* #OpenEarsInfluencers is a series highlighting an album that had a major influence on artists, music industry folks, and music fiends alike’s love for music, an album that was really a catalyst and started it all for where they currently are in their musical journey.
This is a special week as we celebrate the upcoming release of Oryx & Crake‘s long awaited sophomore album, Marriage, due out September 25th via Deer Bear Wolf Records. This Saturday, September 12th, Oryx & Crake has a very special “Marriage” release show planned at The EARL with a reception to follow at the Brigantine Beer Parlor and Recreation Hall with Dot.s. If you are anywhere near Atlanta, you don’t want to miss this celebration.
Your RSVP is requested here. Formal attire optional.
Check out one of the video below from Oryx & Crake’s upcoming album Marriage “The World Will Take Care Of Me” that the band recently premiered on PASTE that stars Rebekah & Ryan Peoples son, made this summer by the kids of Atlanta nonprofit re:imagaine/ATL at their Green Room video camp that teaches a group of kids including at-risk youths the basics of film skills from start to this beautifully finished product. It’s an amazing non profit that deserves your attention. You will love this video :
Leading to the upcoming Marriage celebration this weekend, we’ve asked each member of the six person band to give us their influential album. Check back here throughout the week to get to know Oryx & Crake and some of the influential albums that helped bring the band to this stellar new album. Read the first entry from frontman Ryan Peoples on Sufjan Stevens here.
Today we have two entries from the strings section (1st one this morning from cellist Matt Jarrard on a Pink Floyd album which you can view here) of Oryx & Crake. Karyn Lu’s violin adds to the beauty of Oryx & Crake’s album, really rounding out the big sound that the band has created behind the intelligent lyrics. Check out what Karyn has to say about her influential album:
Zoe Keating: One Cello x 16: Natoma
Oryx & Crake’s Karyn Lu’s influential album: Zoe Keating – One Cello x 16: Natoma
“I’m a classically trained violinist, since the age of 5. When I traded in sheet music to play with Oryx & Crake, I felt free because I was making up my own parts for the first time. When I heard Zoe Keating’s music, that sense of freedom and possibility expanded infinitely. Every sound on One Cello x 16: Natoma was played on an acoustic cello. She loops and repeats in real time to create layers upon layers, while knocking, brushing and tapping on the body of the cello to create percussive sounds: she is an entire symphony onto herself. It blew my mind you can do THAT with a “traditional” string instrument (our cellist @mattjarrard inspires me similarly with his “space cello”). I am a much more open and experimental musician as a result of this amazing album.”
– Karyn Lu/Oryx & Crake
More On Oryx & Crake:
Website: www.oryx-and-crake.com
Facebook: @oryxandcrakeband
Twitter: @oryxncrake
Instagram: @oryxncrake
YouTube: Oryx and Crake
Soundcloud: oryxandcrake
Bandsintown: OryxAndCrake
Bio: Crafted in the Goode-Peoples home over the course of four years (and blooming with little intimate Easter eggs, like a recording of their friends sining at a Christmas party, or the voices of the their children), Marriage sounds much bigger than the rooms it was made in. This is thanks in large part to strings form Matt Jarrard (cello) and Karyn Lu (violin), as well as Ryan’s sound design tinkerings with audio both “found” around the house and created.
Such big sounds, themes and richness of detail could have made the record sag under its own weight. But Rebekah – who did her masters work in epics – helped give it structure in the well-worn fashion of the classics. The songs, like the epics, move in cycles – from the first blush of a thrilling new thing to the “underworld moment” of the “The Well”‘s dirge-like crawl to the woozy singing saw and blistered toes of closer “The Road,” which tips its hat at – who else? – Cormac McCarthy.
Check out the gorgeous album artwork by Bo Bartlett:
