As a rule, I don't read reviews, so I love when they come in other languages. I have been told this is a very good review of "The Fisherman's Daughter" (la hija del pescador!) from  FM Signos in Argentina. For those of you who read Spanish this will tell you a little about the new album I did with the Offering:


Mark Sheppard creador de la agrupación británica The Offering regresa en este año 2009 con un nuevo trabajo musical junto a la polifacética artista norteamericana llamada Joy Shannon. Siendo una destacada multi-instrumentista tanto en la ejecución de piezas sobre instrumentos de cuerda como de teclado, también ha realizado trabajos de arte visual tanto en pintura como en cortos fílmicos. Pero por sobre todas las cosas Joy Shannon es cantante y compositora, cuyas influencias pasan por la música celta, el denominado ethereal sound, la poesía de Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen o la musa de P.J. Harvey. Su álbum llamado “The Fisherman..s Doughter”  (la hija del pescador) lanzado recientemente al mundo, es una genial combinación entre la voz de esta mujer de belleza gótica y, los climas y ritmos creados por Mark Sheppard de la formación The Offering. El álbum cuenta con 15 temas de variada intensidad que toca hechos verídicos y personales de la interprete, consideraciones espirituales, así como reflexiones del mundo actual, el hombre como género humano, la ciudad, la naturaleza y siempre en clave poética o metafórica. Podremos escuchar en canciones como The World I Knew, sobre una base de sonidos ambientales, una voz que puede representar por qué no? lo mejor de la lírica celta Irlandesa. Magdalena es junto a Of Angels de las mejores composiciones de este álbum:  la primera esta inspirada en los Conventos de Magdalena que existen tanto en Irlanda como en Inglaterra, en donde la abuela de Joy fue forzada a realizar tareas, una historia que no es sólo acerca de los sentimientos de la cantante es sobre todo, una reflexión de las injusticias que muchas mujeres padecieron a lo largo de la historia, todo esto acompañado por la fantástica música de Mark quién utilizó un emulador de violín del siglo XVIII. En la segunda pieza musical, que no supera los dos minutos y medio de duración pero que cualquiera que la escuche desearía que no terminase nunca, tanto Mark con sus climas y Joy con su celestial voz, hacen de Of Angels una conmovedora canción etérea. Por otra parte se pueden escuchar canciones con más ritmos electrónicos como en The Fisherman..s Daughter o en The Day You Knew Me, esté último tema creo que representa el clásico sonido de muchas de las creaciones de The Offering. Este nuevo álbum, que tal vez nos puede llegar a recordar por momentos a algunas cosas de Laurie Anderson en Strange Angels o cualquiera que conozcamos de Julie Cruise, es único y para saborear lentamente. The Fisherman..s Daughter es sin dudas uno de los mejores trabajos de la agrupación The Offering junto a Joy Shannon.

My album "The Opium Wars or Love in Lieu of Laudanum" is done, the artwork looks beautiful and I enjoy listening to it even after working on it for months so that is a good sign. I especially love the songs I have put on my myspace page and my website (www.joyshannon.com). "Ghost Song", "Weights and Measures" and "Softly" are my current favourites. They are also fun to play live with the band. :)
But what we are waiting on is to get approval to have the cover "John Finn's Wife" on there. The song is by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and I have not gotten any luck so far getting approval. If i don't get it soon, I will release the album without the song and just put "John Finn's Wife" online for a free download. But I am reluctant to do so because it just flows in the album so well right now, so I am going to wait a bit longer and see what happens.

Besides that, the album "The Fisherman's Daughter" that I also recorded this year with a band called "The Offering" based out of England is also being released soon. We're finalizing mastering right now. I just took a road trip and listened to both of my albums to give my final stamp of approval and I love them! "The Fisherman's Daughter" is a departure from my usual style of acoustic based music- as it is an interesting and inventive electronic sound topped with some of the most intense vocals and lyrics I have ever written. The fullness of Mark's (from the Offering) compositions allowed me to just break out my opera training and try some very different styles. I was also doing some serious soul searching while writing those lyrics so I went to all my darkest places. In my path in life, I've found that I desire to confront all the deepest and darkest places in my psyche so I can be the best person I can be. I never want to leave a stone unturned that could possibly make me act unconsciously with other people as I feel it's my responsibly to face and know all of me so I can truly love all of me and all of my friends.
So that's what I have been learning with "The Fisherman's Daughter" and "The Opium Wars or Love in Lieu of Laudanum". Music truly is life to me!

Thank you for all your support as always. I am so lucky to have such amazing friends and fans who keep me going with this dream of mine. I had a lovely surprise request from a fan in Wisconsin for an autographed photo of me. Made me feel famous! I'm going to have to tell my students at school to respect their teacher because I sign autographs. ;)

We just got a great review in a e-zine called Fangoria Musick. I'm up there with lots of death metal.... hehehe! I don't know why, but I have garnered quite a lot of generous support from guys who seem to mostly like bands whose lyrics are mostly growling.

here's the link:
http://www.fangoria.com/musick/56-musick-reviews/1629-joy-shannon-and-the-beauty-marks-review-as-in-the-wilderness.html

But here 's the review as well:

Joy Shannon and the Beauty Marks - AS IN THE WILDERNESS (Musick Review)

 

Besides my own album with the Beauty Marks I am just finishing up right now, I have also been working on a more industrial, electronic and ethereal album with a band called "The Offering" based out of England. We have not finalized the mixes on that album (yet to be titled) but one of the closest to being done songs was just played on the air today by my dear friend and radio DJ, DJ Doc Jones out of 92.5 FM in Bremen, Germany. Danke Doc!

The song is called "Magdelena" and I have posted it on my playlist on my myspace page. The song is about the Magdelene Convents in Ireland and England that imprisoned women who were sent there by their families for "crimes" like being raped, getting pregnant out of wedlock and even for being too beautiful. My grandmother was one of those women who was forced to live and do hard labor in one of those convents, so it's an experience close to my heart. The lyrics are me being angry about the injustice on behalf of wronged women like my grandmother. I hope you enjoy the song. 

We played a very fun show tonight at Viento y Agua and thank you so much to everyone who came. We are having such a great time playing the new material from "The Opium Wars" album.
Sean (our guitarist)'s family was there to support and at one point I mentioned that Sean's sunglasses were cool "but last show you rocked the granny glasses" (he did!) and then he said "those were my grandma's glasses and she's right there". so then I was like "oh no did i just insult your grandma?... can she hear well?" and Sean's family laughed so hard. Then i dedicated my last song to Sean's grandma.

As Brian and myself are putting finishing touches on mixing for "The Opium Wars or Love in Lieu of Laudanum", I am working away at the artwork for the album and ideas for the music video I will make for the song "Ghost Song". With the visual lyrics of this album, I made making artwork for the album quite fun! I cannot wait to share that aspect of the whole package too. I am working on one linoleum cut and one woodcut for the album, as well as including a photograph I took a few years ago that inspired lyrics in "Ghost Song". 

The photograph was taken of a bird shortly before its death. I had found it very near death on the street so I took it to the garden so it would have a peaceful place to die. The bird was so courageous in its last moments- just looking up to the heavens and at peace with its journey- that I thought it was an amazing moment to remind us humans of. If a bird can be so brave and know its place in this world on its life's journey- we can too.





MUSIC VIDEO

The music music video is in the works. I'll be working with one of my favourite cinematographers, Chris Salazar, who I collaborated with on my 2 short films "The Happy Starfish" and "Dusty Drives". We have not worked together for a few years, so it has already been so fun to reconnect and get back into our old groove of bouncing ideas off each other. Chris' enthusiasm is contagious and he is so eager to experiment with great ideas of how to technically accomplish what I dream up.

For this video, I'll be utilizing my makeup and wig skills- making a few quite interesting costume changes. :) But I can't give anything away yet!

As I am working on the artwork for my new album "The Opium Wars or Love in Lieu of Laudanum" it has occurred to me that I might have to have a "Parental Advisory Explicit Content" symbol on the cover. There are no industry standard rules for what albums have the label or not or what constitutes explicit content or not. But I have read that if you use the f-word in the context of talking about sexual relations that constitutes a need for a label warning.

On my last album, "As in the Wilderness", I was surprised the word "Whore" was censored on iTunes. I said the f-word once on that album but as a descriptive word not a verb so it did not constitute a warning. (It's in the line on "In your Song" that says "oh fucking hell"- even then I was worried but I left it in because it worked).

But on "The Opium Wars" I say the f-word twice and once in the context of sexual relations (in my song called "Thylacine" where I compare how governments carelessly "shot everything that moved" to how it's "just like how my dad fucked everything that moved"- no other word worked in that line)... so I might have to label the album with the warning label. Part of me thinks that's so silly because I choose my words so carefully and am not using the f-word carelessly- I'm using it where it expresses exactly what I mean in the song where no other words would work.

But the other part of me (the devious teenager) thinks that having an explicit content label is just hilariously great. I remember there was a time when I was in junior high and high school when it was disappointing if an album I liked DIDN'T have the explicit content label. ;)

And I could go down in history as the only harpist, cellist and accordion player with an explicit content album. hehehehe!

I definitely just cannot censor my expression and never should. The album I am releasing with the English band "The Offering" also includes the word "whore" a lot in a song in which I am questioning and rebelling against the classification of women as whores at all. That song is partially inspired by my grandmother's story, as she was one of the women in Ireland forced into a "Magdelene Convent" where unwed mothers would be forced to do hard labour to atone for their sins.  I am truly shaping up to be a feminist songwriter... or better yet a defender of all things bright and beautiful from animals like the thylacine, to women, to any human who's been wronged and our beautiful earth! So may be I am a swearing idealist.