| Nerina Pallot |
| The Sound and the Fury (11th September, 2015) |
Nerina Pallot — The Sound and the Fury (11th September, 2015) • Škála nabídky u tohoto alba končí na unikátním boxu za £1.000 (liber = 36.900 czk approx). Ručně vyráběné umělecké dílo. Základní nabídkou je podepsané cd za £12,85; vinyl za přibližně dvojnásobek. The Sound And The Fury je drsné a podivuhodné, oduševnělé, přesto pokorné, emocionální, ale stabilní album. Můžete slyšet vlivy blues, popu a rocku. Celkově je sound zemitější, o zvuk si však u ní nemusí nikdo dělat starosti, tím je proslulá, vždy na něj klade důraz (Programer, Mixed, Engineer, Moog Synthesizer, Producer: Andy Chatterley). V interview Nerina vysvětlí, proč se věnuje tématu Rousseau. Má ráda všechny ty jižně–gotické věci — jako Williama Faulknera a Donnu Tartt. Používá jednoduchý, krásný jazyk, který nevyžaduje mnoho slov. Pár, dobře zvolených slov, je mnohem účinnějších. Nezapomínejme, že ovládá jak kytaru (5 skladeb), tak piano a to všechno rámuje její krásný hlas. Nerina Pallot má impozantní životopis. Byla nominována na Brit Award v roce 2007 jako nejlepší British Female Solo Artist (v Earls Court, London zvítězila nakonec Amy Winehouse), a napsala písně pro Kylie Minogue a Dianu Vickers.
• Adaptable English alternative singer/songwriter with multiple chart appearances in the U.K. Birth name: Nerina Natasha Georgina Pallot
Born: 26 April 1974, London, UK
Origin: Jersey, Channel Islands ~~ London, UK
Album release: 11th September 2015
Record Label: Idaho Records
Duration: 47:36
Tracks:
01. There Is a Drum 4:23
02. Ain’t Got Anything Left 4:20
03. Rousseau 3:58
04. If I Had A Girl 3:52
05. Boy On The Bus 3:46
06. Handle 4:25
07. Spirit Walks 2:38
08. Big White House 4:44
09. The Road 5:20
10. Blessèd 5:00
11. Longest Memory 5:10
Credits:
• Arranged by [Strings], Violin — Sally Herbert (tracks: 1, 3, 6 to 11)
• Artwork — Luke Insect Studio
• Backing Vocals — Andy Chatterley, Carlos Garcia (13) (tracks: 4), Lewis Wright (tracks: 4), Mark Ferguson (4) (tracks: 4)
• Bass — Mark Ferguson (4) (tracks: 2, 4, 5, 10)
• Cello — Ian Burdge (tracks: 1, 3, 6 to 11)
• Drums — Lewis Wright (tracks: 2, 4, 5, 10)
• Engineer [Assistant] — Manon Grosjean
• Guitar — Carlos Garcia (13) (tracks: 4, 10), Nerina Pallot, Tim Van der Kuil (tracks: 1, 2, 5, 9, 10)
• Liner Notes — Nerina Pallot
• Mastered by — Sascha 'Busy' Bühren
• Mixed by — Andy Chatterley
• Painting — Nerina Pallot
• Photography by — Cat Garcia
• Producer — Andy Chatterley, Nerina Pallot (tracks: 2 to 7, 10)
• Programmed by — Andy Chatterley
• Recorded by — Andy Chatterley, Richard Woodcraft (tracks: 2, 4, 5, 10)
• Synth — Andy Chatterley, Nerina Pallot
• Synthesizer [Moog] — Andy Chatterley, Lewis Wright (tracks: 8)
• Vibraphone — Lewis Wright (tracks: 7, 8)
• Vocals, Piano — Nerina Pallot
• Written by — Andy Chatterley (tracks: 1, 8, 9, 11), Nerina Pallot Notes:
•Ξ• Those who supported the project through PledgeMusic received signed copies on day of release.
•Ξ• Front flap of gatefold sleeve holds credits and lyrics poster.
Product Description
•Ξ• The Sound And The Fury, Nerina’s fifth album, is released on September 11th on her own Idaho Records. To describe the album as a departure from its four predecessors is something of an understatement. When Nerina says it’s her mid–life crisis album, she’s only half joking. When she says it isn’t her happiest collection of songs, she isn’t kidding. The album is as tempestuous as its title suggests. It’s a bold, bluesy, Biblical storm, in turns restless, aggressive and defiant. Sonically too there’s been a shift. Inspired by Nerina and her producer (and husband) Andy Chatterley’s collective electronic roots it’s atmosphere crackles with electronics, space is as vital as sound and textures matter as much as melodies. From the crackling, menacing electro–blues of opener This Is A Drum to spectral, reflective, electro-classical closer The Longest Memory, The Sound And The Fury is as beguiling beautiful as it is disturbingly dark. Inspired by actual events and the emotions they evoked, The Sound And The Fury is an album of stories, from the city, from inside Nerina’s mind, from weeks spent glued to the news. It’s about love, loss and survival as much as any heartbreak album. It’s about one woman and her fears for her family, but it’s also about where the world is at right now and where it will be in the future.
•Ξ• This unique item contains the original painting by Nerina that became the artwork for the album ‘The Sound and the Fury’. It also includes the complete edition of ‘The Sound and The Fury’ Collector’s Box Set. Including the full set of Nerina Pallot’s 12 2014 EPs on CD, and 11 paintings (approx. 12.5 × 12.5 cm each) for each song on the album, made up and guillotined from a larger piece of artwork hand painted and created by Nerina, Each painting with be a composite part of the larger painting. Each piece will be numbered on the back and signed on the front.
•Ξ• Comes with a CD of the album signed by Nerina Pallot, delivered separately.
•Ξ• Includes an AccessPass to view private updates from Nerina, detailing the creation of the box set’s paintings, and includes postage and packaging. Review
By Marcus Floyd | Published On September 11, 2015 | Score: 4 / 5 stars
•Ξ• Nerina Pallot has an impressive CV. She’s been nominated for a Brit Award in 2007 for Best British Female, and she has written songs for the likes of Kylie Minogue and Diana Vickers. Across her four studio albums and array of EP’s the world has gotten to know and love her beautiful voice, but little did we know there was an edgier side to Pallot we haven’t really seen. Her new album The Sound And The Fury shows us an earthier side to the singer, the sound she is renowned for has been put on the shelf in favour of something new.
•Ξ• The change up becomes apparent with powerful opener There Is A Drum, the beat drums persistently and Pallot’s bluesy vocal drives the track well. Rousseau has a more airy approach, but soon the grit returns for the snappy If I Had A Girl. Nerina has never sounded so raw, with piano ballads as emotional as Handle you get to appreciate what she can do with that voice of hers. Lead single The Road is an interesting listen, a strange single choice too, but its different elements really come together and create something unique. The acoustic guitar and luscious vocal work delivers Blessed, and closing track Longest Memory continues the downtime with its smooth atmosphere. Just when you thought that Nerina Pallot couldn’t get any better or diversify her sound, you thought wrong. The Sound And The Fury is gritty and wondrous, soulful yet humble and emotional but stable. You can hear influences of blues, pop and rock, and Pallot hasn’t lost her singer/songwriter Midas touch; the album flowed quite well, each song sounded like it belonged. Nerina sure is a talent and deserves the recognition she has received: The Soul And The Fury is surely one of her stand out albums. • http://renownedforsound.com/
Early life:
•Ξ• Although she was born in London, Pallot was brought up in Jersey by a half–French father and a mother from Allahabad, India together with her sister. Pallot played piano as a child and wrote her first song aged 13. She has identified seeing singer and pianist Kate Bush perform her hit song "This Woman's Work" on television series Wogan as a catalyst for her to pursue a music career. She attended Jersey College for Girls, and received a music scholarship for Wellington College.
Personal life:
•Ξ• In early 2006 Pallot became engaged to Howard Willing, one of the producers who worked on her second album Fires, but the relationship ended later that year.
•Ξ• Pallot met fellow Jersey resident and Grammy Award–nominated record producer Andy Chatterley in January 2007. They became engaged within the first half hour of their first date, and married six weeks later on 14 February 2007. The story was told by Pallot on Janice Long's BBC Radio 2 show on 3 June 2009. In 2009 she completed her degree in English Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. The couple now reside in London.
•Ξ• On 9 September 2010, Pallot gave birth to her first son, Wolfgang Amadeus Chatterley.
•Ξ• On 1 July 2012, while performing at Cornbury Festival, Pallot confirmed once again that she is a fan of Arsenal F.C..
Artist Biography by Jason Ankeny
•Ξ• Alternative singer and songcrafter Nerina Pallot was born in London on April 26, 1975. As a child she taught herself piano, later adding guitar to her repertoire before studying violin and opera at boarding school. After signing to Polydor, Pallot issued her debut LP, Dear Frustrated Superstar, in the summer of 2001, releasing the singles "Patience" and "Alien." After management secured her the opening slot on rocker Bryan Adams' upcoming arena tour, the label pulled the album from stores with an eye to reissuing the disc complete with a new single, "Photograph." But an appearance on the British children's television program Live and Kicking proved disastrous when fellow guest Faye Tozer of pop group Steps accidentally pushed Pallot off the show's couch; the mishap aired live and made Pallot the butt of much joking, and Polydor terminated her contract just a few weeks later, never returning Dear Frustrated Superstar to retail. Outside of contributing lead vocals to electronic duo Delerium's 2003 single "Truly," Pallot spent the next four years out of sight, finally resurfacing in the spring of 2005 with Fires, issued on her own Idaho label. The LP proved a critical and commercial favorite and was reissued in updated form a year later on the Warner subsidiary 14th Floor Records, reaching number 21 on the U.K. album charts. The single "Everybody's Gone to War" became a Top 20 hit. Her third studio album, The Graduate, followed in 2009 and hit the U.K.'s Top 50, an accomplishment matched by 2011's Year of the Wolf, a record that saw her back with Polydor. Wanting to shake up the writing–recording–single–album–tour routine, Pallot instead spent 2014 on a series of monthly self–released EPs she referred to as The Year of the EPs, and only limited performing in the U.K. 2015 saw her return to the full–length format with the gritty The Sound and the Fury, a mix of new songs and re–recordings of favorite picks from The Year of the EPs. Discography:
•Ξ• Dear Frustrated Superstar (2001)
•Ξ• Fires (2005)
•Ξ• The Graduate (2009)
•Ξ• Year of the Wolf (2011)
•Ξ• The Sound and The Fury (2015)
Website: http://www.nerinapallot.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/nerinapallottv
MySpace: https://myspace.com/nerinapallot
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NerinaPallotOfficial
Emma Banks at Creative Artists Agency —
Bio by Lisa Verrico
Nerina Pallot — The Sound And The Fury
•Ξ• Forget what you thought you knew about Nerina Pallot. Begin by tearing up the singer/songwriter tag that’s usually attached to her music. Or better still, burn it. Put the Ivor Novello and Brit Award–nominated piano ballads of the past to one side. Grab the joyous groove of 2011’s Bernard Butler–produced hit Put Your Hands Up and stamp it in to the ground. That heavenly voice? Give it some grit.
•Ξ• To describe Nerina’s new album as a departure from its four predecessors is too tame a way to say she’s changed. When she calls it her mid–life crisis album, she’s only half joking. When she shrugs and says it isn’t her happiest collection of songs, she isn’t kidding. Press play and you may wonder if the deep voiced songstress really is Nerina.
•Ξ• The Sound And The Fury is an album as tempestuous as its title suggests. It’s a bold, bluesy, Biblical storm, in turns restless, aggressive and defiant. Its atmosphere crackles with electronics, death and despair hang in the air and stacked strings stalk and soar. These are songs in which space is as vital as sound, in which textures matter as much as melodies, in which the lyrics creep up and soak in through your skin. From the crackling, menacing electro–blues of opener This Is A Drum to spectral, reflective, electro–classical closer The Longest Memory, The Sound And The Fury is as beguiling beautiful as it is disturbingly dark.
•Ξ• Its eleven songs were inspired by actual events and the emotions they evoked in news junkie Nerina. It began, unplanned, in the spring of 2013 with a death and a novel. The former was Margaret Thatcher’s passing, the latter Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
•Ξ• “Growing up in Jersey, I wasn’t directly affected by UK politics,” she says. “But I remember moving to London during the poll tax riots and seeing how angry people were. So the depth of anger and emotion when Thatcher died didn’t surprise me. And it solidified in my mind what I had been instinctively feeling in the last few years — that there are social divisions that have never gone away. So while I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the burning of flags and effigies celebrating her death, I completely understood why people responded that way when she left us such a toxic legacy.”
•Ξ• Around the same time, Nerina appeared on BBC Radio 4’s The Good Read, for which she was asked to read McCarthy’s post–apocalyptic Pulitzer Prize winner.
•Ξ• “I’d tried to watch the film when I was pregnant, but found it too harrowing,” recalls Nerina. “The book is extraordinary — so dark and terrifying. It’s about a father and son trying to survive on a dystopian planet where people have become cannibals. It’s about holding on to your morals when everyone around you is losing theirs.”
•Ξ• “The language is Biblical. You can literally hear the voice of God in the words. I love all that Southern Gothic stuff — like William Faulkner and Donna Tartt. It’s simple, beautiful language that doesn’t require lots of words. A few, well–chosen ones are much more effective.” •Ξ• Hence, the first two songs written for the album — The Longest Memory, a serpentine study of life and death, sonically influenced by Nerina’s long–held love of Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson, which hints at hope at the end of the album and The Road, a grimy, bluesy, hypnotic beats and drums–driven ode to self–determination.
•Ξ• Like most great albums, The Sound And The Fury owes as much to serendipity as it does planning. Nerina and her producer (and husband) Andy Chatterley had decided to experiment long before there was talk of an album. They had a collaborative project in mind and a desire to return to both of their more electronic roots.
•Ξ• “What few people know is that I started out in dance music and jazz,” says Nerina. “When I moved to London, I was playing keyboards on house records, listening to hip hop and hanging out at Subterranea. Andy was in the house scene. I suggested we go back to our roots a bit. He said people would think we’d gone mad.”
•Ξ• What they did agree on was to lean more towards the electronic music they had been writing and producing for other artists.
•Ξ• “A few key things occurred around that time,” says Nerina. “We were making this music for other people, but at the same time, I had got really in old blues, in particular Nina Simone. I was obsessed with a live album of hers from Ronnie Scotts. You couldn’t describe it as any single genre of music. It’s just a woman being honest and sparse with her language, getting right to the heart of the singing note.”
•Ξ• “That tied in with The Road and its language and my determination to be much less wordy than I have been in the past. The song The Road started with just a dark, almost industrial beat from Andy. I sang a melody with no harmony, which is unusual for me. As the song took shape, it was so much about atmosphere and textures. We added the background noises and buzzing, which makes it sound as though there’s static in the air. Or perhaps that’s just our rubbish recording.”
•Ξ• A few weeks after they’d begun, military drummer Lee Rigby was killed on a street in Woolwich and Nerina was back glued to the news, fearing the worst and wondering if London was a safe place to bring up her son. She wrote the album’s spine-chilling opening track, There Is A Drum, the same day.
•Ξ• “It was so distressing,” says Nerina. “I was born round the corner from where Lee Rigby died. I was scared for the area. There’s a big African and Indian community. It was where my mum moved to when she came from India. I wrote the song just trying to get my head round what was happening. It didn’t seem real. I couldn’t see the reason for it — I still can’t. It had nothing to do with religion, or Britain’s foreign policy coming back to bite us. It was just cold–blooded killing for the sake of it.”
•Ξ• Nerina and Andy had three songs written, but rather than make an album they embarked on the toughest project of their respective careers. 2014 was Nerina’s Year of EPs. She wrote, recorded and released a five track EP every month from January to December. She even did the artwork. Why? Because the pair were determined to do things differently.
•Ξ• “My last album was released on a major label, which in some ways was restricting,” explains Nerina. “The music industry has changed. These days, you can release what you like, when you like. I have a very loyal fan base and rather than put out these three, radically different songs, I wanted them to hear the transition from my old music to this, comment on it, give me feedback.”
•Ξ• The other eight tracks on the album began life on those EPs. At the end of a frantic 2014, in which Nerina also toured Britain and abroad, she and Andy chose the tracks they and the fans most liked and re–recorded them with strings, additional players and more polished production.
•Ξ• Among them is fan favourite Rousseau, punctuated by staccato electric guitar and strings and inspired, variously, by French painter Henri Rousseau, Swiss philosopher Jean–Jacques Rousseau and Joni Mitchell’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns. The sensual, sinuous, handclap, blues guitar and bass drum–backed If I Was A Girl is a feminist polemic in which Nerina imagines having a daughter instead of a son. Boy On The Bus is a shimmering, slow–building, heartbreaking ballad about leaving the city, inspired by the suicide of a young Chinese girl in the Camden canal that runs behind Nerina’s home and the subsequent murder nearby of schoolgirl Alice Gross.
•Ξ• Big White House is Nerina singing soul in the style of her idol Jill Scott, Handle bears the hallmarks of her love of James Blake, Spirit Walks is a bewitching blues song that woke Nerina up at 4am, demanding she record its lyrics on her phone straight away.
•Ξ• The Sound And The Fury then is an album of stories, from the city, from inside Nerina’s mind, from those weeks spent glued to the news. It’s about love, loss and survival as much as any heartbreak album. It’s about one woman and her fears for her family, but it’s also about where the world is at right now and where it will be in the future.
•Ξ• http://nerinapallot.com/wordpress/
_____________________________________________________________
| Nerina Pallot |
| The Sound and the Fury (11th September, 2015) |
• Adaptable English alternative singer/songwriter with multiple chart appearances in the U.K. Birth name: Nerina Natasha Georgina Pallot
Born: 26 April 1974, London, UK
Origin: Jersey, Channel Islands ~~ London, UK
Album release: 11th September 2015
Record Label: Idaho Records
Duration: 47:36
Tracks:
01. There Is a Drum 4:23
02. Ain’t Got Anything Left 4:20
03. Rousseau 3:58
04. If I Had A Girl 3:52
05. Boy On The Bus 3:46
06. Handle 4:25
07. Spirit Walks 2:38
08. Big White House 4:44
09. The Road 5:20
10. Blessèd 5:00
11. Longest Memory 5:10
Credits:
• Arranged by [Strings], Violin — Sally Herbert (tracks: 1, 3, 6 to 11)
• Artwork — Luke Insect Studio
• Backing Vocals — Andy Chatterley, Carlos Garcia (13) (tracks: 4), Lewis Wright (tracks: 4), Mark Ferguson (4) (tracks: 4)
• Bass — Mark Ferguson (4) (tracks: 2, 4, 5, 10)
• Cello — Ian Burdge (tracks: 1, 3, 6 to 11)
• Drums — Lewis Wright (tracks: 2, 4, 5, 10)
• Engineer [Assistant] — Manon Grosjean
• Guitar — Carlos Garcia (13) (tracks: 4, 10), Nerina Pallot, Tim Van der Kuil (tracks: 1, 2, 5, 9, 10)
• Liner Notes — Nerina Pallot
• Mastered by — Sascha 'Busy' Bühren
• Mixed by — Andy Chatterley
• Painting — Nerina Pallot
• Photography by — Cat Garcia
• Producer — Andy Chatterley, Nerina Pallot (tracks: 2 to 7, 10)
• Programmed by — Andy Chatterley
• Recorded by — Andy Chatterley, Richard Woodcraft (tracks: 2, 4, 5, 10)
• Synth — Andy Chatterley, Nerina Pallot
• Synthesizer [Moog] — Andy Chatterley, Lewis Wright (tracks: 8)
• Vibraphone — Lewis Wright (tracks: 7, 8)
• Vocals, Piano — Nerina Pallot
• Written by — Andy Chatterley (tracks: 1, 8, 9, 11), Nerina Pallot Notes:
•Ξ• Those who supported the project through PledgeMusic received signed copies on day of release.
•Ξ• Front flap of gatefold sleeve holds credits and lyrics poster.
Product Description
•Ξ• The Sound And The Fury, Nerina’s fifth album, is released on September 11th on her own Idaho Records. To describe the album as a departure from its four predecessors is something of an understatement. When Nerina says it’s her mid–life crisis album, she’s only half joking. When she says it isn’t her happiest collection of songs, she isn’t kidding. The album is as tempestuous as its title suggests. It’s a bold, bluesy, Biblical storm, in turns restless, aggressive and defiant. Sonically too there’s been a shift. Inspired by Nerina and her producer (and husband) Andy Chatterley’s collective electronic roots it’s atmosphere crackles with electronics, space is as vital as sound and textures matter as much as melodies. From the crackling, menacing electro–blues of opener This Is A Drum to spectral, reflective, electro-classical closer The Longest Memory, The Sound And The Fury is as beguiling beautiful as it is disturbingly dark. Inspired by actual events and the emotions they evoked, The Sound And The Fury is an album of stories, from the city, from inside Nerina’s mind, from weeks spent glued to the news. It’s about love, loss and survival as much as any heartbreak album. It’s about one woman and her fears for her family, but it’s also about where the world is at right now and where it will be in the future.
•Ξ• This unique item contains the original painting by Nerina that became the artwork for the album ‘The Sound and the Fury’. It also includes the complete edition of ‘The Sound and The Fury’ Collector’s Box Set. Including the full set of Nerina Pallot’s 12 2014 EPs on CD, and 11 paintings (approx. 12.5 × 12.5 cm each) for each song on the album, made up and guillotined from a larger piece of artwork hand painted and created by Nerina, Each painting with be a composite part of the larger painting. Each piece will be numbered on the back and signed on the front.
•Ξ• Comes with a CD of the album signed by Nerina Pallot, delivered separately.
•Ξ• Includes an AccessPass to view private updates from Nerina, detailing the creation of the box set’s paintings, and includes postage and packaging. Review
By Marcus Floyd | Published On September 11, 2015 | Score: 4 / 5 stars
•Ξ• Nerina Pallot has an impressive CV. She’s been nominated for a Brit Award in 2007 for Best British Female, and she has written songs for the likes of Kylie Minogue and Diana Vickers. Across her four studio albums and array of EP’s the world has gotten to know and love her beautiful voice, but little did we know there was an edgier side to Pallot we haven’t really seen. Her new album The Sound And The Fury shows us an earthier side to the singer, the sound she is renowned for has been put on the shelf in favour of something new.
•Ξ• The change up becomes apparent with powerful opener There Is A Drum, the beat drums persistently and Pallot’s bluesy vocal drives the track well. Rousseau has a more airy approach, but soon the grit returns for the snappy If I Had A Girl. Nerina has never sounded so raw, with piano ballads as emotional as Handle you get to appreciate what she can do with that voice of hers. Lead single The Road is an interesting listen, a strange single choice too, but its different elements really come together and create something unique. The acoustic guitar and luscious vocal work delivers Blessed, and closing track Longest Memory continues the downtime with its smooth atmosphere. Just when you thought that Nerina Pallot couldn’t get any better or diversify her sound, you thought wrong. The Sound And The Fury is gritty and wondrous, soulful yet humble and emotional but stable. You can hear influences of blues, pop and rock, and Pallot hasn’t lost her singer/songwriter Midas touch; the album flowed quite well, each song sounded like it belonged. Nerina sure is a talent and deserves the recognition she has received: The Soul And The Fury is surely one of her stand out albums. • http://renownedforsound.com/
Early life:
•Ξ• Although she was born in London, Pallot was brought up in Jersey by a half–French father and a mother from Allahabad, India together with her sister. Pallot played piano as a child and wrote her first song aged 13. She has identified seeing singer and pianist Kate Bush perform her hit song "This Woman's Work" on television series Wogan as a catalyst for her to pursue a music career. She attended Jersey College for Girls, and received a music scholarship for Wellington College.
Personal life:
•Ξ• In early 2006 Pallot became engaged to Howard Willing, one of the producers who worked on her second album Fires, but the relationship ended later that year.
•Ξ• Pallot met fellow Jersey resident and Grammy Award–nominated record producer Andy Chatterley in January 2007. They became engaged within the first half hour of their first date, and married six weeks later on 14 February 2007. The story was told by Pallot on Janice Long's BBC Radio 2 show on 3 June 2009. In 2009 she completed her degree in English Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. The couple now reside in London.
•Ξ• On 9 September 2010, Pallot gave birth to her first son, Wolfgang Amadeus Chatterley.
•Ξ• On 1 July 2012, while performing at Cornbury Festival, Pallot confirmed once again that she is a fan of Arsenal F.C..
Artist Biography by Jason Ankeny
•Ξ• Alternative singer and songcrafter Nerina Pallot was born in London on April 26, 1975. As a child she taught herself piano, later adding guitar to her repertoire before studying violin and opera at boarding school. After signing to Polydor, Pallot issued her debut LP, Dear Frustrated Superstar, in the summer of 2001, releasing the singles "Patience" and "Alien." After management secured her the opening slot on rocker Bryan Adams' upcoming arena tour, the label pulled the album from stores with an eye to reissuing the disc complete with a new single, "Photograph." But an appearance on the British children's television program Live and Kicking proved disastrous when fellow guest Faye Tozer of pop group Steps accidentally pushed Pallot off the show's couch; the mishap aired live and made Pallot the butt of much joking, and Polydor terminated her contract just a few weeks later, never returning Dear Frustrated Superstar to retail. Outside of contributing lead vocals to electronic duo Delerium's 2003 single "Truly," Pallot spent the next four years out of sight, finally resurfacing in the spring of 2005 with Fires, issued on her own Idaho label. The LP proved a critical and commercial favorite and was reissued in updated form a year later on the Warner subsidiary 14th Floor Records, reaching number 21 on the U.K. album charts. The single "Everybody's Gone to War" became a Top 20 hit. Her third studio album, The Graduate, followed in 2009 and hit the U.K.'s Top 50, an accomplishment matched by 2011's Year of the Wolf, a record that saw her back with Polydor. Wanting to shake up the writing–recording–single–album–tour routine, Pallot instead spent 2014 on a series of monthly self–released EPs she referred to as The Year of the EPs, and only limited performing in the U.K. 2015 saw her return to the full–length format with the gritty The Sound and the Fury, a mix of new songs and re–recordings of favorite picks from The Year of the EPs. Discography:
•Ξ• Dear Frustrated Superstar (2001)
•Ξ• Fires (2005)
•Ξ• The Graduate (2009)
•Ξ• Year of the Wolf (2011)
•Ξ• The Sound and The Fury (2015)
Website: http://www.nerinapallot.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/nerinapallottv
MySpace: https://myspace.com/nerinapallot
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NerinaPallotOfficial
Emma Banks at Creative Artists Agency —
Bio by Lisa Verrico
Nerina Pallot — The Sound And The Fury
•Ξ• Forget what you thought you knew about Nerina Pallot. Begin by tearing up the singer/songwriter tag that’s usually attached to her music. Or better still, burn it. Put the Ivor Novello and Brit Award–nominated piano ballads of the past to one side. Grab the joyous groove of 2011’s Bernard Butler–produced hit Put Your Hands Up and stamp it in to the ground. That heavenly voice? Give it some grit.
•Ξ• To describe Nerina’s new album as a departure from its four predecessors is too tame a way to say she’s changed. When she calls it her mid–life crisis album, she’s only half joking. When she shrugs and says it isn’t her happiest collection of songs, she isn’t kidding. Press play and you may wonder if the deep voiced songstress really is Nerina.
•Ξ• The Sound And The Fury is an album as tempestuous as its title suggests. It’s a bold, bluesy, Biblical storm, in turns restless, aggressive and defiant. Its atmosphere crackles with electronics, death and despair hang in the air and stacked strings stalk and soar. These are songs in which space is as vital as sound, in which textures matter as much as melodies, in which the lyrics creep up and soak in through your skin. From the crackling, menacing electro–blues of opener This Is A Drum to spectral, reflective, electro–classical closer The Longest Memory, The Sound And The Fury is as beguiling beautiful as it is disturbingly dark.
•Ξ• Its eleven songs were inspired by actual events and the emotions they evoked in news junkie Nerina. It began, unplanned, in the spring of 2013 with a death and a novel. The former was Margaret Thatcher’s passing, the latter Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
•Ξ• “Growing up in Jersey, I wasn’t directly affected by UK politics,” she says. “But I remember moving to London during the poll tax riots and seeing how angry people were. So the depth of anger and emotion when Thatcher died didn’t surprise me. And it solidified in my mind what I had been instinctively feeling in the last few years — that there are social divisions that have never gone away. So while I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the burning of flags and effigies celebrating her death, I completely understood why people responded that way when she left us such a toxic legacy.”
•Ξ• Around the same time, Nerina appeared on BBC Radio 4’s The Good Read, for which she was asked to read McCarthy’s post–apocalyptic Pulitzer Prize winner.
•Ξ• “I’d tried to watch the film when I was pregnant, but found it too harrowing,” recalls Nerina. “The book is extraordinary — so dark and terrifying. It’s about a father and son trying to survive on a dystopian planet where people have become cannibals. It’s about holding on to your morals when everyone around you is losing theirs.”
•Ξ• “The language is Biblical. You can literally hear the voice of God in the words. I love all that Southern Gothic stuff — like William Faulkner and Donna Tartt. It’s simple, beautiful language that doesn’t require lots of words. A few, well–chosen ones are much more effective.” •Ξ• Hence, the first two songs written for the album — The Longest Memory, a serpentine study of life and death, sonically influenced by Nerina’s long–held love of Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson, which hints at hope at the end of the album and The Road, a grimy, bluesy, hypnotic beats and drums–driven ode to self–determination.
•Ξ• Like most great albums, The Sound And The Fury owes as much to serendipity as it does planning. Nerina and her producer (and husband) Andy Chatterley had decided to experiment long before there was talk of an album. They had a collaborative project in mind and a desire to return to both of their more electronic roots.
•Ξ• “What few people know is that I started out in dance music and jazz,” says Nerina. “When I moved to London, I was playing keyboards on house records, listening to hip hop and hanging out at Subterranea. Andy was in the house scene. I suggested we go back to our roots a bit. He said people would think we’d gone mad.”
•Ξ• What they did agree on was to lean more towards the electronic music they had been writing and producing for other artists.
•Ξ• “A few key things occurred around that time,” says Nerina. “We were making this music for other people, but at the same time, I had got really in old blues, in particular Nina Simone. I was obsessed with a live album of hers from Ronnie Scotts. You couldn’t describe it as any single genre of music. It’s just a woman being honest and sparse with her language, getting right to the heart of the singing note.”
•Ξ• “That tied in with The Road and its language and my determination to be much less wordy than I have been in the past. The song The Road started with just a dark, almost industrial beat from Andy. I sang a melody with no harmony, which is unusual for me. As the song took shape, it was so much about atmosphere and textures. We added the background noises and buzzing, which makes it sound as though there’s static in the air. Or perhaps that’s just our rubbish recording.”
•Ξ• A few weeks after they’d begun, military drummer Lee Rigby was killed on a street in Woolwich and Nerina was back glued to the news, fearing the worst and wondering if London was a safe place to bring up her son. She wrote the album’s spine-chilling opening track, There Is A Drum, the same day.
•Ξ• “It was so distressing,” says Nerina. “I was born round the corner from where Lee Rigby died. I was scared for the area. There’s a big African and Indian community. It was where my mum moved to when she came from India. I wrote the song just trying to get my head round what was happening. It didn’t seem real. I couldn’t see the reason for it — I still can’t. It had nothing to do with religion, or Britain’s foreign policy coming back to bite us. It was just cold–blooded killing for the sake of it.”
•Ξ• Nerina and Andy had three songs written, but rather than make an album they embarked on the toughest project of their respective careers. 2014 was Nerina’s Year of EPs. She wrote, recorded and released a five track EP every month from January to December. She even did the artwork. Why? Because the pair were determined to do things differently.
•Ξ• “My last album was released on a major label, which in some ways was restricting,” explains Nerina. “The music industry has changed. These days, you can release what you like, when you like. I have a very loyal fan base and rather than put out these three, radically different songs, I wanted them to hear the transition from my old music to this, comment on it, give me feedback.”
•Ξ• The other eight tracks on the album began life on those EPs. At the end of a frantic 2014, in which Nerina also toured Britain and abroad, she and Andy chose the tracks they and the fans most liked and re–recorded them with strings, additional players and more polished production.
•Ξ• Among them is fan favourite Rousseau, punctuated by staccato electric guitar and strings and inspired, variously, by French painter Henri Rousseau, Swiss philosopher Jean–Jacques Rousseau and Joni Mitchell’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns. The sensual, sinuous, handclap, blues guitar and bass drum–backed If I Was A Girl is a feminist polemic in which Nerina imagines having a daughter instead of a son. Boy On The Bus is a shimmering, slow–building, heartbreaking ballad about leaving the city, inspired by the suicide of a young Chinese girl in the Camden canal that runs behind Nerina’s home and the subsequent murder nearby of schoolgirl Alice Gross.
•Ξ• Big White House is Nerina singing soul in the style of her idol Jill Scott, Handle bears the hallmarks of her love of James Blake, Spirit Walks is a bewitching blues song that woke Nerina up at 4am, demanding she record its lyrics on her phone straight away.
•Ξ• The Sound And The Fury then is an album of stories, from the city, from inside Nerina’s mind, from those weeks spent glued to the news. It’s about love, loss and survival as much as any heartbreak album. It’s about one woman and her fears for her family, but it’s also about where the world is at right now and where it will be in the future.
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