Album Notes

After great success in New York’s downtown scene and two well-received live albums, Ethan Lipton has taken his Orchestra into the studio to record MR. SOFTY, a groovy and ticklish collection that invites the listener to bask in the confounding joy of Lipton’s mixed-message sincerity.

MR. SOFTY comes courtesy of Lipton’s own Muckraker Records and spotlights the eclectic talents of his “Orchestra”: Eben Levy on guitar (Chucklehead), Ian M. Riggs on bass (One Ring Zero, Howard Fishman) and sax man Vito Dieterle (Joel Forrester).

Produced by Huck Bennert (Chip Taylor, Carrie Rodgriguez), with arrangements by Levy, Riggs, Dieterle and Lipton, MR. SOFTY lives where jazz, country, rock and folk intersect and bears the imprint of the songwriter’s influences, from John Prine to Donna Summer, from Leonard Cohen to Ben Webster, from Tom Waits to George and Ira Gershwin to The Ramones.

Ethan Lipton & his Orchestra play all over New York (Celebrate Brooklyn, Joe’s Pub, Rockwood, Barbes, The Living Room), Los Angeles, (Tangier, Silverlake Lounge, The Derby) and the Northeast (MassMoCA, AS220, Pop!tech). The band recently contributed a song to the SANDINISTA PROJECT, a Clash tribute album.

For more information, visit: www.ethanlipton.com and www.myspace.com/ethanlipton

"Some music makes you go "wow". That's pretty rare. Mr. Softy by Ethan Lipton + his Orchestra is an album which takes you back to a few decades to the age when singers spoke their mind." (Here Comes the Flood)

"Hilarious, dark, sophisticated, schleppy and sad all at once… songs that take the mundane of life and twist it." (NPR's Weekend Edition)

"Sad little songs packed full of absurdity." (Fluxblog)

"Crazy whack music. We’re talking funny and poignant and sassy. Melodic and well-orchestrated. Clever and fully enjoyable." (The Late Greats)

"A sardonic voice that offers an unlikely kind of comfort against the vagaries of everyday life." (Popmatters)

"This is some of the weirdest, but most fun, music I’ve heard in a while."
(Berkeley Place)

"Ethan Lipton & his Orchestra are not your average band. They're not even your non-average band. They are out there...I'm talking past Pluto the non-planet out there. And that's a good thing." (Mainstream Isn't So Bad)

"It’s always enjoyable when a singer-songwriter throws some humor into his
misery." (Timeout NY)

“Big of schnozz, thick of moustache and dulcet of voice, Mr. Lipton croons unlikely urban haikus and wry ballads.”
(New York Observer)

"Instead of listing metaphors comparing Ethan Lipton to a Eucalyptus tree, or his music to a recently acquired dairy farm, I will instead list reasons why it is Ethan Lipton's world, and you are paying the rent." (The Deli Magazine)

"A soft, relaxing, hilarious and dark look at everyday life." (Circles of Concrete)

"Hysterical, poignant story-telling." (Manchester Journal)