Creature Comforts, the second album from maverick cello songstress Meaghan Burke, is a polystylistic, tragicomic musical funhouse, where deranged Tom Waits-ish waltzes devolve into Mozartian string quartet passages, where contrabass clarinet drones explode into honkytonk guitars (with just a hint of sousaphone).
Her songs flirt with elements of grunge, contemporary classical music, free jazz, folk, and cabaret. Time and time again, a song promises to be a sweet, crooning pop tune - but each time, something emerges from the depths to unsettle, distort, disrupt - and we find ourselves in a room crammed with old love letters and strange creaturely objects, where Gustav Mahler listens to grunge and Jacqueline DuPre shreds free jazz.
The album was recorded in NYC and Vienna, with a cast of Burke's closest musical collaborators from both cities, including the New York-based contemporary string quartet The Rhythm Method, clarinet extremist Carlos Cordeiro, double bassist/sound artist Bernd Klug, Dobro virtuoso Zeke Healy, various members of Burke's Viennese songwriting collective, Loose Lips Sink Ships, and freejazz/hardcore drummer Didi Kern.
Creature Comforts will be released on Friday, May 5th. Joe's Pub hosts the release show on Thursday, May 11th at 9:30pm when Meaghan will be joined by special guests: The Rhythm Method, Zeke Healy, Carlos Cordeiro, and Peter Wise.
Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 9:30pm
425 Lafayette Street, NYC
Tickets: $16
Taub Box Office: 212.967.7555 (10AM to 7PM Mon-Sat; 12PM to 6PM Sun)
Album Artwork: Leah Asher
TRACK LIST
01 - Methadone Friend
02 - Hobo Doreen
03 - Butterface
04 - Spirit Animal
05 - everyone sleeps alone in the funhouse
06 - Wedding Song
07 - Gowanus
08 - When You´re Gone
09 - Ornithology
10 - Pigeontoes (hidden track)
All music, lyrics, arrangements, cello, and lead vocals by Meaghan Burke
Strings (1, 3, 7, 9) by The Rhythm Method:
Marina Kifferstein, Lavinia Pavlish - violins;
Anne Lanzilotti - viola
Clarinets by Carlos Cordeiro (1, 9)
Dobro guitar by Zeke Healy (2)
Drums (1, 4) and guitar (4) by David Schweighart
Drums (5) by Didi Kern
Vocals (1, 4, 6, 9) by Werner Kitzmüller
Vocals (2, 3, 4 9, 10) and banjo (3, 10) by Simon Usaty
Contrabass (8) by Bernd Klug
Sousaphone (2) by Andreas Humpel
Recorded by Shahzad Ismaily at Figure 8 Studios, Brooklyn and Oliver Brunbauer at Feedback Studios|2, Vienna; additional recordings by Bernd Klug and Stephen Ferguson
Mixed and Mastered by Martin Siewert, Vienna
For more information about Meaghan Burke, visit www.meaghanburkemusic.com.
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