hints, lyrically, at Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, among others. Says Fuchs, "I wanted to capture a soulful and rocking vibe...but with an earthiness to it." Vocally Dana was inspired by legendary singers including Etta James, Otis Redding, Bobby Bland, Aretha Franklin, and Mavis Staples. Notable tracks include "Strung Out, "Lonely For A Lifetime" and "Bible Baby." Explains Fuchs, "These tracks are about addiction and religious hypocrisy, and like all of the tracks on the album deal with subjects that I have a deep personal experience with. It's crucial to me to have a passionate connection to what I'm delivering in order to create a sincere representation of me, my life and my influences." Producer, co-writer, guitarist Jon Diamond says: "Dana is blessed with an incredibly warm, powerful and textured voice. Her lyrics are direct and real. And while she has really studied the great soul, rock & blues singers, she has synthesized those influences into her own unique sound and style".
Jack Livesey COMING SOON |