|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CD
|
|
PRE 035CD
|
The Preservation label presents Slay Me in My Sleep, the sixth album from Melbourne's Grand Salvo. Under the guise of Grand Salvo, Paddy Mann has established himself as a songwriter of unique heart and soul with a depth of lyricism matched by warm but widescreen musical vision. 2009's Soil Creatures sealed his reputation, being his most stark and concise statement yet. With Slay Me in My Sleep, Mann has returned to familiar territory, writing a parable as song cycle similar to his epic fairytale from 2008, Death. An evocation of time and memory, it is a tale of star-crossed lovers. A delinquent boy breaks into an old woman's home and discovers an antique photo of a girl. He instantly falls in love. After the old woman scares him off, though, he eventually returns, consumed and obsessed by the girl in the photo. The old woman is waiting, and so it begins. It is a lavishly decorated and unabashed romantic melodrama, set to exquisite strings (cello, violin and harp), dancing woodwinds and searching brass. Within these gorgeous orchestrations, tracing around the folk song idiom are intimate narratives of unqualified affection and compelling emotion. Slay Me in My Sleep also marks the first use of an electric guitar in any Grand Salvo recording. Slay Me in My Sleep was largely recorded and co-produced in Berlin by composer Nils Frahm, who has worked extensively with similarly singular artists such as Peter Broderick and Greg Haines. His masterful piano-playing appears throughout, alongside vocal contributions by Heather Woods Broderick, Laura Jean and Luluc's Zoe Randall. After the masterful Soil Creatures, Paddy Mann has once extended himself on Slay Me in My Sleep, telling a tale of strange love with vivid detail, whimsy and beauty, in a special way only he knows how.
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
PRE 005CD
|
2005 release. The Preservation label presents The Temporal Wheel, the third album from Melbourne's Grand Salvo. Grand Salvo is the work of singer-songwriter Paddy Mann. Grand Salvo's debut album, 1642-1727, and its follow-up, River Road, earned him rave reviews and a solid following at home and beyond for his stark, sensitive and beautiful songs. After a spell living in Europe, Paddy returned to Australia and began work on another album he'd dreamt up while away. A set of songs that acts as a children's storybook, the album became cursed with too many recording problems, and Paddy decided to shelve it. While that project will eventually see the light of day, its plagued nature ironically became the motivation for The Temporal Wheel. Paddy resolved to make an album with more spontaneity and gut feeling than ever before. Holing up in Tony Dupe's (Archer Prewitt, Via Tania, Holly Throsby) tiny house-cum-studio at Saddleback Mountain on the beautiful New South Wales South Coast, over two sessions in two days, Paddy recorded intensively. With ideas forming on arrival, Paddy steeled himself to write impulsively soon after waking in the morning. He would find himself in a curious, reflective way, thinking about the order of things and how they inexplicably change with the passing of time. These are songs for simple moments, moments that grow into revelations of transcendence. Surrounding the core interplay between Paddy's rich, oaken voice and his acoustic guitar, his subtle and intuitive orchestral arrangements -- cello, trumpet, glockenspiel, harps and various percussion -- keep the easy rolling, classic feel of his songs, which also ring with sparkling creativity. The Temporal Wheel is an album of poignant emotional candour set in stunningly intimate atmospheres. Housed in a limited edition packaging with a unique design.
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
PRE 024CD
|
The Preservation label presents Soil Creatures, the fifth album from Grand Salvo. The name under which Melbourne singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Paddy Mann records and performs, Grand Salvo has quietly and unassumingly developed a body of work that has inspired both hardcore devotion and more recently, wider recognition, stemming from his previous album, Death. The ambitious fairytale orchestration widely received rave reviews. With Soil Creatures, Grand Salvo has returned with no less scope but sits within quieter surroundings. This gorgeous set of songs revolves around delicate guitar, strings and harp along with other added nuances that confirms Mann's master's touch in arranging. By turns whimsical, wistful and wanting, Soil Creatures beds down in the elemental things of life -- the physical and spiritual -- that play on memory, as well as time's fading ways and what grows in place of what's lost in its cycle. It has a filmic sensibility with lyrics that border on free-association with its imagery, ultimately forming crystal clear connections between the everyday and the divine. Featured on Soil Creatures is the long-time vocal foil in Grand Salvo, Luluc's Zoe Randell, and cellist Jessica Venables (Jessica Says, Sly Hats). Yet again with Soil Creatures, Grand Salvo has engaged a depth of feeling to a most unique and affecting level. It's another affirmation of a true talent in Australia.
|
|
|