Hello Earth! Theo Bleckmann

• 1Running Up That Hill06:36
• 2Suspended in Gaffa04:14
• 3And Dream of Sheep04:48
• 4Under Ice03:30
• 5Violin02:41
• 6Hello Earth04:59
• 7Cloudbusting03:42
• 8All the Love06:00
• 9Saxophone Song05:07
• 10Army Dreamers02:30
• 11The Man With the Child in His Eyes04:35
• 12Watching You Without Me04:12
• 13Love and Anger03:52
• 14This Woman’s Work03:54
• Total Runtime01:00:40

Info for Hello Earth!

After tackling American composer Charles Ives and receiving a Grammy nomination for it and after releasing »refuge trio«, which has been awarded with an ECHO Jazz, and a solo album, Theo Bleckmann now takes on the outstanding songbook of British pop recluse Kate Bush.

The title is well-chosen. Avant-garde New York vocalist Theo Bleckman and his band approach the wonderfully bizarre, otherworldly songs of Kate Bush like aliens examining a new life form. Always precise and technically fastidious, Bleckman manages to be both adventurous and faithful to the material, probing each lyric for its meaning, while the talented band, hand-picked from New York’s fertile ‘downtown’ scene, create a spacey, ethereal backdrop which invests what are already extraordinary songs – Running Up That Hill, Cloudbusting, The Man With The Child in his Eyes – with a wide-eyed sense of wonder and discovery. It’s as if they landed in Kate Bush’s back garden and said “Take me to your Lieder!”. And its all wrapped in one of Winter and Winter’s gorgeously lo-tech Music Edition covers, which laugh in the face of downloads and make ‘albums’ worth owning again. (THE IRISH TIMES, Cormac Larkin) ***** (5 stars)

Theo Bleckmann, vocals, live electronic voice processing, toy piano, glockenspiel, caxixi
Henry Hey, piano, minimoog synthesizer, fender rhodes piano, prepared harpsichord, voice
Skúli Sverrisson, electric bass, voice
Caleb Burhans, electric five string violin, electric guitar, voice
John Hollenbeck, drums, percussion, crotales, voice

Theo Bleckmann.
A jazz singer and new music composer of eclectic tastes and prodigious gifts, GRAMMY NOMINATED Theo Bleckmann makes music that is accessibly sophisticated, unsentimentally emotional, and seriously playful. His work provokes the mind to wonder, but connects immediately with the heart.

Singer.
Bleckmann has released a series of gorgeous and irreverent albums on Winter & Winter, including recordings of Las Vegas standards, of Berlin kabarett, and of popular “bar songs” (all with pianist Fumio Yasuda), a recording of newly-arranged songs by Charles Ives (with the improvisational jazz/funk collective Kneebody), his Solos for Voice and Toys, where Bleckmann brought just his stunning vocal technique, his emotional commitment, and his suitcase full of oddly evocative voice-altering gadgets to the project of recording delicate songs and poems alone at a monastery in the Swiss Alps. In his newest project Bleckmann takes on the songbook of the British pop recluse Kate Bush: 'Hello Earth' - the music of Kate Bush is scheduled to be released in the winter of 2011.

Collaborator.
In addition to his work as a soloist, Bleckmann loves to mix it up with other musicians. He maintains an ongoing creative relationship with guitar phenomenon Ben Monder, generating a series of performances and a pair of albums that wreak beautiful havoc with standard expectations of jazz and rock. With John Hollenbeck and Gary Versace, he makes up Refuge Trio, a project exploring and reinventing the work of popular singer-songwriters as well as generating provocative original work. With singers Peter Eldridge, Kate McGarry, Lauren Kinhan, and Luciana Souza, he forms Moss, a collective that plays in the sandbox of jazz, folk, and rock, building new ideas and compositions for voices. Bleckmann has additionally collaborated with a remarkable roster of contemporary musicians and composers, including Laurie Anderson, Uri Caine, Philip Glass, Sheila Jordan, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kenny Wheeler, John Zorn, the Bang on a Can All-stars, and, most prominently, Meredith Monk, with whom Bleckmann worked as a core ensemble member for fifteen years. His uniquely flexible and colorful voice has also inspired compositions by, among others, Michael Gordon, Phil Kline, David Lang, Ikue Mori, Kirk Nurock, and Julia Wolfe.

Composer.
Bleckmann's joyous, mischievous sensibility is also manifest in his compositional work, which leaves listeners feeling as if their usual chair had been moved over a few inches when they weren't looking - familiar things look fresh and strange again for a moment. He has composed for a range of instruments from piano, violin, and kalimba to chimes, Glockenspiel, toy microphone, and sewing machines, setting exquisite poems by Rumi, Emily Dickenson, and Kurt Schwitters as well as building ineffable soundscapes with just his voice and a loop pedal. His most recent compositional achievement is an evening of original work for voice and the JACK String Quartet, commissioned by the Slought Foundation.

Mad Genius.
Bleckmann's approach to music and performance is unusual and provocative. His taste for risk-taking, coupled with rigorous technique, is clear in his unusual and varied ability as a sound improviser - an ability which is sufficiently in demand that he was commissioned to create the space alien language for Steven Spielberg's Men in Black. Bleckmann confesses to a love affair with performance art that informs his playful approach to music-making. Concerned that all senses be honored, he crafts each aspect of stage presentation (including expressive physicality and fabulous clothing choices) to create a context that completes and highlights the music. His thoughtfulness and articulacy about music and performance have led to recognition in unusual quarters, including a Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross and an article on vocal technique solicited for John Zorn's Arcana series, Volume III. Bleckmann's adventurous and extravagantly beautiful choices have led his work to be described as “from another planet” (New York Times), as “magical, futuristic,” (AllAboutJazz), “limitless” (Citypaper, Philadelphia) “transcendent” (Village Voice) and “brilliant” (New York Magazine), and left one critic wondering, “does he eat people food?” (AllAboutJazz). He has a gift for creating sounds listeners have never heard before, but pine to hear again.

In 2010, Bleckmann received the prestigious JAZZ ECHO award from the Deutsche Phono-Akademie in his native Germany and appeared on the David Letterman show with Laurie Anderson.

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