Tag Archives: new album

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News and Touring

Darlene Koldenhoven’s new album has reached #1 on the Soundslikecafe instrumental chart

GRAMMY® Award Winner and 3 time Nominee Darlene Koldenhoven’s new album ‘Traveling the Blissful Highway’ has been cruising up the Soundslikecafe  charts since its release in October and has now hit the number 1 instrumental album spot!!
Not only that but the single ‘Jade Dreams’ is hanging out at number 2 on the overall top 10.

Click below for the chart:Screen Shot 2022-11-26 at 12.36.03 pm

 The album also had local Australian articles in Scenestr magazine and Whats My Scene. Darlene was recently interviewed across the pond for Aparna Vats Point of View show on Alive 90.5 fm Sydney.

The chart position isn’t surprising considering these great reviews of the album below:

It is some of the most relaxing and
dreamy music you will have the pleasure of enjoying – a slice of heaven.
– Keith “Muzik Man” Hannaleck, New Age Music Reviews, Founder 7/18/22

The music of “Traveling the Blissful Highway” is colored with many colors, as if you are enthusiastically
leafing through a color album of a wonderful photographer who captured the most beautiful landscapes
that he met on his way. And each new page is even more beautiful… There is sophistication and a lot of the
smallest nuances in its perfect sounding music. A wonderful end to a hard day, bringing peace to the soul
and clearing the mind of worries.
– Serge Kozlovsky, Minsk, Belarus skozlovsky.com 7/30/22

“Traveling the Blissful Highway is an album you will want as your musical companion, to help make your life
joumey a more enjoyable and beautiful discovery. Darlene’s experience and exposure to varied cultures,
countries and traditions have contributed positively to her broad and diverse vision of humanity and our
world which comes through in her musical compositions and especially shines on this album.”
-Lizzette Cascante, Aurelscapes 8/3/22

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Travel with Darlene Koldenhoven and her musicians on the blissful highway in her new album that features twelve instrumental tracks including four with her angelic, harmonic vocalese, occasionally used as background instrumentation. All of her compositions and arrangements invite us to go out and see the world and have a good rest at the end of an exquisite day. There are 53:46 minutes of colorful timbres and some nature sounds to keep you balanced, focused, refreshed, and joyfully relaxed. Darlene performs on keyboard synths, creating a culture of calm: half the album has ethnic influences to gently keep you going on the road and half lets you exit to the rest areas. Even when real travel is not in the picture, pack these traveling soundscapes for your inner and outer journey. With this album, the only passport you’ll need for these destination cities – peace, calm, happiness and bliss is your own mindfulness to visit them and the album as your tour guide.

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About

GRAMMY® Award Winner and 3 time Nominee, Darlene Koldenhoven is a vocalist, pianist, composer, arranger, lyricist, speaker, and sonic therapist from Studio City, CA, born and raised in Chicago, IL. Her last two albums, “The Grand Piano Spa” and “The Grand Piano Spa: Legacy” debuted on the prestigious Billboard Classical Crossover Charts at #4 and #8, respectively in May & November 2021.

She was inducted to the Indie Music Hall of Fame at the GRAMMY® Museum in 2019 by the Indie Music Channel Awards and the COVR Award hailed her “Chromatones” as Album of the Year a few months later. Several of her albums ranked #1 on the worldwide ZMR Radio Charts and she has 2 Best New Age Vocal Album and Best Holiday Album from ZMR.

Darlene is best known worldwide as the featured soprano in “Yanni, Live at the Acropolis” and for her role as the tambourine-waving choir nun in both “Sister Act” films with Whoopi Goldberg.

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News and Touring

Steve Kilbey & Martin Kennedy Release Album ‘The Strange Life of Persephone Nimbus’

Steve Kilbey & Martin Kennedy follow up their acclaimed album Jupiter 13 with the epic ‘The Strange Life of Persephone Nimbus’, a sprawling Pink Floyd-ish concept album that shimmers with darkly beautiful musical undercurrents, oblique lyrics and spooky spoken word pieces. It is the second chapter of an eventual trilogy and this one has already garnered  strong reviews leading to release.

ALBUM REVIEWS
http://bigtakeover.com/recordings/KilbeyKennedyTheStrangeCaseofPersephoneNimbusFoghorn

https://www.backseatmafia.com/album-review-steve-kilbey-the-church-and-martin-kennedy-all-india-radio-are-kilbey-kennedy-and-they-combine-forces-again-to-weave-their-aesthetically-jaw-dropping-sci-fi-sonic-magic/

The album was recorded in Tasmania overlooking the ocean, peaceful and crystal calm one day, dark and stormy the next, a dynamic that inevitably worked its way into the music and lyrics.

Returning to the mixing desk is Simon Polinski (Paul Kelly, The Church, David Bridie, Stephen Cummings, Underground Lovers) who skilfully brings the story of Persephone Nimbus to life.

Steve Kilbey writes: ‘Persephone Nimbus was just an ordinary woman living an ordinary life, with a promising job at Eternity Incorporated. Until one day she was kidnapped by the Plutocracy.
There she reigned for 6 months of the year, a sad cold queen of the dark webbed world. But for 6 months of the year she was allowed to ascend to the Overworld with its marvellous technological illusions, and it’s towers that pierced the very sky. But on the first day of every autumn she must take the long staircase back down, down into the Plutocracy, with their frozen lakes and above them, a sky of iron.’

In 1981 a teenage Martin Kennedy stumbled upon Steve Kilbey and The Church at Tanelorn, an oddball old world meets new world music festival, and fell in love with their look and sound. He recorded their set on a walkman, and the songs helped spark the beginning of his music career. Just a year before, an equally fresh-faced Steve Kilbey formed The Church in Sydney, the very beginning of their public life as accidental hit makers.

Forty one years later Martin and Steve find themselves working together on their sixth studio album, the epic The Strange Life of Persephone Nimbus. As ever with these two, the deal is simple: Martin writes the music and Steve writes the words. No argument, no egos, just a matter of pressing the record button. The results are an effective balancing of Kennedy’s haunting and melodic tunes with Kilbey’s mysterious, witty and intelligent lyrics, melded together by his heavenly voice. Martin keeps his teenage love of The Church out of the equation in fear of it skewing his songwriting but it’s there if you listen closely.

“Sumptuous meeting of Australian soundscaper and the head Churchman…Apart from having a voice of characterful cool poise and an imaginative lyrical lexicon, Kilbey can make a strong melodic song out of simple elements.” (MOJO)

“Occasionally side projects can be something really spectacular. This isn’t an album where you pick favorite songs – you simply immerse yourself in the whole lush experience. The good news is they’re recording a follow up” (Reverb magazine 4.5/5).

Kilbey/Kennedy – The Strange Life of Persephone Nimbus(Fog/MGM)

Out Oct 28 CD and Digital

Vinyl LP release Early 2023

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News and Touring

Steve Williams Releases New Album ‘Deja Vu’

The new album from Steve Williams (Wa Wa Nee, Matt Finish, Choirboys) ‘Deja Vu’ has songs ranging from Glam Rock, Funk and Blues. The tunes have something for everyone including an amazing dream romance story that actually came true, different perceptions of reality, persecution, inequality and some characters who have done jail time or simply gone bad.

All songs were written by Steve except ‘Pump’ with Pat Powell and ‘Ronnie’ with John Kenny. Steve played all instruments but with the help of a few very talented guests: Gus Fenwick, Nic MC, John Kenny, Pat Powell, Glen Muirhead, Ralph Franke, Raechel Summers, and Mac Johnson.

The album was recorded entirely by Steve in his home studio which he has been refining for years.

Steve Williams came to prominence as the lead guitarist in the 80’s pop group Wa Wa Nee, who had top 5 hits and ARIA Nominations in Australia and chart action in Europe and the USA. Following Wa Wa Nee’s breakup Steve worked with prominent local artists, James Freud and Richard Clapton, beforerelocating to Europe.

In London, Steve built a successful career as a session guitarist working with Jon Lord from Deep Purple, Ray Parker Jr, Real Life and many more. He returned to Australia in 2005 and continued session and production work including musical theatre and television appearances playing with The Choir Boys, Matt Finish and others.

In 2020 Steve released the ‘Surry Road album’. All the tracks were co-written with musicians that he has worked with over his many years of touring and recording. Tracks feature guest vocals from Pat Powell (Melbourne Ska Orchestra and many more) and other well-known vocalists such as: John Kenny (Rockmelons), Tim Watson (Taxiride), Vince Contarino, Terry Slesser (UK), Louise Person as well up-coming Melbourne singer Nic MC.

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News and Touring

Darlene Koldenhoven Releases New Album ‘Traveling the Blissful Highway’

Travel with GRAMMY® Winner and 3 times Nominee Darlene Koldenhoven

Back in the late 1980’s Darlene had some memorable experiences (including a brush with a  Roo!) on tour in Australia early in her career

The early days of Darlene’s career include work as a “sideman” in former soap opera star, Gloria Loring’s band. Darlene played synthesizer keyboards and sang background vocals and stepped up front and sing duets with Gloria. “Days of Our Lives” was in full swing in Australia at that time. Touring Australia with Ms. Loring led to several memorable adventures from Sydney to Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra and the Gold Coast in August/September of 1987 where it was quite rare to have it rain 48 out of the 50 days they were there. On one of the sunny days, the whole band drove south of Melbourne to the coast to see the 12 Apostles. Darlene cherishes a photograph she took of the waves crashing into them; seen daily in her home in Los Angeles.

On the other sunny day off, at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, Darlene was feeding the kangaroos when suddenly, the large grey reared up on his tail, dug his front claws into her back shoulders, and kicked with both back legs on her ‘backside.’ She tried to slowly walk away but the buck was determined and hopped on his tail while still boxing her backside! She yelled, “Get him off, get him off!!!” Finally, Gloria’s music director yelled and rushed at the ‘roo’ and got him off of her. The rest of the tour Darlene had two giant bruises on each cheek and had a difficult time sitting for a while. She said it was the strangest feeling having a larger than herself animal on her back. (Darlene is 5’10’ and short compared to the marsupial on his tail.)

In Perth, Gloria threw out the ball at a championship rugby game and Darlene saw her first rugby match. Darlene was amused by the scrum and flabbergasted that the game went on with players jumping over the player who was down on the active field with a doctor!

Besides the bruises, her return home souvenirs were a few Aboriginal musical instruments she purchased while there: didjeridu, bullroarer, rainstick, clapsticks. On her new upcoming album, “Traveling the Blissful Highway” (10/14/22), Darlene played Australian Aboriginal rainstick. On her very first album, “Keys to the World,” she played the bullroarer and traditional didjeridu. Having been unaware at the time she purchased the instrument, no one mentioned it was considered cultural appropriation for a non-Aboriginal woman to play or touch a didjeridu. Upon recent study, Darlene sincerely apologizes  Aboriginal and other groups who consider that taboo and adds that it was only used in a secular setting with great respect.

With the use of Zoom & Skype, Darlene taught voice and sonic therapy to Australian clients during the pandemic and has many fans of her and her music on the continent. She hopes to return someday to perform her own concerts and workshops, enjoying the rich culture of the country.

Nominee Darlene Koldenhoven and her musicians on the blissful highway with her upcoming New Age instrumental album, “Traveling the Blissful Highway”. There are twelve instrumental tracks including four with her angelic, harmonic vocalese, occasionally used as background instrumentation. All of her compositions and arrangements invite us to go out and see the world and have a good rest at the end of an exquisite day.  Darlene performs on keyboard synths, creating a culture of calm: half the album has ethnic influences to gently keep you going on the road and half lets you exit to the rest areas. Even when real travel is not in the picture, pack these traveling soundscapes for your inner and outer journey. With this album, the only passport you’ll need for these destination cities – peace, calm, happiness and bliss is your own mindfulness to visit them and the album as your tour guide.

Darlene says, “After being cooped up so long in Los Angeles, I ventured to London, Las Vegas and Denver during the spring this year for some appearances and was so excited to travel again that when I came home, I started writing to process my emotions from it all and I just couldn’t stop! I hope the listener will enjoy the musical adventure and immerse in the sonic benefits from Traveling the Blissful Highway with me.”

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About
GRAMMY® Award Winner and 3 time Nominee, Darlene Koldenhoven is a vocalist, pianist, composer, arranger, lyricist, speaker, and sonic therapist from Studio City, CA, born and raised in Chicago, IL. Her last two albums, “The Grand Piano Spa” and “The Grand Piano Spa: Legacy” debuted on the prestigious Billboard Classical Crossover Charts at #4 and #8, respectively in May & November 2021.

This past May & June gifted Darlene with a Lifetime Achievement Award from One World Music Radio and Outstanding Legacy Award from the Akademia Awards. She was inducted to the Indie Music Hall of Fame at the GRAMMY® Museum in 2019 by the Indie Music Channel Awards and the COVR Award hailed her “Chromatones” as Album of the Year a few months later.  Several of her albums ranked #1 on the worldwide ZMR Radio Charts and she has 2 Best New Age Vocal Album and Best Holiday Album from ZMR.

Darlene is best known worldwide as the featured soprano in “Yanni, Live at the Acropolis” and for her role as the tambourine-waving choir nun in both “Sister Act” films with Whoopi Goldberg. Ms. Koldenhoven has authored “Tune Your Voice: Singing and Your Mind’s Musical Ear,” a comprehensive music education book with 7 CDs or downloads. She performs her music worldwide.

Darlene Koldenhoven – Travelling the Blissful Highway is Out Now October 14

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News and Touring

Daxton Releases New Album ‘50% Grit’

A long-time friend asked Daxton to produce a stripped back, raw but lively and psychedelic dirty blues song. ‘Just something I can really get into as I drink my bourbon to late at night please mate’.

Dax took on the job with gusto and was so engrossed that before he knew it 7 new tunes were born. The song, Rise Above, fulfilled the original request and opens the album. The rest of the tunes don’t disappoint and range from dirty, stompy, bluesy slide pieces to slightly more grungy but poppy tunes with some snare and percussion added in.

Song Descriptions
Rise Above
Dirty scratchy psychedelic harp and cigar box guitar feature in this mid-tempo track from Daxton’s new offering.  Distorted, rough and ready vocals set the tone for the next six tracks on this mini album.

Nothing to lose
A more up-tempo blues tune. Bass, slide cigar box guitar and some simple drums flesh out this one with his life-worn vocals and lyrics filling in the story.

Right On time
Guitar riffs and electric slide stabs plus some nifty catchy vocal lines abound in this mid-tempo song. There’s some stomp box keeping time and enough changes and interesting sounds to keep you rocking all the way through.

Producing and playing music since his early teens, Daxton’s passion has kept him continually creating new material both for his band and solo career. On stage, Daxton comes across like he was born to play, his unique guitar style blending perfectly with heart-warming vocals.

Daxton has appeared at major festivals including the Sydney Blues & Roots and Tamworth Country Music Festival where he supported artists such as Kasey Chambers and Beccy Cole. He also has had one of his tracks ‘Moody Liz’ featured in the popular American TV series Doll House.

Based in Sydney, Daxton is best described as a blues/rock artist with a twist of pop and rock. He plays slide guitar rock/blues songs with a fresh and innovative sound.

Daxton – 50% Grit is out NOW September 23rd
Foghorn/MGM

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News and Touring

Luke Escombe Releases New Album ‘Whale Beach Road’

Finally out on all digital platforms here is Luke’s latest album, an ode to brilliant songwriting and musicianship all wound up in family stories.
Luke says -
“I genuinely believe that Whale Beach Road is the best album of “adult music” I’ve made, and it’s very special to me because of all the family history written into the songs.

Whale Beach Road is the first full studio album I’ve made solely under my own name. I started writing the songs in early 2020, towards the end of the fires and before the first lockdown. Initially, I was working on a memoir but then the stories started turning into songs instead.

At first, I was hesitant to apply for Jobkeeper in 2020, as I felt like other people needed it more than me, but then I realised it would give me the funds to go and employ all of the amazing musicians on this album, like drummer Evan Mannell, bassist Zoe Hauptmann, Aaron Flower on guitar and Clayton Doley on Hammond organ. There was even enough to get string and backing vocal arrangements for most of the songs, which gives it that luxurious 70’s soul vibe I was after while still sounding modern and clean. I could have been a hermit and lived off beans and rice, but instead Jobkeeper enabled me to keep creating and collaborating with my community.

Whale Beach Road is a very personal album, but I think there’s also something very universal there in that the songs are all about searching for love and hope in an uncertain world. It was all written and tracked between the Northern Beaches of Sydney and the Central Coast, and I think those beautiful locations feed into the sound. Hopefully the album takes listeners to a good place.”

Family – On Feature Track ‘Max and Melanie’

“While I was writing Max and Melanie I had the idea that it would make a good 70th birthday present for my Mum, a way of paying tribute to her family and where she came from. I’d never actually realised it before, but she was a political refugee, an asylum seeker in her own country. I carried on her story in another song on the album – “Lady Sunlight” – and then started to think about my own story, and all the events and circumstances that had led me to the exact place I found myself at the time of writing these songs: a house on Whale Beach Road. That’s how the album found its narrative, and its title. It’s about people trying to hold on to love and hope while confronting the powerful tide of history. To paraphrase the chorus of Max and Melanie, history makes plans for us, but we can still make plans for ourselves. I find that idea very hopeful.”

“Luke Escombe is a rock-soul singer, raconteur, blistering blues guitarist, comedian and songwriter, and very good at them all” – Sydney Morning Herald

Luke Escombe is an ARIA-nominated singer-songwriter who combines his blues, rock and soul influences with subversive humour, poetic lyrics and heartfelt storytelling. He is the creator of the internationally acclaimed one-man show “Chronic” and the writer and front man of multi award-winning Aussie kids band The Vegetable Plot.

Luke has released numerous albums and EPs with his band Luke Escombe and the Corporation and one album solely under his own name, 2017’s Skeleton Blues. The album was recorded direct to tape in a three-hour session at Damien Gerard Studios, featuring his smoky-voiced cover of Bob Dylan’s “Man in the Long Black Coat” alongside distinctive originals like Punctuation Blues and The Lipsi. This new Luke Escombe studio album, Whale Beach Road, was recorded in between lockdowns with some of Sydney’s most in-demand session players.

Luke received his early musical education in London, where his father’s job in the rock and roll industry enabled him to see hundreds of legendary performances by artists like Freddie Mercury, Prince and Bruce Springsteen while he was just a boy. When he’s not channelling his childhood idols, Luke is an ambassador for a number of health charities, a member of the NSW Arts Advisory Panel, a teaching artist with the Sydney Opera House’s Creative Leadership in Learning Program. He is also a song writing mentor with the Sydney Children’s Hospital’s Chronic Illness Peer Support program [ChIPS] with whom he wrote and recorded the track “Wake up Call” in 2021. He believes strongly that music and storytelling can play a transformative role in health, education and society. Among his more obscure awards is the title of “Sydney’s Sexiest man voice”, which he won in a competition on a once-popular Sydney radio station.

Luke Escombe – Whale Beach Road (Foghorn/MGM) August 19

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Slide Milligan Releases Debut Album ‘Blood Red River’

Slide Milligan’s musical journey has been half a life in the making but sounds as exciting as the latest Australian Rock & Roll export being paraded around the world. After years and years of playing in bands through the late 80’s/90s, Dave “Slide” Milligan gave up his musical dreams to pursue a trade in rural fencing and woodworking. To unwind after working all day in the paddocks of rural Australia and his sawmill, Dave built himself a lap steel guitar.

Over the years he started to write a collection of exceptional songs that weren’t your usual “roots” music fare, mixing his hard rock background and his ability to tap into that authentic Australian sound. Despair and dread mixed with sunshine and water, and he caught the ear of local producers and with some help with production from Indie impresario Andy Clockwise (he was working on a fence on Clockwise’s farm when he was back from LA and the two lit a bonfire in the paddock), “Slide” has produced a psychedelic slide guitar masterpiece called “Blood Red River”. A pastiche of outlaw country, psychedelic post-punk & a different approach to the slide guitar. This music sounds familiar yet fresh in the current musical landscape. At the ripe old age of 52, this new artist is sure to make a splash in the country-indie-rock crossover here and abroad.

Song Descriptions
Feelin’ Fine
The track is an undeniable summer anthem in the vein of the Sunny Boys, Australian Crawl & The Church, and features vocals by Slide’s daughter Lani. The up-tempo “Australiana Classic” song rolls along with infectious melody and nostalgic production. Sure to resonate with fans of Classic Australian Pub Rock, Pink Floyd & Waylon Jennings.

Gasoline
Up-tempo drums begin this blues rock/indie tune. Produced by Andy Clockwise, who also did a brilliant job on the kit, this song is peppered with modern sounds but maintains a retro feel. Think Black Keys, Jack White and adding it to your list you can’t go wrong.

Slide Milligan – Blood Red River is out NOW (May 6th)
Foghorn/MGM

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News and Touring

John Kennedy Releases Raining Treasure Vol. 2

Volume 2 of Raining Treasure from John Kennedy – iconic Aussie Indie Covers from the golden age – Physco, Shivers, The Nips are Getting Bigger to name a few

John Kennedy’s 2019 album Raining Treasure Vol.1 celebrated the golden era of Australian independent music from the late ‘70’s and the 80’s. This album, Raining Treasure Vol.2, goes both deeper and wider into the world of Australian indie music. Kennedy compiled a list of classic indie songs (and some obscurities) from that era and with his band, John Kennedy’s 68 Comeback Special, has covered songs from Radio Birdman, The Riptides, The Cruel Sea and more.

Some selections covered are likely to create controversy with indie music diehards. The Sports and Mental As Anything? Indie? Really? The Mentals released their records on Regular Records, the Sports on Mushroom; both Australian independent labels. The Angels ?!?! They were on pioneering Australian independent label Albert Productions. Weddings, Parties, Anything (WPA) were on major label WEA. What defines these songs as indie for Kennedy is the independent spirit of the music and the bands who originally recorded them.

JFK RT PR

An enthusiastic young music journalist once described John Kennedy as a humble genius. Kennedy is neither a genius nor particularly humble. He is the writer and performer of many fine songs, some of which have found a place in the hearts of music fans of the golden era of Australian independent music. Kennedy started his music career in Brisbane in the ‘80’s with his band JFK and the Cuban Crisis. The band moved to Sydney and after establishing itself on the indie music scene, broke up, leaving Kennedy to pursue a solo career with his band vehicle, John Kennedy’s Love Gone Wrong.

Despite numerous indie hits, commercial crossover proved to be elusive leading to his decision to leave Australia.  Kennedy spent the ‘90’s living and playing music in Berlin, Hong Kong and London before returning to Sydney’s Inner West in 2000. He formed a new band, John Kennedy’s 68 Comeback Special and continues to perform and produce independent releases.

JFK CARTOON

Over the years Kennedy has shared stages with many of the acts covered on this new album. His band members have come from or gone on to The Triffids, the Go-Betweens, Pop Mechanix and the Lime Spiders. The current line up of the band boasts its own fine indie pedigree. Long time drummer, Peter Timmerman was an original Love Gone Wrong member before moving on to the Widdershins.

Bassist Phil Hall played with Sardine v and the Dropbears. Guitarist Murray Cook started out with indie hopefuls Finger Guns before going on to form what is probably Australia’s most successful independent band, the Wiggles. Together with Kennedy they have created versions of these Australian indie classics, reinterpreting some, expanding some and celebrating them all.

The tracklist is:

The Album Launch Show is on the 6th of May @8pm
At the Petersham Bowling Club

Raining Treasure (Australian Indie Gold Covers Vol.2) is out now 22 April 2022,
on Foghorn Records through MGM. 

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