Sylvie Simmons
Sylvie
America Canada Produced by Howe Gelb Giant Sand and Chris Schultz Debut album by esteemed writer and Leonard Cohen biographer Sylvie Simmons Light In The Attic has an impeccable reputation for uncovering rare and precious albums from the past Their latest release 'Sylvie' is haunting and outoftime but it is also a brandnew original debut album by a singerwriter who has been making music since she was a little girl but just for herself Like Devendra Banhart says Sylvie is a gem of an album fragile and fearless direct and poetic timeless and absolutely beautiful Like Rosalie Sorrels or Isobel Campbell on a lost desert night maybe with only the moon and a ukulele for company The raw delicate and sensual songs about love and love gone wrong are performed on a ukulele which here sounds like a broken harp or a heartbroken guitar I'd always thought of the uke as a toy a little handful of happiness says Sylvie but not any more My first ukulele in fact all my ukuleles came to me by accident under strange circumstances usually involving mysterious vanishing men From the moment I picked it up I fell in love A uke has a sad fractured sweetness and a modesty It doesn't try to impress you it almost apologizes for being there The notes are like feathers you play them and they're blown away in a second And yet these songs kept coming through this tiny instrument with all their heartbreak and truth intact The first person to hear them was Howe Gelb of Giant Sand I'd send them one at a time as I'd written them and if I left it too long before sending another he would ask for the next installment We would talk about recording an album of them one day and we did Meanwhile she began to make tentative moves back onto the stage having abandoned it in her teens due to paralyzing deerintheheadlights stage fright I guess as you grow up you become a little inured to that particular pain Sylvie says Or there's so much other pain it gets put in perspective Starting at the deep end she performed solo at SXSW going on to play a number of shows under the radar with celebrated guest musicians Late last year in a gap between tours Howe lured Sylvie to the desert where they recorded live to tape in Wavelab Studio in Tucson with Thoger Lund playing upright bass and Howe who produced the album backing her brilliantly on guitar synthesizers and piano I was staying in Tucson in a motel with no car running alongside the freeway in the hot morning sun and then we just went into the cool dark studio and played No rehearsals and no going back It was magic We planned to record ten of my songs including a couple I'd just written We ended up with twelve one spontaneous cover and an instrumental with all of us gathered around Howe's piano which sounds like the soundtrack to a lost David Lynch film It's apt that the album should be made in such a musically evocative setting because another love affair that informs the record is that of Sylvie and the USA LP housed in 'tipon' gatefold Stoughton jacket Lyric booklet included.
Tracklist
1. Moon over Chinatown
2. My Lips Still Taste of You
3. Hard Act to Follow
4. Lonely Cowgirl
5. Town Called Regret
6. The Rose You Left Me
7. Midnight Cowboy
8. Life Goes Bad
9. Who Knows
10. You Are in My Arms
11. Rhythm of the Rain
12. Midnight Cowboy (Reprise)
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