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CoverWEBHeavenly Voices

Fiona Joy Hawkins and Rebecca Daniel Present Heavenly Voices

Australian musicians Fiona Joy Hawkins and Rebecca Daniel team up once again to create a remarkable acoustic new age album titled Heavenly Voices. Recorded and mixed by Grammy-nominated producer Cookie Marenco and released under Marenco’s own label Blue Coast Records, Heavenly Voices sounds close and present. The entirety of the album was performed live in Blue Coast’s Extended Sound Environment (E.S.E.) and recorded straight to DSD256 (1). Expert recording techniques combined with the high definition audio bring to life every rich keystroke and string vibration. Heavenly Voices is a testament to what great musicianship and audio engineering can accomplish.

2 Portrait LOD Rebecca and Fiona

Pianist Fiona Joy Hawkins has won several awards including Album of the Year by Zone Music Rewards, Best New Age Album by Independent Music Rewards, and her song “Grace” was featured on a Grammy Award winning album in 2014 (2). Violinist Rebecca Daniel has performed around the world. The Australian Chamber Orchestra in Sydney invited her to join their ranks where she held duties as the Orchestra Leader for several of their productions (3). Both virtuoso in their own right, together Hawkins and Daniel make for an incomparable team.

Checkout the video

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Hawkins’ pensive piano playing lays the foundation for Daniel’s expressive violin work. Listeners will become immersed in the evocative melodies and harmonies, where the piano and violin have their own emotions that they wish to convey. Tracks such as “Sugar Plum Ghost,” “The Lightness of Dark,” and the title song “Heavenly Voices” also feature Hawkins’ and Daniel’s voices, adding a greater ethereal element. Though every part was performed live, much of the album sounds other-worldly, as though Hawkins and Daniel are pulling back the curtain to reveal a glimpse into the afterlife. In a way, Heavenly Voices is a lament. It evokes feelings of grief and loss, though not without a ray of hope, as if the very impermanence that causes our mourning is also the source of beauty upon which we gaze.

Onstage DUO

Expertly crafted in composition, performance, and production, Heavenly Voices is an album that fans of contemporary classical music will not want to miss. We’re sure once you hear the music this will be a MUST HAVE!

This is how the piano and violin were meant to sound!

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Driftwood Releases New Video & Single ‘Bremfields’ Feat. Still Greedy

Endlessly prolific, multi-disciplinary artist Driftwood has a remarkable new single BREMFIELDS featuring British rapper Still Greedy. It’s a truly creative and thoughtful track, a glowing addition to this growing artist’s impressive discography. In addition to being an innate singer-songwriter, his videos are self-directed and self- published, all with his readily identifiable stamp of authenticity, perfection and professionalism. Fiercely independent and intriguingly enigmatic, Driftwood proves over and over again that he is someone to watch.

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BREMFIELDS evokes feelings of Kanye West at his most exciting and most innovative. Classic Ye albums My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Yeezus have both clearly influenced the electronic/RnB stylings of Driftwood during the creation of this song, yet BREMFIELDS still feels fresh, unique, and new. The song arcs creatively, synths spiking in unexpected moments, while Driftwood and Still Greedy’s vocals provide the smooth melodic, rhythmic anchor. Speaking on the otherworldly inspiration behind the song, Driftwood says, “This single is about breaking the fourth wall. It’s about the idea that there could be subterranean energies and other factors operating within other paradigms of consciousness. It’s about feeling like I’m trapped within this paradigm, and I don’t belong here…the one thing I love about art is I have a licence to explore ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem.”

The video for BREMFIELDS is the perfect visual representation of this exchange and exploration of energies. Slow, deliberate shots of bodies moving purposefully in the just-risen, just-set sunlight peppered throughout with closed shots of darkly lit bars and eerie cliff faces, one step away from oblivion. It’s a beautiful triumph, created by an artist completely in charge of his own vision, as Driftwood explains, “I direct and edit all my videos now. I came up with the idea and the aesthetic behind the visual as well. They represent the ebb and flow, the push and pull, the yin and yang of energies which are manifested within the material universe…my creative team is small, but we get it done. Too many bodies fuck up the flow and a lot of the time are unnecessary for what I am trying to accomplish.”

Click to play the Official Video:

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These are wise words from an artist who’s been in the game long enough to know what works and what doesn’t. To be so immune to the chaos and noise of the modern music industry and so completely, totally immersed in one’s art is no mean feat, but Driftwood does it all with ease. He offers more wisdom on the subject as he reflects, “I’m just an artist creating pieces of work I want to create and doing it independently. I’m not signed to a major record deal, and up until late last year, I did everything on my own, with the help of a few friends, and without any backing. You don’t need to be signed, or in the cool crowd to create what you want to create. No one has a monopoly on art.”

Stream the single on Spotify:

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CJ Shaw Releases Single ‘Ain’t Many Like Lennie’ with Animation Video

NEW REVIEW For CJ Shaw’s Album ‘ALL SORTS’

 Nominated for a 2020 Music Teacher of the Year ARIA, CJ Shaw is an unadulterated, unashamedly Australiana rather than Americana singer-songwriter, sort of Shane Howard meets Fred Smith if you will. Shaw keeps it all pretty simple too, two and three chords at most as he spins his stories, some aimed at younger listeners – as you’d expect from a teacher – rambling, cheeky ditties full of whimsy – others serving more mature musical tastes with tales that ponder life as it’s lived in this wide brown land. “We would all do a lot less harm,” he suggests in ‘Choose to Chew’, “If we ate our Coat of Arms” – which makes sense of the recipe card for CJ Shaw’s Fair Dinkum ‘Roo Bolognese included! Obviously one of his children’s songs, but hey, we all need a bit of fun once in a while. ‘Werewolves’ straddles the generations, delivered straight-faced yet obviously not to be imbibed in that spirit. The seraphic Hannah Czaben takes the vocal spotlight on ‘Full on Heart’, another gentle two-chord stroll, a rumination on separate lives that could have been more lived more happily together that, along with songs like ‘Lonely Road’, is proof that when he allows himself, Shaw is quite the poignant singer-songwriter.

MICHAEL SMITH

 Truth is often stranger than fiction and Lennie Gwyther’s story is no exception. A 9 year old boy who, along with his horse Ginger Mick, traversed 1000 kilometres of Australian wilderness to arrive in Sydney for the opening of the Harbour Bridge in 1932.

Along the way he became a celebrity, admired for his bravery and determination. He even met with the Prime Minister of the time on the ride north. This was during the depression years and heroes were in demand. This unassuming boy was an unlikely icon that united the country as a symbol of hope.

This song was written to teach Australian history to primary aged students (and curious adults alike). The storytelling lyrics allow students, the same age as Lennie, to imagine his courageous three month journey to witness a momentous moment in Australian history. One taken without parents, cars, electricity and, most unbelievably, mobile phones.

The stop-motion music video to accompany the song is made by award-winning animators ‘Eleanor & Giovanni’ and features 3D felted puppets who play out the historical story of Lennie Gwyther. These meticulously hand-made puppets and backdrops create a child-like physicality to captivate the audience – drawing them into this inspiring Australian story.

As the song says – “There ain’t many like Lennie”.

Checkout the Video on todays excellent Premiere courtesy of Scenestr Magazine

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Song Description
 Ain’t Many Like Lennie
Back to folk with this true to life story song. Mid-tempo, acoustics, banjo, mandolin, drums and bass.

Armed with a guitar and a swag full of harmonicas, singer-songwriter CJ Shaw’s intricate finger-picking, word play and storytelling never fails to captivate his audiences. CJ Shaw’s music is distinctly Australian in style, influenced by Paul Kelly and Slim Dusty. His lyrical storytelling and musicality lends itself to audiences of all ages.

In 2020, CJ Shaw was nominated for an ARIA Award for ‘Music Teacher of the Year’ with Jimmy Barnes as his official ambassador presenting him with the nomination. This prestigious music industry acknowledgement recognised his dynamic and poignant songwriting for primary-aged children. These celebrated songs are woven through his performances and albums, played alongside satirical and storytelling Australiana folk songs.

In 2021 CJ Shaw released his album ‘All Sorts’. Combining the best of his children’s songs with his unique brand of contemporary Australiana, Shaw has dubbed ‘All Sorts’ “the ultimate Family Album”. With over a decade experience touring and performing at music festivals in Australia and Timor-Leste, CJ Shaw is an exciting Canberra musician at the top of his game.

CJ Shaw – Ain’t Many Like Lennie is out NOW December 3rd through Foghorn/MGM
Download or stream: 

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