Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Vocalist/Songwriter Halie Loren Explores Transformation And Self-Realization On Soulful Release, Butterfly Blue - Available June 9 Via Justin Time Records


The butterfly has long been a powerful symbol of rebirth. The lowly caterpillar's emergence from its cocoon into a thing of beauty in flight is a vivid embodiment of transformation and self-realization. The title of Butterfly Blue, the stunning and soulful new album by vocalist Halie Loren, evokes those poetic images, but tinged with a sense of bittersweet melancholy.

Loren has found quite a bit of metamorphosis over the past few years, growing from a West-Coast singer-songwriter to an international jazz celebrity in Japan and Asia, where the singer has now performed dozens of sold-out concerts and found her music climbing to the pinnacle of many a sales chart, including three consecutive Billboard Jazz #1 albums in Japan.

Her career and musical growth continues into 2015, the year which finds Loren spreading her proverbial wings wider than ever before with the release of Butterfly Blue, drawing inspiration from blues and soul music influences in a deeper way than she has in the past, while firmly and unapologetically planting one foot in the jazz realm and the other in pop. She does this without losing any of the warmth, charm and sensuality that has always characterized her unique vocal approach. But the thread that connects the album's mix of jazz and Songbook standards, reimagined pop songs, and original pieces is captured in that seemingly contradictory title."

"A lot of these songs were chosen because they explored different aspects of imprisonment and freedom," Loren explains. "Many of them have to do with ideas of being beholden to thoughts, feelings, and experiences from which you alone can also free yourself."

The album's title marries two original pieces that exemplify that theme. "Butterfly" was written by Loren, who imagined the insect's transformation from the caterpillar's point of view, facing the prospect of having to pass through a literal death in order to experience rebirth, relating the experience to that of human suffering being the catalyst for spiritual growth. "Blue," one of two songs penned by guitarist and songwriter Daniel Gallo, expresses empathy and promises of a brighter future to a lover in the deep throes of melancholy. Joining the two, Loren says, "really felt like an apropos combination. It's about finding the way through the pain of experience to a new, wiser, more beautiful version of yourself. But you have to go through the journey; that's where the real pain happens."

The two songs also boldly spotlight the album's musical influences: the stabbing horns and soulful pleas of "Butterfly" conjure soul touchstones like Otis Redding or Etta James, while "Blue" lives up to its name through Gallo's gut-punch guitar and Loren's powerfully communicated longing. While she's quick to say that Butterfly Blue is by no means a blues or soul album, those storied genres color the whole album. "It has touches of the things that have heavily moved me musically over the years," she says. "I've been a fan of a lot of different kinds of music my whole life, so I was interested in stretching out beyond the territory I've explored over the last few albums and digging deeper into more of my bluesy roots."

To realize those ambitions, Loren added horns and strings to the arrangements in a more extensive way than she has in the past, though with a light and always effective touch. These additional musicians, William Seiji Marsh and Gallo on guitars, David Larsen on saxophone, Joe Freuen on trombone, Dana Heitman on trumpet, Rob Birdwell on flugelhorn and trumpet, and Katherine Dudney on cello, join Loren's longtime core band, (pianist and co-producer Matt Treder, bassist Mark Schneider and drummer Brian West) featured on the majority of the singer's releases to-date. Together the ensemble subtly nods toward classic soul blues sounds within a modern jazz context.

Butterfly Blue begins on a more winsome note, however, with the wordless vocal melody of Loren's "Yellow Bird." Despite the playfulness of the song's Tin Pan Alley feel, however, the lyrics fit the album's darker theme. "The idea of freedom being an internal feeling rather than an external reality came to me in the image of a bird in a cage," Loren says. "I thought, 'What might they dream about?' On the surface, it's kind of a cute song with a cute melody, but the meaning of the lyric goes deeper into more esoteric notions of how subjective our perceptions of 'reality' are, and to what degree we are masters of our own experiences in this life."

The notion of using animals to express deep-felt emotion comes easily to Loren, who has always felt a strong connection to the natural world. Born and raised in Alaska, she's lived for the last 17 years in Oregon, where she maintains a strong connection to the outdoors.

Loren's rendition of Charles Trenet's "I Wish You Love" is a unique hybrid of the original French lyrics, with a brief detour into the better-known but less expressive English lyrics. "Stormy Weather" is stretched into a sultry, teasingly languorous blues, while "Our Love Is Here To Stay" offers a sense of familial nostalgia.

"After The Fall", the second song penned by Gallo, tells a story of a woman in the winter of life, reminiscing about a long lost love through music that formed the soundtrack for those precious memories of youth. "I had the rare opportunity to hear this song as it was coming into being through hands other than my own: an original song I didn't write but that was entirely new to the world, crafted with such a richly emotional story and vivid imagery - it was love at first listen."

"I've Got You Under My Skin" continues the album's theme of emotional or spiritual imprisonment, here captured in the song's tale of uncontrollable obsession, heightened by the spare, snake-charmer tone of the arrangement. "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is given a darker-than-usual perspective that illustrates the thoroughfare's hopeless denizens.

Loren's "Danger in Loving You" is reprised from her 2010 live recording Stages, and is included as both a long-overdue studio version of the song as well as a tribute to the vocalist's longtime songwriting partner, Larry Wayne Clark, who passed away in 2013. "Carry Us Through," lifts the spirits by adding New Orleans accents to singer-songwriter Sarah Masen's song of survival, and the set ends on a hopeful note with the late Horace Silver's classic, "Peace."

Loren explains, "The idea of the song is that if you can find peace inside, everything will be all right with the world outside. I love that it embodies a zen-like quality in both message and music while so beautifully reiterating the concept of freedom being a choice, an internal experience. I thought it would really round out the feeling of the album nicely and bring it back to this place of simplicity."

Upcoming Halie Loren Performances:
May 22-23 / Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts / Port Angeles, WA
June 25 / Rochester International Jazz Festival / Rochester, NY
June 26 / Hugh's Room / Toronto, Ontario
June 27 / Upstairs Jazz / Montreal, Quebec

Halie Loren · Butterfly Blue
Justin Time Records · Release Date: June 9, 2015

For more information on Halie Loren, please visit her website: www.halieloren.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/halielorenmusic
Twitter: www.twitter.com/halieloren

For more information on Justin Time Records, please visit: justin-time.com

For additional information, please contact:
Wild West Artist Management, Inc. · (514) 738-9533
Jim West · info@wildwestartistmanagement.com

For media information, please contact:
DL Media · 610-667-0501
Greg Angiolillo · greg@dlmediamusic.com
Don Lucoff · don@dlmediamusic.com

Serving the Finest in Jazz Since 1988

Information and press materials (including album covers, promotional photos and bios) on all DL Media artists can be found at our website: dlmediamusic.com

http://halieloren.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/BB-6-song-soundcloud-sampler.mp3

http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=183777

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Willie Basse Travels To The Mid-West To Play Two Concerts And Help With Disaster Relief


Empire Media, Inc.
Hollywood, CA.
(818) 731-9116
rockscool@aol.com

May 29, 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Cultural Ambassador to The Sunset Strip, WILLIE BASSE TRAVELS TO THE MID-WEST TO PLAY TWO CONCERTS AND HELP WITH DISASTER RELIEF TO END HUNGER

WILLIE BASSE and his band, http://thegypsyexperience.com
featuring Grammy Award nominated guitar virtuoso, ALEX MASI and drummer, JOHN MARRELLA will play two concerts to HELP PROVIDE DISASTER RELIEF.

The concerts are:

THURS JUNE 4 at THE BACK BAR
in Janesville, WI

SAT JUNE 6 at REGGIE'S
in Chicago, IL with Devon Allman

BASSE says, "With my Charity, http://FeedAmerica-Now.org
we urge the public to donate on the web site via PayPal and bring Canned Goods to My Concerts and I will make donations to Food Banks in the Disaster Areas."

Further, BASSE states,"Ive been working to help end hunger for a while now. I have a Special Food Buy set up with TYSON FOODS that will make a huge difference."

"I'm currently seeking Corporate Partners to step up in corporate responsibility and make donations for a food buy. ALL DONATIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE and It will be great to reach our goal, to roll up in Texas with 10,000 Pounds of Food to feed those in need!"

Get LOUD / Get BUSY
The BEST IS NOW!
@wbasse

http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=183976

Are You A Professional Musician Or Talented Composer? Help Xhail Find You


Xhail, the next generation of production music, is currently recruiting talented composers and professional musicians for publishing deals that provide real income opportunities licensing music for TV, film, video, advertising, video game and other media productions.

"Xhail technology is a bridge between professional music creators and customers," said Mick Kiely, CEO of Xhail. "Composers need to sell their music and customers need music for their productions. Xhail is the solution for both as it creates a new income stream for composers and gives customers a fast and flexible way to incorporate professional music into their media productions – a true win-win."

Xhail introduces a new model for production music. In the past, customers would sift through endless stock music library files searching for the right style, length, fit, feel, instrumentation, and arrangement for their media production. This could be a long, tedious, and expensive task with little control over the final product.

"Xhail is a fantastic piece of software that really bridges work flows between the visual and musical mediums," says Alex Sherwood, Director at Giant Animation.

With Xhail, music compositions are deconstructed into "stems" or parts, which the technology matches to descriptive tags input by the customer to create a unique musical cue. The customer can then freely exchange parts, add or subtract parts, arrange and mix the piece, and sync it to video, all in real-time through an easy-to-use online portal. Once complete, the customer pays a license fee for the finished piece to use in their media production.

Each time a composer's work is licensed to a customer, Xhail pays the composer. The more a composer's work is licensed, the more they make.

"Since Xhail is based on real recordings by real musicians, it requires a wide range of compositions in virtually every conceivable musical genre," said Kevin Whyms, Xhail's Lead Composer. "It's this deconstruction of music down to single instrument performances that provides opportunities for talented musicians with compositional skills who have the ability to record their performances and want to earn money with their music."

"Absolutely incredible. A breakthrough technology that opens the doors of the Production Music world to great instrumentalists," adds Grammy-nominated producer/engineer Carlos de Andrade of Visom Digital. "Musicians have been waiting for this!"

Professional and talented composers and musicians with examples of their work and the ability to create quality recordings of their music are encouraged to apply at http://www.xhail.com/composers-musicians/.

Join the Xhail conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

https://vimeo.com/127932360

http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=183773

Monday, June 8, 2015

Eurovision Contestant Tamar Kaprelian Releases New Single "Yours to Keep" on EP through Killer Tracks' Artists Series


Killer Tracks announces the May 19th release of Yours to Keep from acclaimed singer-songwriter Tamar Kaprelian. Part of Killer Tracks' groundbreaking Artists Series, the EP features three original songs and two Billy Joel covers that take listeners on an emotionally uplifting journey along the arcs of relationships and personal growth. The release of the EP coincides with Tamar's appearance on the Eurovision Song Contest, Europe's most popular musical competition.

Yours to Keep is now available on iTunes. It will also be available on Spotify, Google Play, Amazon and other music outlets worldwide. The video for the title track, Yours to Keep, will make its world premiere on VEVO, May 27th.

"We are thrilled to have Tamar as part of the Killer Tracks family, and excited about the release of Yours to Keep¸ which showcases her continued growth as a performer and songwriter," says Andrew Donahue, Director of Marketing at Killer Tracks. "It's an exciting month for Killer Tracks and Tamar with the launch of her new EP, the music video premiere and her appearance on Eurovision!"

The follow-up to California, Tamar's 2012 EP from Killer Tracks, Yours to Keep marks a step in a new direction for the Armenian-American artist. The five tracks were recorded in live studio sessions in New York City and center on Tamar's impressions of her adopted home. "I wanted this new material to reflect the stage in life I am experiencing now," she says. "Something about New York City inspired me to go in a different sonic direction. I wanted these songs to sound like they were recorded in a living room, with me jamming with a group of friends."

The EP's title track is an honest and engaging ballad where Tamar's charismatic vocal is paired with a solo guitar. "At its core 'Yours to Keep' is a simple pop song, something I always strive for," Tamar observes. "You know you have created something great when you can strip it down to a single instrument and it sounds phenomenal."

Tamar began writing songs when she was 14 and first gained public attention when she won an online singing competition sponsored by the band One Republic. Her first album Sinner or a Saint was released on Interscope in 2010 and was followed by California on Killer Tracks' Artists Series in 2012. Her music has been featured on The Hills, American Idol, Ringer and other television series. She has performed alongside such artists as One Republic, Adam Lambert, Far East Movement and Ellie Goulding. Tamar's appearance tonight on Eurovision will be seen by more than 500 million people in 40 countries.

About Killer Tracks
Killer Tracks is a leading provider of production music for use in film, television, advertising and interactive media. With over 146,000 plus tracks from 35 global libraries, the Killer Tracks catalog represents every major genre and features original works from the industry's leading composers, artists and producers. Killer Tracks continues to enhance its premium catalog with consistent new music releases, complimentary music search services, and intuitive music access online, accessible on interactive hard drive and on mobile devices.
http://www.killertracks.com/

http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=183753

Deadline Looms For 20th Annual USA Songwriting Competition


In it's landmark 20th year, USA Songwriting Competition deadline is fast approaching. Win a top prize of $50,000 worth of cash and merchandise such as cool gear from PRS Guitars, Sony, D'Addario Strings, PreSonus, Audio-Technica and more. Also, have your winning songs played on a syndicated radio program that airs in 65 different cities in North America. Enter your songs in Pop, Rock/Alt, Folk, R&B, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Instrumental, etc.

USA Songwriting Competition has been honoring songwriters from all over the world. Winners came from Australia, Japan, Canada, UK, Germany, Brazil, South Africa, USA, etc. Past winners have gotten recording contracts, getting their songs on film, TV as well as getting cuts with major artists. The 2013 Top winner hit #1 on the Billboard Charts and went Double Platinum, sold over 2 million copies.

Last years top winners were sister duo Justine Dorsey, 19 years old and Kerris Dorsey, 16 years old wrote their song “Best Worst Day Ever”. The song was signed to Walt Disney Music and appeared in the box office hit movie "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" starring Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner. The 2005 winner of the Pop category was signed by Interscope Records; she went on to hit Top 10 on the Billboard 200 Album charts. Our 2008 winner appeared on David Letterman TV show and was signed to a record label.

USA Songwriting Competition is sponsored by: Sony, D'Addario Strings, Acoustic Guitar Magazine, New Music Weekly, Loggins Promotion, Airplay Access, D'Addario strings, PRS Guitars, Audio-Technica, Full Compass Music Stores, Propellerheads, Presonus, Notion Software, Sonoma Wireworks, IK Multimedia, Alfred Music, Sonicbids, etc.

The music industry experts have said USA Songwriting Competition is the best song contest around.

"This is a great place for talent to be found", said Monte Lipman, President & CEO of Universal Records

"A healthy and important competition, good outlet for creative people", said Andy Karp, Executive VP/Head of A&R, Atlantic Records

"My Name is Jennifer Adan and I used to enter this contest all the time back in the day. I am proud to say that I am now a HIT songwriter who lives in Nashville and travels back and forth to LA to write. I had a two week #1 hit with Blake Shelton "She Wouldn't Be Gone" and I just released my first children’s book. You guys were a big part of my early career!", said Jennifer Adan, Hit Songwriter with #1 Billboard Hits and BMI Award Winning Songwriter.

Deadline to enter is May 29th. Entry forms are available in 10 different Languages. For more information, visit:
http://www.songwriting.net/enter

http://mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=183658

MusicDish Review: Kevin Borich's Strong Hold


New Zealand and Australia's blues/funk rocker Kevin Borich produced and directed his studio-grade music video for the first time in over a decade -- "Strong Hold". From conception of a newborn to laughters and the kisses of a family, from Australian sunny beaches to sweaty hot rock concerts, the music video discusses how a person can be supported and loved by his family. The family is one's Strong Hold.

Dreamy red color scheme, psychedelic video footages of a baby growing in the mother's womb, and Borich's rock anthem as the background music of the video, "Strong Hold" really stands out from many indie productions. The video catches your attention in the first 10 seconds and makes you wonder where the story is going. As the video goes on, the touching lyrics and uniquely edited graphics strike your heart again and again, yet ends in a breakthrough moment where everything comes together: music, art, nature, life, love, and most of all, family.

http://kevinborich.com.au

http://mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=184212

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Chart-Topping Songwriter Savan Kotecha Renews Agreement With ASCAP


ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the world leader in performing rights and advocacy for music creators, today announced that chart-topping songwriter Savan Kotecha has renewed his agreement for representation of public performances of his songwriting catalog.

Kotecha's songs have hit #1 all over the world, selling more than 200 million copies. His credits include such hits as Ellie Goulding's "Love Me Like You Do;" Britney Spears' "If U Seek Amy" and "I Wanna Go;" Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love;" Ariana Grande's "Problem," "Break Free" and "Love Me Harder;" Jessie J's Grammy-nominated "Bang Bang;" One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful" and Maroon 5's "One More Night" among others.

Kotecha, who recently worked with The Weeknd on his upcoming single and album, is the recipient of nine ASCAP Awards and two Billboard Music Awards. As talent coach on both the US and UK seasons of Simon Cowell's The X Factor, he has helped budding talents round out their sound. He has been a member of ASCAP since 2011.

"Savan has already become one of the top songwriters of this era, and we are extremely proud to work with him at ASCAP, said John Titta, ASCAP Executive Vice President of Membership. "His ability to collaborate with so many different artists and to craft some of today's biggest pop hooks are proof of his incredible versatility and talent."

"I love being an ASCAP member," said Kotecha. "Their support for me has been phenomenal and their dedication as an organization is inspiring. From standing up for us in Congress to recognizing songwriter achievements on every level, ASCAP is always in our corner."

ASCAP also recently renewed agreements with Max Martin (Pink, Katy Perry, Britney Spears), 2 Chainz, Lenny Kravitz, Garth Brooks, The Doors, Rick James, Richie Sambora, Sara Bareilles and Diplo, among others.

About ASCAP
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is a professional membership organization of songwriters, composers and music publishers of every kind of music. ASCAP's mission is to license and promote the music of its members and foreign affiliates, obtain fair compensation for the public performance of their works and to distribute the royalties that it collects based upon those performances. ASCAP members write the world's best-loved music and ASCAP has pioneered the efficient licensing of that music to hundreds of thousands of enterprises who use it to add value to their business - from bars, restaurants and retail, to radio, TV and cable, to Internet, mobile services and more. The ASCAP license offers an efficient solution for businesses to legally perform ASCAP music while respecting the right of songwriters and composers to be paid fairly. With 530,000 members representing more than 10 million copyrighted works, ASCAP is the worldwide leader in performance royalties, service and advocacy for songwriters and composers, and the only American performing rights organization (PRO) owned and governed by its writer and publisher members. www.ascap.com

Media Contacts:
Cathy Halgas Nevins
ASCAP
cnevins (at) ascap.com

http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=184106