Paramount Styles

Zespół założył w 2008 roku Scott McCloud, gitarzysta i wokalista związany wcześniej z kultowymi grupami: Soulside, Girls Against Boys i New Wet Kojak. Do współpracy zaprosił swojego długoletniego druha, perkusistę Alexisa Flessiga, z którym tworzy trzon formacji, przez którą przewinęło się wielu świetnych muzyków, by wspomnieć Richarda Fortusa (Guns N’ Roses, The Psychedelic Furs),Geoffa Sanoffa (Edsel, Stratosphere) Simona Lenskiego (DAAU) i Johna Schmersala (Brainiac, Enon). Ich muzyka to klimatyczny noir rock. Na swoim koncie mają trzy długogrające płyty: Failure American Style, Heaven’s Alright i Distant Karma.

EN:

PARAMOUNT STYLES
‘Make It To Forever’ LP
Release: Oct 16, 2024 via God Unknown Records

Fourth full length LP record from Scott McCloud
(Girls Against Boys) solo project Paramount Styles.
Conceived as as a vehicle for more acoustic guitar
based material, “Make It To Forever” is the most
intimate set of songs yet. Recorded in Athens,
Greece, after a solo tour years ago, the songs were
purposely left for a decade to age, locked away. A
time capsule waiting to be be revisited. In early 2023
McCloud returned to Athens to finish the songs.
Engineered, produced & mixed by Dimitris
Dimitriades in Athens.

Paramount Styles has always a rotating cast of
guests and performers.‘Make It To Forever’ is no exception.
Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields) joins for vocals on
‘Come Round.’ Julia Kent (Antony & the Johnsons)
adds cello on several tracks. Winston Yu (fellow DC
expat) compliments some songs on violin and Keys.
Hannah Moorhead (NYC/ Live Skull, others)
provides bass and backing vocals, as well as coproduction
credit. Charles Bennington (New Wet Kojak) plays saxophone on a few. Many more. This is the first PS album since 2017’s
‘Distant Karma.’ ALL PS music is available to stream
on all digital formats. There will be FULL BAND tours
in support of the new LP starting October 2024.

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Elysian Fields to amerykański zespół wywodzący się z nowojorskiego Brooklynu, założony w 1995 roku przez współkompozytorów Jennifer Charles (wokal, instrumenty) i Orena Bloedowa (gitara). Ich muzyka jest czasami określana jako „noir rock” ze względu na jej duszny, mroczny i tajemniczy charakter, zarówno pod względem dźwiękowym, jak i tekstowym. Zespół używa głównie instrumentów akustycznych, głównie gitary, fortepianu, basu i perkusji, z okazjonalnym pojawianiem się instrumentów wschodnich, klasycznych smyczków i subtelnej elektroniki, a centralnym punktem brzmienia jest głos Charles.

EN:

Elysian Fields
’What The Thunder Said’ (2024, Ojet)

What the Thunder Said, the thirteenth studio album from Elysian Fields, marks the latest release in a fertile period for this enigmatic New York City band, following 2022’s acclaimed Once Beautiful Twice Removed. For this new recording, the core EF duo of Jennifer Charles and Oren Bloedow flew their French touring band (Matthieu Lopez and Olivier Pérez, also known as Matt Low and Garciaphone) across the Atlantic to work with them in New York. Over the course of their recent European tours the group has grown close and developed an understated, rhythmically-driven musical language that Jennifer and Oren are excited to have captured in these twelve songs.

The quartet recorded What The Thunder Said in New York along with longtime Elysian Fields creative collaborators Ed Pastorini and Thomas Bartlett. James Yost co-produced, recorded and mixed, bringing forth Oren and Jennifer’s sweeping sonic universes while the experience of lives lived in nearly 30 years together as a band are revealed in the lyrics. In that narrative, scattered with images of nature and the urban landscape, EF asks the big questions, mining the canvas of the world around them for the axioms and affections that help to tell the stories only Elysian Fields can conjure.

Jennifer’s voice is at its most fragile and gossamer (“This World Is Just A World” “Strawberry Moon”), traveling to dauntless, unshakeable places (“Must Have Meant” “Changeling” “Know Not Whorl”) or through the heavens (“Before The Crashing Waves” “I Can Give You That”). Sometimes through myth, sometimes through the tragicomic, and always through poetry imbued with searching and longing, EF continues to inhabit and reflect back to us the deepest truths of the human experience.