Keyboards, drum machines, and love songs ...
What happens when a girl who grew up singing Amy Grant songs into her hairbrush teams up with a guy who raised himself on New Order and wore only black for ten years? They make the dreamy, penetrating songs that have emerged for CINEMASCOPE, the upcoming album by LA-based dreampop artist Shannon Curtis, as helmed by her producer/mixer husband Jamie Hill (Jens Lekman, Chris Bathgate, Tremor Low).
Curtis says of the record:
“Our aim is to conjure the sound of the movies that play in your head, the words you wish you’d said in the moment, the feelings you just haven’t been able to shake.”
Early reports are that the new material is “hypnotic,” “like being caught in a dream,” and “incredibly beautiful.”
Buzzbands.la recently described Curtis’s sound as “downtempo dreampop.” The Los Angeles Times has described Curtis’s voice as being “like the love child of Fiona Apple and Norah Jones.” The Boulder Weekly puts it more vividly: “Curtis makes music that makes you want to dance in your underwear or cry in your beer.”
Curtis has released 3 EPs, one acoustic LP, and two 10-track maxi-singles over the last 5 years, all on the small independent label Saint Cloud Records. Saint Cloud has sold over 12,000 of those records to date, and Curtis’s songs “Boomerangs & Seesaws” and “Before the Sun” have been featured on ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars and MTV’s The Hills, respectively.
The new album’s first two singles, “Brightest Light In The Room” and “Let’s Stay In,” were released digitally worldwide by Saint Cloud Records in May and October 2011 respectively. Saint Cloud also released limited collector’s-edition CD maxi-singles for both songs, in handmade and individually serialized recycled packaging and featuring remixes by DJs from around the country. “Brightest Light” was inspired by and written for two of Shannon’s fans — both retired female US Army veterans of the war in Iraq — on the occasion of their wedding engagement.
“Brightest Light” and “Let’s Stay In” have been getting daily plays on internet radio giant soma.fm for the last 15 months straight.
Shannon’s newest single, “Anti-Gravity,” was released digitally worldwide by Saint Cloud Records on August 28, 2012. “Anti-Gravity” was written for Shannon’s next-door neighbor in South Pasadena, California, as she grieved the sudden death of her husband, noted opera composer Daniel Catán.
Shannon has been breaking new ground recently with her adoption of the “house concert” format for her touring and live shows; her recently completed two-month-long summer 2012 house concert tour brought her to 50 fans’ homes in 15 states across the country, with attendance at shows varying from 20 to 200. A live album from the tour was released on October 2, 2012.
Curtis’s Saint Cloud Records releases are:
Boomerangs & Seesaws (EP, 2007)
Paris Can’t Have You (EP, 2008)
Why Don’t You Stay? (EP, 2009)
“I play the piano and sing love songs” (acoustic LP, 2010)
Brightest Light in the Room (digital single and CD maxi-single, 2011)
Let’s Stay In (digital single and CD mega-single, 2011)
Anti-Gravity (digital single, 2012)
For more information:
http://shannoncurtis.net
Contact:
jamie@saintcloudrecords.net
+1 (415) 412-9029
