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            STANLÆY — The Human Project (May 31, 2019) Pamela MÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃéndez ÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃâ Time (22 Feb 2019)≡∇≡      Stenning nespolupracuje jen se skupinou umělců. Její pojetí může být samo o sobě vnímáno jako druh spolupráce mezi uměním a vnějším světem: své motivy uvádí jako „dualismus, kterému jsme denně vystaveni — mysli a těla, idealismu a materialismu, organickému a syntetickému“.
Location: Bath ~ Bristol, UK
Album release: May 31, 2019
Recorded: at Gradwell House and Napping Dawg Studios
Genre: Chamber pop, folk/jazz and cosmic atmospheres
Record Label: STANLÆY ART
Duration:     41:12
Tracks:
1. The Moon   4:22
2. Wooden Womb   5:40
3. Elder   5:36
4. The Mountain Collector   4:52
5. Ode to Ovid   4:06
6. D~ice   2:19
7. Properties of Ice   4:40
8. Aquarium   6:26
9. Orbs   1:31
Description:
• The music of STANLÆY has been influenced by a diverse genre pool of folk, jazz and cosmic atmospheres. Fairy tale chamber pop for the 21st Century. The Human Project is a multi~faceted audio visual album by STANLÆY. Recorded by Bethany Stenning, mixed by VVilhelm and Bethany Stenning, Mastered by Oliver Baldwin.
Press:
• “By anybody’s standard, this is a huge achievement, but for someone as young as Stanlaey — she’s in her early twenties — it’s massive and hopefully a sign of what to expect in the future.” — Dancing about Architecture
• “Bethany starts from a perspective of “ethereal gypsy punk~pop” and moves outwards from there into the kind of neverland/neverwas experimental folk music that we used to hear from Joanna Newsom; with her fey, unusual, offbeat~beautiful voice and lyrics” — Misfitcity
• “It’s a deeply rich and rewarding project, sonically drawing on jazz, folk, electronics, and classical music to weave a tapestry of sound.” — Pink Wafer
CREDITS:
• The Human Project album was composed and recorded by Bethany, mixed by Bethany with London producer VVilhem and mastered by Oliver Baldwin, engineer at the legendary RealWorld studios.
• Music by Stanlaey
• Written and directed by Bethany Stenning
• Director of Photography Rob Ellis: www.robelliscinematography.com  
SPACE
THE MOON
Musicians: Bethany Stenning, Holly Barton, Matt Andrews, Emma Benson, Zoe Sones, Sophie Blundell, Beth Hopkins
ICE
PROPERTIES OF ICE
Musicians: Bethany Stenning, Abi Piercy, Matt Andrews, Emma Benson, Ellie Dawson, Sophie Blundell
WATER
Aquarium
Musicians: Bethany Stenning, Jon Pilgrim, Abi Piercy, Lucy Mellenfield, Alexander Atack, Ella Sabine, Catherine Thorpe
WOOD
Wooden Womb
Musicians: Bethany Stenning, Jon Pilgrim, Chris Hartland, Matthew Aldous
METAL
Ode to Ovid
Musicians: Bethany Stenning, Thor Hayton, Ellie Dawson, Zoe Sones, Sophie Blundell, Isaac Treuherz
FIRE
Eldur
Musicians: Bethany Stenning, Pedro D G Correia, Billy Fisher, George Calvert Barbett, Robert Eastgate, Will Heaton, Ed Holland, Jon Pilgrim
EARTH
The Mountain Collector
Musicians: Bethany Stenning, Frazer Pearce, Jon Pilgrim, Matt Andrews, Columba Dromgoole~Cavazzi, Zoe Sones, Sophie Blundell
ORBS
Musician: Bethany Stenning
D~ice
Musicians: Bethany Stenning, Abi Piercy
Review
by Thomas Blake 3 June, 2019
• Bethany Stenning’s idea of collaboration is both more nuanced and much more ambitious than what most listeners will be used to. On The Human Project the Bath~based musician, who goes by the name of Stanlaey, has taken the idea of mixed media to its extremes: this is an album, but it is also a film; there are musicians, but there are also dancers, visual artists, actors. But even this doesn’t do justice to the scope of the project. Stenning doesn’t just collaborate with a group of fellow artists. Her concept can itself be seen as a kind of collaboration between art and the outside world: she lists her themes as ‘the dualisms that we are exposed to daily, of mind and body, idealism and materialism, organic and synthetic.’
• It’s an admirably ambitious undertaking, and it would fall at the first hurdle if the songs that form the bedrock of the project were anything short of excellent. Thankfully though Stenning is a fine songwriter, and an engaging, idiosyncratic singer. The Human Project’s opening track, The Moon, sets her voice against a modernistic backdrop of muted horns and strings. Stenning’s singing will draw comparisons with Bjork, Kate Bush and Joanna Newsom but Hanna Tuulikki and Gemma Williams are probably closer to the mark.
• If Stenning starts from a position of experimental folk music — and that in itself is up for debate – she soon vacates any such confines. Wooden Womb uses hand drums and flighty woodwind to evoke something that resembles CocoRosie howling through the ages to Buffy Sainte~Marie, before turning halfway through into a kind of Twin Peaks Black Lodge version of itself, darker and more fiercely experimental. That duality is explored further in Elder, where verses by rapper Pedro DG Correia nestle alongside Stenning’s vocals. Musically it is a perfectly balanced combination of jazz, chamber folk and trip~hop, while thematically and conceptually it draws on the ideas of regeneration and doubling while its melding of styles acts as a comment on the changing nature of music itself. It is living proof that exposure to varied musical cultures has an effect that enriches rather than dilutes — something we could learn from in other walks of life.
• The Mountain Collector is a piece of musical psychogeography, an exploration of the human relationship with place, shot through with refreshing humour and self~awareness. Ode To Ovid delves into the past, and specifically into Ovid’s telling of the myth of the four ages of man, while exploring themes that are utterly contemporary, while Properties Of Ice is perhaps the album’s strangest and most beautiful moment — think Bjork’s Vespertine, but eerier: a twinkling, frost~bound forest of a song with a warm human heart. Aquarium showcases Stenning’s astonishing ear for musical detail — a bassline that could have come from Joni Mitchell’s Mingus, a subtly treated vocal, an otherworldly and detached kind of aggression offset by a sweetly melodic harp. Her voice, layered upon itself, heaves and swells like a tide as the song reaches its conclusion.
• The Human Project can be seen as part of a larger multimedia conceit, but equally, it can stand alone, and it does so by dint of Bethany Stenning’s unique vision as a songwriter, her evident skill as a musician and arranger and her startlingly original voice. It is an ambitious, arresting and constantly interesting work of art in its own right.  • https://www.folkradio.co.uk/ 
Bandcamp: https://stanlaey.bandcamp.com/album/the-human-project 
FB: https://www.facebook.com/StanleyStenning/ 
Website: https://stanlaey.com/ 
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ALBUM COVERS XI.