CAROLINE LAVELLE: A Distant Bell

Caroline Lavelle

A Distant Bell

© 2004 Ringing Tree (634479998522)

CD OUT OF STOCK for re-production. Expect long delays.

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A breakthrough Chamber Folk CD. Cellist, singer-songwriter, Morning Becomes Eclectic favourite and Chieftains touring member explores Celtic, Folk and Classical. As seen on tour with Indigo Girls and Loreena McKennitt.

notes

""As a singer she recalls folk greats Kate and Anna McGarrigle, or Dead Can Dance's Lisa Gerrard; an acquired taste, but a taste worth acquiring. It is Lavelle's classic songwriting, affecting vocals and lush cello arrangements that put the stamp on an impressive album" - Daily Telegraph

"Surely one of the most distinctive and thrilling vocalists to appear in the last decade, her's is that rare voice that once heard, cannot be forgotten." - Musical Discoveries

"Pulls a mass of emotions and ideas from her song writing and sings with elegant intensity" - Q

"A powerful statement about her attributes as a singer, songwriter and instrumentalist" - Music Week

'A Distant Bell' is Caroline Lavelle's self-produced, thirteen song Chamber Folk reinterpretation of English and Irish traditions.

The same deep well of folk material that inspired Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention is transformed by the lens of Lavelle's pastoral romanticism as we travel with her from Medieval Sussex to 1960s Liverpool via the social upheavals of the Industrial Revolution, the battle fields of the Napoleonic Wars and of 1915 Armenia.

****** Web Site Exclusives******

Hear Caroline talk about the new album, listen to Caroline and her band live on tour in Germany, see in-studio video footage and download exclusive out takes, lyrics and artwork at www.carolinelavelle.com

****** Web Site Exclusives******

'A Distant Bell' and an artist's fifteen year musical journey ....

From the early 1980s to early 90s as a member of De Dannan spanning the golden years of that legendary group (alongside Mary Black and Dolores Keane), her three record tenure with Loreena McKennitt and as a current touring member of The Chieftains, Caroline has maintained the thread of creativity that connects her to her Celtic heritage and rural English roots. This is Chamber-Folk at its finest.

She has been at the forefront of expanding those traditions into the field of Electonica via her work with Massive Attack (Home Of The Whale) and William Orbit (Moorlough Shore), Jam Nation (She Moved Through The Fair) and the Afro Celt Sound System.

'A Distant Bell' brings it all back home with thirteen songs that includes two versions if the Wicker Man soundtrack favourite 'Gently Johnny', Pentangle's 'The Trees They Do Grow High' and Fotheringay's 'Banks Of The Nile'. Another stand-out is a luminous version of 'Greenwood Laddie' underpinned by David Bedford's gorgeous arrangement for choir and orchestra.

The official web site also features a free download of the demo of 'Bushes and Briars' which Caroline sang throughout the Loreena McKennitt 'Book Of Secrets' world tour .

The work of the First World War poet Siamanto (first heard on 'Brilliant Midnight') makes another appearance in the song 'Handful Of Ashes' which Caroline sings here in the original Armenian.

Two songs feature lyrics by 'Liverpool Poet' Brian Patten, whose work Caroline also recorded on her 1995 Warner Brothers debut album, 'Spirit'. Patten is himself no stranger to the potential of collaborations in this idiom having worked with Linda Thompson (then Linda Peters) on his 1971 album 'Vanishing Trick : Poems and Songs'.

Apart from David Bedford, Caroline's musical collaborators here include another 'Spirit' era colleague, arranger and co-producer Harvey Brough, dazzling electric fiddle virtuoso Hugh Marsh and also legendary Chieftain Paddy Moloney who makes a cameo appearance on 'Farewell To Music'.

Fans of Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, Vaughan Williams, Loreena McKennitt, Kate Bush, June Tabor, Kathleen Ferrier, Pentangle, Shirley Collins, Maddy Prior, Planxty, Linda Thompson & Roy Harper will find much to enjoy here.

For those listeners to whom this is new ground, 'A Distant Bell' opens a window on a 900 year treasure trove of musical tradition - to quote the call to arms of a previous generation of Folk Rock pioneers, "It All Comes Round Again".

reviews

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  • Beautiful!
    author: hoejin

    I see the inner colors in human heart.

  • I'm in love!
    author: Larry Daugherty

    I'm a new fan and am completely in love with Caroline Lavelle and her music. I saw her in concert with Loreena McKennit in Dallas, Texas and was blown away. I now own all three of her albums and treasure each one.

  • How Relaxing!
    author: Sahand

    This album has is great! A little more chill than I expected but it's a great listen! My favorite track is No More Words...its a fun, lively, rustic peice....5 stars!

  • WHAT WONDERFUL ALBUM!!
    author: Eltanin

    Caroline Lavelle, I think that she is the most brilliant singer of world, and this cd is , of course, fantastic, beautiful, wonderful.... 5 stars!!!!!!!!!!

  • Distant Dreams
    author: Sergey from Mother Russia

    You could believe all prevoius reviewers - music recorded on this CD is very beautiful, heartful, enchanting and relaxing. I knew Caroline Lavelle because of her record with Vangelis on the album "Voices". This CD is differs from "Voices", but the atmosphere of the record is really magic! "Gently Johnny" is the best song of the album.

  • Press the "Repeat" button again and again!
    author: Paul Falla

    I heard a track from this Album in LA at a Home Entertainment show and have searched for it ever since. I just can't stop playing it. Highly recommended.

  • A Definite Addition To Any Collection!
    author: Glen Hooper

    I stumbled across this album after hearing a remix of Banks Of The Nile and had to find out more about this lady. This is a truly beautiful album. Lush, orchestral and multi-textured sounds dripping with one of the best voices you will hear today. A definite must-have!! Have read a lot of review comparing Caroline to Loreena McKennitt and, whilst not detracting from Ms McKennitts work, I feel Ms Lavelle stands alone in this genre. Excellent stuff!!

  • Poetic, multi-layered, moving... - A must!!
    author: Michel Marchand
  • Past and present - shaken, not stirred
    author: Ian Gazzotti

    Very different from the previous two albums, and yet, in a way, similar: "A distant bell" is a Lavelle 100% and one of the finest albums I've ever heard. Traditional songs, poems set in music and original compositions, they all blend in in a wonderful and delicate mix that shows its strenghts hearing after hearing. 'So uncool' will blow you away, 'No more words' will make you dance... 'Timeless' will make you love her.

  • Brilliant chamber-folk, essential classical chill-out and musical poetry
    author: Burc Kozikoglu

    A Distant Bell" is Caroline Lavelle's third solo album. She has collaborated with many artists ranging from BT ("The Great Escape"), Chicane ("Lost You Somewhere") and Massive Attack ("Home of The Whale") to Vangelis ("Come To Me"), Hector Zazou ("The Freeze, "Lies Will Flow") and the violinist Nigel Kennedy ("Breathing Stone"). She has also contributed to Muse's "Origin of Symmetry", Radiohead's "The Bends", Loreena McKennitt's "Book of Secrets" and the legendary Irish band Chieftains in their live tours with her cello and backing vocals. "A Distant Bell", her third solo effort intermingles traditional British-Irish tunes with that very creative and personal attitute towards song-wirting and performing that she exhibited in her previous records. The result is a unique and fresh interpretation of evergreen traditionality. Additionally, the haunting emotional essence of the record is further reinforced, as it was on her second album "Brilliant Midnight", with her uniquely creative personal songs "So Uncool", "No More Words", "Too Late" and the glorious piece "Timeless", which goes "But old love grows so long / that the part above the ground has less effect / and time can wither tender shoots / but leaves those roots secure and strong / But the best love has no time / no forwards, backwards but only now / It's strong arms hold you when you walk and / if you fall you're always caught"...

  • A Distant Bell--Very cool music !!
    author: djwayne

    An excellent effort of wonderfully new music, well worth listening to many times. Very well written, very enjoyable. If you like Loreena McKennit's music, you'll certainly enjoy this as well.

  • velvet on a cd
    author: caravanmusicpromotions UK

    Caroline Lavelle has put velvet onto a cd and its wonderful.Her voice is second to one and the orchestration is pure romance. Excellent.

  • An Elegant and Ghostly album
    author: Justin Elswick

    A Distant Bell is Caroline Lavelle's third studio release and shows this incredibly gifted artist moving effortlessly into the boundaries folk/trad. A consumate cellist, Caroline has always endowed her music with beauty and mystery. As a vocalist, she is in a class all her own. Although Caroline has worked with acts like Massive Attack and BT, she seems to be at home in just about every genre that she has worked in. A Distant Bell is probably Caroline's most immediate and personal album to date. The songs range from traditional Irish and British tunes to marvelous neo-classical melodies written by Caroline herself. A near-perfect album from an artist with a stellar track record.

  • author: Tamara Turner, CD Baby

    Where the smoky meets the substantial, the fluid meets the solid, intertwining and combining to create an exquisite third entity with fuzzy boundaries yet distinct character. Blending the harmonies of jazz, the orchestral concepts of classical music and an unusually fresh folk leaning, "A Distant Bell" might be labeled as 'chamber folk jazz' and yet, words can only give mere parameters to the vital, pusling, elusive spirit which undulates in her songs with such untamed innocence that pinning it down would be as possible as packaging the wind. Lean back against these gorgeous songs and dip your beak in the cool, sweet, nectar of limitless magic.

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