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HOT GIG TICKETS

CHRIS GARNEAU + Mary Hampton + Richard Walters

Tue 6th Oct 2009

Moonshine Jamboree and The Luminaire presents
CHRIS GARNEAU
+ Mary Hampton
+ Richard Walters

£9 door

Doors 7.30
Richard Walters 8:00

Mary Hampton 8:45

Chris Garneau 9:30

"Chris Garneau's strong command of the piano and quirky operatic voice call to mind Regina Spektor. Like her, he combines classical sensibilities with folky ones, inviting cello lines and harmonium drone into his ballads." - Time Out New York

It is easy to perceive Chris Garneau's new record 'El Radio' as a dramatic seasonal change, an event horizon, perhaps a carnival or even a birthday. It's that way for the best of records: the ones that change from pieces of plastic and wax into something that penetrate the heart and the mind. There's a twinkle in the eye of this young Brooklyn songwriter and more than a bit of magic in that vulnerable yet brave voice of his, floating above us all yet tethered by the silky strands of the songs themselves.

"As a writer, he has the deadpan playfulness of Bill Callahan and a delicate tenor voice that recalls Sufjan Stevens." – Uncut

Chris' debut album Music For Tourists (2007) was sad and sparse and gorgeous, drawing inspiration from Chris' own life for its subject matter. The album found its audience like a migrating colony of butterflies and every week since the album's release, thirty, fifty, hundreds of people have captured it or perhaps been captured by it. When a record finds its audience in this way and those butterflies flutter brightly in all directions and you start seeing blog posts (outside the so-called sphere) and tweets and interview mentions that say, "one of my favorite singers, Chris Garneau," well, it's more satisfying and real and special.

There is a poignant melancholy and bold sincerity that permeates all of Garneau's music, but those qualities are augmented by a playfulness in his melodies and arrangements. You can hear examples of this in the sublime retro-pop of 'Fireflies', the album's incredibly catchy standout track 'No More Pirates', and the deceptively upbeat and Baroque-styled 'Dirty Night Clowns' (a song inspired by a true life tale of a child molesting dwarf who'd sneak into homes in the dark of night dressed as a clown). Garneau's extensive cast of characters unavoidably comment on the social and political forces that pull us unpredictably through time while rollicking to the rhythms of an organ grinder. The violent and the whimsical, the sweet and the sinister, the carnival and the funeral; they all permeate the album, a thirteen-song radio station that will transmit its seeds all over the planet. Hear them grow.

Mary Hampton and Richard Walters support.

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