It Begins In Beauty yes it does. What once were whispers are now fully formed Hymns to honour. Epic incantations prepared with the utmost skill and painstaking attention to a craft which seems to dilute ever more strongly as the years go by. To my ears at least. The name has changed. The vision is bigger. The desire to reach the muse and convey her will through melody and performance with clarity and honesty has taken on a new dimension. The journey has become what I always hoped it would. I dared to dream it could and Syd's courage, stoicism and absolute devotion to the muse and her direction has brought us these 12 songs on All Hallows Eve.
Timing is everything and this is the time for the debut record by Syd Lane's new musical vehicle Chansons De Geste. She is still the sole musical force behind all of the performances. Each individual song on this record has been created within an atmosphere unique to each track. Every nuance directed by the divine and channelled by the enigmatic and solitary figure that is Syd Lane. If this is your introduction to Syd's music you're in for a rare treat as there are 5 Loaded Whispers records all available free for your listening pleasure.  
Thank you Syd once again for these 12 beautiful visions of joy and inspiration. Where will it all end ?

It Begins In Beauty

- Jeremiah James

This is our new band!  Please add the new myspace if you dig our music.  It's only getting better.

Peace and understanding,
Syd and Jeremiah

First things first, I suppose is always the appropriate way to start these things off. Being female in any walk of life is a distinct disadvantage excluding one but I'm not gonna get into that here as it has nothing to do with music. When it comes to rock 'n' roll, in the words of Brando's Terry Malloy it's "A one way ticket to Palookaville".  

Let's face it man Johnny Borell will always get far more column inches than Kate Bush. This is a world gone topsy turvy. Obviously it's not cool to single out and yes I have done just that but sometimes in the sheer face of absolute injustice you blindside principles that just gotta be blindsdided. The views that follow are a mixture of my own personal feelings(formed over a lifetime of seeking out the best music I can find via print, albums and radio) and what I have personally experienced from my relatively short time being in a "Band".

It appears to me that men(Let's stick to those involved directly with the world of rock 'n' roll) have a very definite problem with women who are in control and know exactly what it is they are looking for. Women who are not afraid to do what it takes to try and find it. In simple direct terms: They don't like taking orders from women.  They can't even stand hearing ideas from a woman.  Especially when those idea's are raw fresh and brilliant.  Strange.  Recently I watched a Neil Young documentary where in candid interviews he spoke of how only the music was important and that whatever he has done to people has never been personal it has only been for the sake of the music being as pure as it can possibly be.  I feel this level of honesty and the pursuit of musical purity is to be commended but is certainly a luxury afforded only to men. 

The reasons for all of this in my mind are manyfold. Any strong minded woman is automatically put in whatever negative category is felt to be satisfactory within the context of whatever male small minded trip is being laid down.  The manics via Valerie Solanos had their own view of why women are demonised for being the misunderstood visionary creative mavericks they so often are.  There are all sorts of psychoanalytical avenues we could go down here but I think that's for another day. 

Men have always and will always have to learn from women how to be complete emotional beings if that's a destination they wish to arrive at.  Simply because, and let's be absolutely frank here...  An emotionally healthy open minded woman is a far more rounded creature than an emotionally healthy open minded man.  We have both male and female tendencies in all of us irrespective of our gender and who knows what our final destination will be on this journey of consciousness. 

Perhaps being human is a grain of sand in the total number of physical forms the soul will pass through on our way to wherever it is we're headed but I'm a gonna lay my cards on the table right now.  Let's all move forward, men and women alike lay down our gender prejudices and make the best records we can possibly make, play the best shows we can with the best people in charge.  The world of superficially beautiful beings has always and will always be a reality in the entertainment world no matter what music you make but the level of hysteria currently enveloping all sections of media when it comes to beauty over talent has got to be addressed.  Beauty has no relation whatsoever to how talented an individual actually is.  Don't fight the feeling. Say what you gotta say.  Finally is it just me or are the girls who do "Make it" in the world of honest pure music just so FUCKING quirky, exciting and inspiring?  (examples to follow) Kate Bush, Bjork, Tori Amos, Joni Mitchell, Mama Cass, Janis Joplin, Francois Hardy, Edith Piaf, Nico, Yoko Ono, Syd Lane, Karen O.  Power to the peaceful.

Twitter is something I don't understand.

It raises many questions for me.

Why does anyone want other people to know what they are doing throughout each moment of their day?  Why does anyone feel people would actually CARE about what they are doing throughout their day?  Why is it actually true that people DO care about what someone is doing throughout their day, and thus become their "followers"?  (The followers thing really scares me)

Why isn't anyone concerned about the fact that they are handing out information about themselves on a silver platter to anyone who wants it? (The government and corporations for example).  We don't even have to worry anymore about the government keeping tabs on us behind our backs, because we are now quite willing and ready to just give them information about where we are and what we are doing at all times.  We are giving those in power more ways to understand how to manipulate society as a whole.  It's almost like, when you need to get a child to do something unpleasant and you have to trick them into it by making them believe they're grown up and that it's a good thing.  Example: "You could wash the dishes, grown ups wash the dishes and you're a big girl aren't you?" .... Here is Twitter!  Check in with us, tell us what you're doing, and where you are at all times, and it's fun because it has a cute catchphrase!  Twittering is fun, everybody's doing it!  I can't believe it man.

I already have a problem with mobile phones.  Yes, I can see their advantage for emergencies but I don't like people knowing where I am at all times and being able to contact me at any time.  It's hard enough to find some place quiet these days - Currently I don't even have access to such a place.  I don't want to be on everyone’s radar.  When I want to be alone, I want to be alone.  I am so glad that I was in the last generation to have such privacy. 


I gotta say, it really scares me how much everyone has jumped on the Twitter board.  They're giving those who have bad intentions for us such an amiable victory, and it's SCARY.  Yes, frightening. 

FEAR NO ART!
x Syd

We recently recieved a flattering review from Steven Small of Quixodelic Records (Utica Flower Co respectively).  This is the first time that someone has really understood where we are coming from, from the signposts in my music of our greatest inspirations, to the feelings we are constantly striving to convey.  It's always important not to hang on reviews - whether they are negative or positive.  This will deter honest communication with the muse.  You should ALWAYS create art as if no one will see/hear/know of it but yourself... But, it sure is a nice feeling to find out someone gets what we are doing.  Thank you Smally!

Syd Lane from The Loaded Whispers says there are two kinds of music - “That which moves you, and that which doesn’t”. I challenge anyone to tell me that the music she and poet partner-in-crime Jeremiah James make doesn’t fall into the former category.

From the first song I ever heard (”Easily Loved / Easily Hated” on Daydream Generation 6) I knew that this was very special music, but nothing prepared me for just how mind-blowingly great a full-length Loaded Whispers record would be. It was a weekday and with an early morning working start I was planning on being asleep no later than midnight when I first downloaded “All Artists Use Lies To Tell The Truth”. My intention was to listen to a couple of songs before I drifted off. In actual fact from the moment “I’ve Got Sunshine” magically burst into my ears utterly stunning me to the pillow in amazement, there was no way I was drifting anywhere until the last notes of final track “Up The Shore” had rung out.

The composite elements of this self-recorded Dublin duo are actually quite simple. Syd Lane has one of the most incredible voices you are likely to ever hear, gliding and soulful, carrying hers and Jer’s words over stripped back tremelo electric guitar or shimmering piano melodies. At the root of it all is simply great songs - heartfelt without being mawkish, and cool enough to carry even the most charged of emotional content to a different stratosphere in your mind. An instantly recognisable breeze of sound blows through the recording moving it in the same direction, so even though a whole handful of genres are toppled like dominoes (psychedelic folk, piano pop ballads, Pixie-esque guitar, country-tinged folk blues, and 60s acid rock & roll), it’s the consistency that kills you - that feeling that the flawless songs surely at some point much reach some kind of logical conclusion and snuff out. But no, even as the playful (and damn brilliant) Carpenter’s nod right at the very end makes you grin, The Loaded Whispers are still whispering away from you.

Stand out tracks? Oh where do I begin? “I Got Big Dreams” is beautiful and poignant and timeless, could have been written in any of the last five decades and been loved by any of its generations. “Tell Me How” is almost like hearing Nico hitting high notes - so good that it appears (quite rightly) twice on the record. “Eidolons” is a feisty boy/girl duet full of fire barely concealing the laughter below the surface. “Charlotte” is the kind of song that someone would have sold their own Grandmother for to put in Marianne Faithful’s mouth in 1965. “Suicide In The Trenches” is a lyrical heavyweight synchronised to perfection in Syd’s voice. And if I had to pick a favourite of all the songs it would probably be “Sick of Writing Sad Songs” - I don’t think a day has passed since I first heard this record when I haven’t gone back to it at least once, with it’s rolling majestic piano and understated explosive melodies. Some days I’ve listened to more times than I can count on my fingers and toes.

So there you go. If you haven’t heard The Loaded Whispers before then now’s your chance - I can vouch from experience that “Artists Use Lies…” is as great an introduction to a genuine talent as you are going to find this year. And if you already know about them, then I’m sure you will have been nodding your head in agreement through these clumsy paragraphs where I’ve attempted to convey just how great a record this is. Sometimes when you discover a band whose music you love you get an insatiable urge to go out and find every song they’ve ever recorded and gorge yourself over the following weeks and months and hopefully years of your life. In this instance though, I feel completely different - I want to savour this one, give it weeks at least to go back to it again and again, hear things I didn’t hear the first twenty times around, and re-hear the things I’d happily hear twenty times more. Listening to it now as I write this I still feel as stunned as I did when I first heard it on the wrong side of midnight. Long may the wind of song whisper.

You can download THE LOADED WHISPERS “All Artists Use Lies To tell The Truth” for FREE at our Quixodelic Record Store!