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CD
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HJR 066CD
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Silver Silver is LA-based singer-songwriter Simone White's most affecting and ambitious album yet. In contrast to her folk/country-tinged 2007 debut, I Am The Man (HJR 028CD/044LP), and 2009's quiet offering, Yakiimo (HJR 044CD), Silver Silver has White's soft voice framed by complex arrangements: there are pulsing, speaker-rattling bass tones, delicately-layered vocal harmonies, and exquisitely lush washes of sound. It is also the singer's most personal record to date. Fans of White's work may already be aware of her unusual life story. Born in Hawaii to a light-sculptor dad and folk-singer mum, burlesque grandmother and pop-song-writing aunt, White grew up moving across the U.S., her parents following the demands of a cult leader. Leaving home in her teens, White travelled, acted, took photos and made films, living in Seattle, Paris and London -- finally finding her voice as a musician in New York City. She worked with Nashville producer Mark Nevers (Lambchop, Bonnie "Prince" Billy) on her first two albums. Heralded by Rolling Stone Germany as "one of the really great American songwriters," White toured Europe regularly for three years before taking a break to make Silver Silver. She lives now in Echo Park, L.A. Grand themes mix with tiny details on this album. Feelings of personal loss led White to write "Flowers In May," a sensual, bittersweet celebration of life that matches her delicate vocal to a knocking beat, washes of guitar and nocturnal-sounding glitches. Silver Silver was a year in the making, and White worked with Samuel Bing and Julian Wass of Fol Chen at their L.A. studio. The record features guest spots from Andrew Bird, Thao, and Victoria Williams (all musician-friends White met through touring), and for the first time mixes songs with instrumental segues and textures, including a manipulated field recording of neighborhood street sounds.
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HJR 066LP
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LP version. Silver Silver is LA-based singer-songwriter Simone White's most affecting and ambitious album yet. In contrast to her folk/country-tinged 2007 debut, I Am The Man (HJR 028CD/044LP), and 2009's quiet offering, Yakiimo (HJR 044CD), Silver Silver has White's soft voice framed by complex arrangements: there are pulsing, speaker-rattling bass tones, delicately-layered vocal harmonies, and exquisitely lush washes of sound. It is also the singer's most personal record to date. Fans of White's work may already be aware of her unusual life story. Born in Hawaii to a light-sculptor dad and folk-singer mum, burlesque grandmother and pop-song-writing aunt, White grew up moving across the U.S., her parents following the demands of a cult leader. Leaving home in her teens, White travelled, acted, took photos and made films, living in Seattle, Paris and London -- finally finding her voice as a musician in New York City. She worked with Nashville producer Mark Nevers (Lambchop, Bonnie "Prince" Billy) on her first two albums. Heralded by Rolling Stone Germany as "one of the really great American songwriters," White toured Europe regularly for three years before taking a break to make Silver Silver. She lives now in Echo Park, L.A. Grand themes mix with tiny details on this album. Feelings of personal loss led White to write "Flowers In May," a sensual, bittersweet celebration of life that matches her delicate vocal to a knocking beat, washes of guitar and nocturnal-sounding glitches. Silver Silver was a year in the making, and White worked with Samuel Bing and Julian Wass of Fol Chen at their L.A. studio. The record features guest spots from Andrew Bird, Thao, and Victoria Williams (all musician-friends White met through touring), and for the first time mixes songs with instrumental segues and textures, including a manipulated field recording of neighborhood street sounds.
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HJR 044CD
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Yakiimo is Simone White's second and most accomplished album released by Honest Jon's. Part memoir and part American chronicle, this record is a sublime mixture of simple, Americana-steeped arrangements and White's own genre-defying combination of rawness and the gorgeous, intimate fragility of her voice. Mark Nevers produced this record with the same organic perfection he brought to her previous album, I Am The Man. But here, Simone White's songwriting has matured, and this collection of acoustic gems is even more exquisitely evocative. With both intelligence and wit, "A Girl You Never Met" explores the mind of a woman tired of life and at the brink of death. The aching string arrangement and breathy instrumentation fuse perfectly, to stunning effect. One of the album's signature pieces, "Victoria Anne," mixes gritty childhood memories with a transcendent humanity and affectionate love. Most of the songs are White's own compositions, but she includes a few by her friends, songwriting duo Frank Bango and Ricy Vesecky. "Candy Bar Killer" is a precious and deranged pop masterpiece, which Simone White's voice and heart-breaking guitar capture effortlessly. "Yakiimo" invokes the power of memory and the intoxication of myth -- an American dream of a different kind. These crystallized vignettes hang together so vividly and so eccentrically, you might think you've stumbled across a box of carefully-preserved curios in your grandmother's attic or an American photo album of snapshots from a dreamier time. And it's beautifully packaged too -- a curio in its own right, housed in a gatefold sleeve with a fully-illustrated 24-page booklet of lyrics.
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HJR 028CD
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"I flew to Nashville at the end of October 2004. Mark Nevers let me stay upstairs at his house in the kids' room. The house is also the studio. It's a big old wooden house with a huge oak tree out front, a porch with a swinging chair, two dogs a cat and his kids' toys all over the place. The piano is in the living room, there's a main recording room which would be a bedroom, although I also recorded in the hallway, the drums are out back in another room, everything is connected with windows so you can see each other. It's a very nice, casual atmosphere to record in... I was planning on doing just vocals and guitar. Recording before, I'd used a band and I never felt like I really got it right, partly because of my inexperience and the pressure of studio time, so I wanted to make it spare and simple, the way it sounds when I play live. Tony Crow came in and did piano on two tracks. I was there a week. After recording we'd all drink beer and have political arguments. Right away Marky pegged me as a hippie and even though I think he's a leftie at heart he likes to play the red neck. When I got back to New York I decided I wanted to add more instruments. I really liked being in Nashville and I didn't feel like it was finished. But I didn't get back there till April 2005. Marky brought in his musicians, his guys. He's got this great group that he uses all the time. We recorded live, all spread out through the house. I'd play them a song a couple times, they'd huddle and do this Nashville thing, talking in code. Then we'd record. Marky gave the recordings to Honest Jon's in February of 2006. He'd been working on the Candi Staton album for them. They wanted me to record some more, do some re-recordings, try some new arrangements. We finished it in October 2007." -- Simone White
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HJR 028LP
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LP version contains 3 bonus tracks.
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