CAROL LIPNIK - the spellbinding, wistfully-humorous singer and songwriter called an "ethereal vocal phenomenon" by The New York Times - will introduce a new show to launch her Fall Sunday Night Residency at Pangea. "Goddess of Imperfection," which brings her unprecedented engagement at the club into its second year, will open on Sunday, September 18 at 7:00 PM to run through Sunday, December 18. The dreamlike new evening pays tribute to the broken, uncertain state of the world with a set of new original songs and specially-selected covers that reach above the chaos and reflect back on our tangled, beast-ridden planet. The performance artist and storyteller David Cale will be her special guest on September 18.
Wielding her trademark tragicomic voice, last spring Lipnik completed a three week engagement at Joe's Pub at the Public, for which she was hailed as a "One of New York's most inventive singers and performance artists" by The Village Voice. Lipnik, who blends folk music, operatic flourish and art song with the classic nightclub tradition, is joined music director Matt Kanelos on piano, backing vocals and found sounds. HerFall Sunday Night Residency is produced by TWEED TheaterWorks (Lypsinka) and DAX MGMT (Weimar New York, Joey Arias).
This past summer Lipnik was featured at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts' "Theater Residency" program - presented in conjunction with Joe's Pub at the Public - collaborating with Tarake Ortiz, the composer and performer who serves as Artistic Director of the international arts summit Cumbre Tajin in Mexico. She recently co-wrote seven songs with downtown veteran John Kelly, the receipt of two Obie Awards and two NEA "American Masterpiece" Awards, for his debut album Beauty Kills Me. Carol, whose latest album Almost Back To Normal is available on her Mermaid Alley label, is the winner of the 2015 BroadwayWorld Award for "Best Alternative Cabaret Show."
CAROL LIPNIK is acclaimed for her hauntingly beautiful multi-octave voice and enchanting performances of her own tenderly wry and wrenchingly honest songs. "Lipnik is surprisingly strong in her ethereality," says Time Out New York, "maintaining an eerie self-possession as she shares enigmatically spooky folk-art songs in an octave spanning wail." New York Music Daily proclaimed "Carol Lipnik might not just be the best singer in New York, she might be the best singer anywhere."
"Earth-mother nightingale Carol Lipnik is a mesmerizing find," says James Gavin, the journalist who penned biographies of Peggy Lee, Lena Horne and Chet Baker. "She writes fantastical tunes, full of mythic imagery, that carry the listener to worlds unknown." According to a recent notice from BroadwayWorld, "Lipnik's songs have a quality akin to chants, mantras, and prayers. Her voice is clear, full, reverent, beautiful. The imagery she uses is of the natural world: oysters, sand, trees, honey, weeds, and antlers. Her truth is emblematic, universal."
"Carol Lipnik's music does more than evoke a shadow-world of mysterious, often misunderstood creatures, from sideshow freaks and B-movie monsters to love's obsessive victims," says musician and Village Voice music writer Franklin Bruno. "It creates that world, bringing it into audible being through her stunningly versatile four-octave voice and expressive, impeccably crafted songs, drawing audiences in with an intimacy and intensity that is both theatrical and deeply musical."
In addition to critical plaudits, she has been praised by her fellow downtown performers as well. Justin VivIan Bond said "If you are in NYC and you only do one thing culturally, go and see Carol Lipnik." Penny Arcade raved "Carol's new songs, which are truly art songs, set in the jewel-like quality of her voice reach such levels of glorious individuality that we were all gobsmacked."
For more information, please visit www.CarolLipnik.com.
CAROL LIPNIK grew up in Coney Island and studied fine arts at Pratt Institute and The Art Students League. She draws from her visual arts training to create a singular cinematic style rooted in blues, pre-war Berlin cabaret, folk, and more as filtered through her very own carnival and psychedelic sensibilities. She has released six albums on her own Mermaid Alley label and has built a dedicated following through performances at Joe's Pub, Abrons Arts Center, Galapagos Art Space, P.S.122, Barbes, Spiegelworld and many other venues, as well as appearances at the River to River Festival, the Siren Festival, Weimar New York, and the Chapel at Greenwood Cemetery. Carol was awarded the 2014 Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant for music and in year 2009 she was an artist-in-residence at Yaddo. She composed music for the groundbreaking performance artist John Kelly's 2011 show The Escape Artist.
Matt Kanelos is a pianist and songwriter who is a widely sought-after collaborator in the New York City jazz, avant garde and rock worlds. According to NPR, "Kanelos crafts tunes that sneak up on listeners - that begin harmlessly but ultimately overwhelm with the weight of their poignancy, sorrow and joy." He draws equally on his classical conservatory background as well as his experience in jazz and new music. In recent years, he has performed and recorded with Jon Lundbom, Lorraine Leckie, Richard McGraw, Andrew Smiley, Nick Podgurski and Jason Liebman. Kanelos has released four well-received albums as a bandleader, most recently 2014's Love Hello, praised by New York Music Daily as "a masterpiece of pensive, allusively lyrical psychedelia." www.MattKanelos.com
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