Talking House artist-cellist-composer Joan Jeanrenaud is getting ready to reunite with her old band, and has just released ... a Saturday morning cartoon?
- A reunion concert with Kronos Quartet
- An unusual video: Joan as superhero!
- A new song now; a new album in Spring
THE REUNION
The Grammy-nominated avant-garde cellist and twenty-year Kronos Quartet member rejoins the Kronos Quartet for one unique evening of music at Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley, California, on December 13, 2009.
A decade after breaking from the group to pursue new directions in a solo career, Jeanrenaud will play with Kronos for the first time ever in a one-time concert featuring a quintet composed by Vladimir Martynov for this very engagement.
THE CARTOON
The reunion coincides with an unusual new work -- a
new animated music video for Joan's new song "33 1/3," the first peek at Jeanrenaud's next groundbreaking album, due out on Talking House Records in the Spring of 2010.
The San Francisco Chronicle calls it "maybe the first animated video for an avant-garde cello piece... In it, she is a superhero, fighting corporate control of music and doing her best to bring good sounds to the people."
THE NEW MUSIC
Musically, "33 1/3" is a bridge between Jeanrenaud's new daredevil, beat-drenched album currently in the works, and her Grammy-nominated 2008 Talking House release Strange Toys on which Jeanrenaud first experimented with electronic beats. Driven by a fluid, asymmetrical electro-beat, a bouncing bass-line and a wah-wah heavy electric cello figure, "33 1/3" is unlike anything previously released by the contemporary classical artist -- or anyone else, for that matter.
"We had a lot of fun working with the beats on a couple of the Strange Toys tracks, and we thought we'd just dive completely in this time," Jeanrenaud says. "It's been an interesting process, working with the beats and also crafting pieces in almost pop-like form. We've actually been calling it my 'pop' record -- well, as pop as I can get, anyway!"
"Joan's work is very polyrhythmic," producer PC Muñoz notes. "Pairing her pieces with electronic and acoustic beats is a way of further exploring the polyrhythm already inherent in her compositions. In my opinion, it also further illuminates Joan's great ability to embrace and utilize tools and approaches that aren't very typical for artists in her genre. '33 1/3' is a delicious first-taste of the direction in which Joan is heading on this new record."
The new, yet-to-be-titled album explores more new musical trails than ever, building upon Jeanrenaud's unusual style, including a free-jazz-like track called "Revielle" that may intrigue Jeanrenaud's stalwart modern music fans, featuring a blistering cello-and-drumkit duet between Jeanrenaud and Muñoz.
The animated video for "33 1/3" was directed by 19-year old wunderkind Joe Maslov.
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