Terminal 5 upcoming shows
Tori Amos
One Eskimo
- Venue:
-
Radio City Music Hall
- Date:
- Thu 8/13
- Notes:
- all ages
- Doors: 7:00 PM / Show: 8:00 PM
- $60, $49.50, $42.50, $37.50
- Tori Amos
- official website
- myspace
- Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos) was one of several female singer/songwriters who combined the stark lyrical attack of alternative rock with a distinctly '70s musical approach, creating music that fell between the orchestrated meditations of Kate Bush and the stripped-down poetics of Joni Mitchell. In addition, she revived the singer/songwriter traditions of the '70s while reestablishing the piano as a rock & roll instrument. With her 1992 album Little Earthquakes, Amos built a dedicated following that expanded with her second album, Under the Pink, before giving way to a decade-spanning legacy.
The daughter of a Methodist preacher, Amos was born in North Carolina but raised in Maryland. She began singing and playing piano in the church choir at the age of four, and songwriting followed shortly afterward. Amos proved to be a quick learner, and her instrumental prowess earned her a scholarship to the preparatory school at Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory. While studying at Peabody, she became infatuated with rock & roll, particularly the music of Led Zeppelin. She lost her scholarship at the age of 11 -- quite possibly due to her interest in popular music -- but continuing writing songs nevertheless, eventually moving to Los Angeles in her late teens to become a pop singer. Atlantic Records signed her in 1987, and Amos recorded an uninspired pop-metal album called Y Kant Tori Read the following year. The record was a complete failure, attracting no attention from radio or press and selling very few copies; nevertheless, she didn't lose her record contract. By 1990, Amos had adopted a new approach, singing spare, haunting, semiconfessional piano ballads that were arranged like Kate Bush but had the melodies and lyrical approach of Joni Mitchell. Atlantic sponsored a trip to England in 1991, where she played a series of concerts in support of an EP, Me and a Gun.
The harrowing "Me and a Gun" was an autobiographical song, telling the tale of Amos' own experience with rape. It gained positive reviews throughout the media, and both the EP and the supporting concerts sold well. Little Earthquakes, Amos' first album as a singer/songwriter, was released in 1992 and fared well in both the U.S. and the U.K. The same year, she released the Crucify EP, which featured cover songs like Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Led Zeppelin's "Thank You." Delivered in early 1994, Under the Pink, the proper follow-up to Little Earthquakes, was an even bigger hit, selling over a million copies and launching the minor hit singles "God" and "Cornflake Girl." Two years later, Amos delivered her third album, Boys for Pele, her most ambitious and difficult record to date. The album debuted at number two and quickly went platinum.
Amos spent much of 1997 dealing with personal matters, including a miscarriage and a marriage. She also worked on her fourth album, From the Choirgirl Hotel, which was released in the spring of 1998. The two-disc To Venus and Back followed in 1999 to coincide with a tour with Alanis Morissette. In 2001, Amos returned with the covers album Strange Little Girls, which also marked her last release for Atlantic.
The next year, she found a new label home with Epic and followed with Scarlet's Walk in October. Her eighth studio album, an autobiographical record titled The Beekeeper, was released in 2005. The massive five-disc Piano collection arrived in 2006, boasting a cornucopia of album cuts, B-sides, unedited and alternate versions, demos, and seven previously unissued tracks, followed by the typically eclectic and hard-rocking American Doll Posse in 2007, an all-new collection of songs that found the artist assuming five archetypal personalities, all of whom were based on feminine gods in Greek and Roman mythology.
As she toured in support of the album, Amos released live digital recordings of each concert as part of the Legs and Boots concert series, which grew to encompass 27 albums. Although each release was made available via iTunes and other online vendors, Amos also released a "best-of" Legs and Boots compilation in March 2009, having created its track list from various recordings during the tour. Meanwhile, she also focused on new material that had been written during the tour, which she soon compiled into her tenth studio album. Entitled Abnormally Attracted to Sin, the album was released in May 2009 by Universal Republic, Amos' new record label.
- One Eskimo
- official website
- myspace
- The brainchild of singer/songwriter Kristian Leontiou, One eskimO arrives with an impressive breadth of imagination that instantly marks them as something extraordinary. The London-based band's Shangri-La Music self-titled debut is an ambitious and affecting collection of widescreen modern pop, alive with iridescent textures and intricately created songcraft. Songs like "Hometime" and the buoyant "All Balloons" are moving and expressive, touching upon such universal themes as love and heartbreak, success and failure. As if that weren't enough, the release comes in tandem with a full-length animated film. One eskimO's unorthodox self-visualization only serves to add idiosyncratic color and character to a beguiling musical work already abounding with invention and emotion.
One eskimO's striking sound and presentation can be traced back to 2004, when Leontiou first hit the UK Top 10 with his solo debut single, "Story Of My Life." His album, entitled "SOME DAY SOON," proved equally successful, selling more than 200,000 copies and catapulting the soulful young singer to pop success. But, the experience left the gifted young vocalist strangely unfulfilled, as if he were merely a spoke in the great wheel of music industry marketing.
The idea for One eskimO began to gel on a long flight home after a promo tour for Leontiou. Rather than continue on the same unsatisfying path, Kristan did something both brave and rare - he walked away from success to create something he could be proud of. After some R&R, Leontiou reached out to drummer Adam Falkner and the two began writing songs and developing a distinctive new sound. "We wanted to create something really cinematic and dreamy," Leontiou says. "We wanted to create a magical world of our own."
Sonic inspiration came from a variety of diverse sources, from The Beatles and The Fugees to Massive Attack and UK hip-hop/folk duo Nizlopi. Bassist Jamie Sefton and guitarist Peter Rinaldi were brought in to complete the group, which then spent long hours in rehearsal, building a multi-layered foundation with largely acoustic instrumentation.
"As we rehearsed," Leontiou says, "we tried to see what, between the four of us, we could each bring to it. Jamie does all the horn parts as well as the bass; Adam plays melodica and several other things, literally several..... The attitude was if the sound works and there's a hand free then we'll make it fit."
One eskimO set to work at Rollo Armstrong's (Dido, Faithless) Islington studio, ark, with engineer Phil Brown (Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin) assisting. Basic tracks were laid down quickly, with the following year spent crafting the album's intricate electronic textures.
The resulting release is perfectly formed and ineffably beautiful, with songs like "UFO" and "Kandi" (featuring an indelible chorus sampled from Candi Staton's classic "He Called Me Baby") elevated by heartbreaking melodies and shimmering sonics. As the album took shape, Leontiou put his mind towards crafting a visual presentation that would equal the music's warmth and invention.
"We wanted to create something quite beautiful and the idea eventually came to present One eskimO as a group of animated characters. The idea all came to fruition when Leontiou met Nathan Erasmus and Matt Latchford of Gravy Media, a London-based independent animation collective, through some friends. "We wanted it to look like old style animation ala Snoopy or the British holiday classic, The Snowman," Leontiou says, "but with a modern twist. I think that's true of the album as well. At its core, it's an acoustic album, but brought into this age with all the delays and sounds we've layered on top of it."
With little more than a shoestring budget at their disposal, One eskimO and Gravy Media produced two short films to accompany the songs "Hometime" and "Kandi." "Hometime" soon proved a sensation, receiving numerous honors at film festivals around the world, not to mention a 2008 British Animation Award. The song was also later featured in Toyota's environmentally aware "Why Not?" campaign.
The success of "Hometime" led to animating the entire album, which at the time was but a "pipe dream" for One eskimO. Using the songs of the cd as a template, a narrative slowly came into shape. The story revolves around the central character of One eskimO, an adventurous and determined young man seeking his place in the universe. He is accompanied on his adventure by his bandmates, Giraffe, Monkey, and Penguin. Every hero needs his villain, in this case Mr. Top Hat, a mysterious stranger who, like a puppet master, pulls unseen strings to drive the characters' destinies.
"It's a bit of a life's journey, really, Leontiou explains. I think for any artist, ideas naturally come from parts of what's going on in their own lives. It's just about taking those parts and putting a different twist on them."
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