FALLING FROM THE SKY, SOFTER THAN THE RAIN, WHISPERING YOUR NAME

My friend Lara Michell is having a double CD release party this weekend: for a solo record called Petals, and for her new project A Simple Colony. She has a Facebbook invite page with details here. But I will also cut and paste the press info below just to make it easy.

I've had the good fortune of hearing demos and early mixes for both projects, and I'm looking forward to hearing the final product. I've always been a fan of Lara's music, it was how we became friends (which I wrote about once upon a time). Her melodies are wonderful, and inspire all kind of rock crit' cliches like "haunting" and "ethereal." She combines a classical music background with 1970s singer-songwriting, and there is a literary quality to her lyrics that can often be missed since the words are presented so simply. And, of course, she has a beautiful voice.

Here she is performing her song "Twilight" a couple of years back.

DOUBLE CD RELEASE PARTY

LARA MICHELL releases PETALS
and
A SIMPLE COLONY releases WORLD BRAND NEW

...

8pm, Saturday, August 14, 2010
The Woods
6637 SE Milwaukie
Portland, OR 97202
503-890-0408
www.thewoodsportland.com

$10 cover charge
21+

Lara Michell – Petals

This is the fourth solo album from Lara Michell (also of The Stolen Sweets and Dirty Martini; formerly of Carmina Piranha). While this collection features guest performances by numerous Portland musicians, most of the tracks are very sparse and consist of only a few acoustic guitar parts and some harmonized vocals. Fans will recognize Lara’s unique intricate fingerpicking and ethereal lyrics on this album, which features nine original tracks and a surprising Duran Duran cover.

www.myspace.com/laramichell


a simple colony – world brand new


a simple colony is a new collaboration between longtime friends Lara Michell and Michael Dodson (formerly of the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus and the David York Ensemble), who met while attending Willamette University in the early 1990’s. Generally speaking, Lara composed the music, recorded it on her laptop, e-mailed it across town to Michael who then wrote all of the lyrics and vocal parts, recording demo versions of the finished songs on his laptop. They would get together occasionally during the process to refine the arrangements and swap ideas, and ultimately recorded studio versions of the songs with local producers Ezra Holbrook and Jason Roark. Michael Dodson is an art teacher at French Prairie Middle School in Woodburn, OR, and although he has performed with countless vocal ensembles and made many jazz and classical vocal recordings over the years, this is his first foray into the recording of his own original songs. He lives in Lake Oswego with his partner and their four-year-old daughter.

www.myspace.com/asimplecolony

As my first experiment with SwiftFM, I also posted the song Lara and I put together for my comic book Love the Way You Love. Give it a spin: http://www.swift.fm/Confessions123/song/57233/.

It's too bad this wasn't a bigger hit. Eminem and Rihanna could have sampled it for "Love the Way You Lie."

Maybe I'll write a total downer of a sequel to Love the Way You Love and call it Love the Way You Lie. Oh, tragedy!



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All text (c) 2010 Jamie S. Rich