Laura Stevenson announces New Album “Wheel”+Free Download

Laura Stevenson is thrilled to announce the release of her newest full-length album Wheel, out April 23rd on Don Giovanni Records (Screaming Females, Hilly Eye). Wheel features strings by Grammy award winning violinist Rob Moose (Bon Iver, Antony And The Johnsons), brass accompaniment from Kelly Pratt (Beirut, Arcade Fire, David Byrne and St. Vincent), and was produced and mixed by Kevin McMahon (Swans, Titus Andronicus, Frightened Rabbit, Real Estate).

Stream/Download “Runner

 

The Brooklyn based artist will also release a three song 7″ EP for the album’s first single “Runner” with a release party at Music Hall of Williamsburg on February 8th. In March she and her band will take to the road, playing dates throughout the east coast and southern states with a stop at SXSW along the way. Upcoming tour dates below.

Pre-Order the “Runner” 7″ EP on Don Giovanni, iTunes

Laura Stevenson was born and raised on Long Island with music in her blood. Her grandfather Harry Simeone a successful composer (“Little Drummer Boy”, “Do You Hear What I hear”) and her grandmother Margaret McCravy (stage name McCrae) a singer for bandleader Benny Goodman. On Wheel she pours geography and heritage into the record, tackling family dynamics of dependence and support, and the feelings of isolation and insignificance that she has experienced while growing up surrounded by a vast body of water on a planet surrounded by an endlessly expanding universe. The album is also about coming to terms with these relationships and feelings, as well as her own and other’s mortality. Many of the lyrics on the album explore these themes before coming back to an understanding and acceptance of our place in the world, the short time we will spend here, and the people we end up sharing it with.

Upcoming Tour Dates:

FEBRUARY

08 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg (“Runner” 7″ EP Release Show)

MARCH

09 – Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore
10 – Cincinnati, OH – Southgate House
13-16 – SXSW 2013
17 – Hot Springs, AR – Low Key Arts
18 – Decatur, AL – Excalibur
19 – St. Louis, MO – The Firebird
20 – Columbus, OH – Rumba Café
21 – Rochester, NY – The Bug Jar

www.laurastevenson.net

Émilie Simon Premieres Remix MP3 From “Rainbow” EP , Album Out April 26!

Émilie Simon

The Big Machine

(Le Plan, April 26; vinyl April 16)
 
Rainbow EP Released Today,
The Big Machine, Out April 26

“Rainbow” (Remix Émilie)  MP3 Premiered On URB!
“inventive”
– The New Yorker
 
“… songwriter with a demure crackly voice whose music is rooted in Björk-esque notions of how technology and nature stream together.”
– SPIN
 
“… an electro-pop singer with a thump, purr, and sizzle.”
– Interview
 
“Upbeat stomping epics that build and build”
– The Independent
 
One of France’s most renowned artists, Émilie Simon, launched her career in 2003 and immediately captured the imagination of a large audience with her sprawling and elegant musical fantasies, earning three Victoires de la Musique (France’s Grammy equivalent) during the course of her first three albums. She gained international acclaim for scoring the smash documentary March of the Penguins and saw her first US release in 2006 with The Flower Book. In 2008, she relocated to Brooklyn where she recorded her new album The Big Machine surrounding herself with talented guests such as Kelly Pratt and Jeremy Gara (Arcade Fire) as well as Jon Natchez (Beirut) or Mark Plati (David Bowie, The Cure, Brazilian Girls). The Big Machine will released April 26 on Le Plan.  If you can’t wait until then, be sure to check out the Rainbow EP that dropped today on iTunes.  You can download the “Rainbow” (Remix Émilie) MP3 from the EP where it premiered on URB!
 
The Big Machine is full of Émilie’s powerful and seductive voice, inventively playful arrangements, driving synths and rhythms, and prodigious melodies. “The Ballad of the Big Machine” driving piano and horns punctuate Émilie’s plea to let her in.  The percolating rhythm of “The Cycle” commands you to dance as Émilie’s voice wraps itself around the beats and soars until the song explodes. “Rocket to the Moon” takes us back to an era that didn’t quite exist, it’s big band sound is reminiscent of the 1920s is also decorated with futuristic flourishes. “This is Your World” ends the adventure with a command to reclaim the world.
 
Émilie Simon is equal parts breathtaking grandeur and bewitching intimacy. Her iconic style has made her a respected voice in fashion. She is often seen donning dresses by Yeojin Bae, Jean-Paul Gauthier or Vivienne Westwood and collaborated with Paule Ka to design her stage attire. She blazes her own trail aesthetically, incorporating vintage clothing or up and coming designers to more established names, toying with fashion as she does with sounds.