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Fri 16th The Luminaire presents ADRIAN CROWLEY + DANNY SCHMIDT
Doors 7.30 A special double-headline event for the remarkable Irish singer/songwriter, Adrian Crowley and for the equally remarkable Austin TX songwriter Danny Schmidt. Crowley has recently released the single 'Bless Our Tiny Hearts' on Fence and follows the same hallowed path as long time collaborator James Yorkston into bleak and beautiful folk. His forthcoming LP (out soon on Tin Angel) cements Crowley’s reputation as one of the most consistent songwriters around today with tales about the seas and oceans highlighting the natural depth of his music. A wonderful live act who has performed at the Green Man & Homefires festivals and toured with Adem, Hood, James Yorkston, Damon & Naomi and Jose Gonzales. In an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Ryan Adams named Crowley one of his favourite underground songwriters. Here's what some other people have been saying about this ground-breaking artist . . .
FROM LOSING TODAY:
THE NEW YORKER (USA):
PLAN B MAGAZINE:
HOT PRESS:
Schmidt is similarly gifted.
Singout Magazine called Danny Schmidt the best new songwriter they'd heard in 15 years. Indie-Music Magazine said Danny just releases masterpiece after masterpiece. Here's why . . .
Danny’s a songwriter’s songwriter -- with a literacy and complexity, and an underlying humanity, rare in this age of sound bite attention span marketeering. His tunes are wire frames draped with sheets of poetry.
They’re not your typical Texas singer/songwriter colloquial polaroid trail diaries. And they’d make lousy beer commercials.
He has some of the qualities of the greats, though -- from Townes Van Zandt’s ageless and understated sincerity, to Dylan’s topical relevance and wry sharp eye for the allusively obvious, to Nick Drakes’ quiet spiritual quest and sense that each song was plucked whole from a tree more than labored over, line-by-line with pen and ink. And it all leaves you with that Leonard Cohen after-taste, that there’s something here worth studying as much as listening to.
Those aren’t holistic comparisons, just commonalities and contextual descriptions. Cause more than any particular shared virtue, Danny has a quality common to all these preeminent writers: he has his own unique voice. He doesn’t sound like any of those guys at all, really. He doesn’t sound like anybody you’ve heard yet. Truly.
Stylistally and musically, Danny’s songs range from deeply-rooted Appalachian mountain gospel to haunted English balladry, from syncopated Piedmont country blues to vagabond 60’s protest folk-stumpery -- all in an edgy contemporary blend.
He performs solo, just his voice and his guitar. And all his records live up to a strict writer’s aesthetic: let the songs themselves stand out front, and well lit. There are sparse backdrops of harmony vocals, strings, and accordion -- and a little touch of this and a tiny pinch of that -- all tastefully placed and painted for the benefit of the songs.
Take the time to sit and listen when you get the chance. It’s the kind of music you’ll want to envelop yourself in at 2am, after a couple drinks, a little loose and strangely attuned, and with the lyrics on your lap so you can follow along, line by line and turn by turn.
"I've not felt a performance with this much intensity since I saw Neil Young solo years ago, nor have I heard songwriting with this much subtlety of craftsmanship since Leonard Cohen. I was completely floored." [Filter]
With the gravitational pull of the sun, he is, perhaps the best new songwriter I’ve heard in the last 15 years." [Rich Warren, Sing Out! magazine] |
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