Saints & Scoundrels

PRODUKTBESCHREIBUNGEN
Beautifully atmospheric and sensually rich in aural colour! LA based Hecate's Angels have an arty, futuristic cabaret sound, based around the creative vision of musician Pietra Wexstun (responsible for vocals, keyboards, autoharp and dulcimer, with songwriting and production throughout) and augmented by instrumentation including wind, strings, guitar, and diverse percussion. You'll see strange mythic pictures in your mind, go back in time, speak in tongues and then wonder who slipped that great micky in your hi-ball glass. THE CHORD ----------- More from vocalist/composer Pietra Wexstun and her band of underground explorers. Trip on down the bayou or float along in space. The miracle and magic of music with no boundaries. Vintage synths and theremins combined with dulcimers and washboards. Decadent waltzes and heavenly hymns. Cuban cha-chas and bongo-driven jazz. Eerie echoes and hepcat cool rising to a flaming intensity. Howling horns, screaming saxes, pounding pianos Emotional,evocative. Hot/cold. light/dark.the marriage of heaven and hell.madly inspired .divinely insane.someone stop me before I hurt myself! Ophelia meets Lady MacBeth at a cocktail party in space. SPACE-NIK MAGAZINE --------- 'It'll make ya sh**!' J. LEWIS as told to D. MARTIN --------- 'Saints and Scoundrels' follows their much acclaimed debut release, 'Hidden Persuader'. Pietra Wexstun: Vocals, Electric Piano, Echo Swish Organ, Mellotron, Juno 106 Bill Blatt: Bass, Background Vocals Larry McMurtrey: Pedal Steel Stan Ridgway: Guitar, Harmonica, Background Vocals Elmo Smith: Drums, Percussion Lazlo Vickers: Brass Rick King: Electric Guitar ---------- Named after Hecate (Heh-ca-tee), the Greek Goddess of sorcery and witchcraft, the band's sound is a kinky marriage of underworld ambience and song, a union which manages to surprise without ever resorting to shock for shock's sake. Lead Angel, Pietra Wexstun teases an astonishing array of sounds from her organ, autoharp, and theremin (that whooping, wailing instrument which leant an illicit drug buzz to Good Vibrations). AUSTRALIAN DIGITAL ---------- Pietra Wexstun is an electronic musician and singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, California. She has fronted for the band Hecate's Angels since 1996, and has performed with her husband Stan Ridgway since 1986. She has contributed to all of Ridgway's solo and Drywall albums, performing backing vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, and theremin. She has also composed and performed music for several art exhibitions in Los Angeles, including Christi Ava's 'Nice Ladies in Cages', Barry Fahr's 'Visuadelia', and (with Ridgway), Mark Ryden's 'Blood, Miniature Paintings of Sorrow and Fear'. Her albums are 'Hidden Persuader', 'Saints and Scoundrels' and the new 'All That Glitters'. Q: Do you think of your lyrics as poetry? ?A: Parts of them. ?Q: Do you think it is important that songs rhyme and if so why? ?A: No, not necessarily, though mine tend to. Rhyming does make it easier for me to remember them (especially after having indulged in a bit of the grape or the grain), and rhyming can be fun. Bob Dylan once described it as a 'game' that gave him a 'mental thrill'. Also, I find that rhyming, chanting, and the reciting of senseless syllables help access the subconscious to make fresh, new associations in sound and meaning. That's why I love Captain Beefheart. ?Q: Do you think song lyrics must conform to recognised song structures such as clear rhyming schemes, choruses, refrains, hooks and bridges or that songs can also be like free verse? ?A: I don't think song lyrics need to conform to anything. Anyone can string a bunch of words together, start caterwauling and call it a song. The question is: What is it that makes me want to continue to listen? What is it that moves me, amuses me, keeps me intrigued or having fun? I would say more often than not, it's the use of those tried-and-true structural devices, coupled with the unexpected. a twist here, a turn there. It's imagination and emotional truth coupled with craftsmanship. ?Q: When you read poetry in school or elsewhere did you recognize any connection to the music you enjoyed? ?A: Probably one of the earliest poems I remember learning in school was Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Bells'. I found it thrilling. The repetition and onomatopoeia made it very musical, but then why shouldn't it have been musical, it was about bells, wasn't it? I suppose by today's standards, it's considered old-fashioned, but I still love to recite it! ?Q: Was there anything about poetry in books that influenced your songwriting? ?A: I think it was the richness of the poetry I read, it's multi-faceted and layered quality. Keats' advice to Shelley to 'fill every rift with ore' really struck me. Great literature can be wonderfully inspiring, but it can also make you a little tough on yourself. ?At the same time, I can appreciate songs that are simple and direct or just plain silly. Tone Loc's 'Wild Thing' and 'Funky Cold Medina' come to mind, along with Cypress Hill's 'Insane in the Membrane'. I like the cartoony, nursery rhyme quality of these lyrics and the way they merge with the infectious grooves and quirky electronics. Zappa's stuff can be like that too. ?Q: Why do you think songs are more popular with people than poetry is? ?A: Well, song lyrics often have the added dimension of melody, sonic texture and a pronounced rhythm. People can listen to a song, without knowing all the words and feel moved one way or the other. Music is just more visceral, I think. Reprinted from The Argotist Online : http://www. Argotistonline. Co.UK/Interviews%20with%20Songwriters. Htm http://www. Argotistonline. Co.UK/Pietra%20Wexstun. Htm ARTICLE ON PIETRA and HIDDEN PERSUADER from ENTERTAINMENT TODAY - PIETRA WEXSTUN is the driving force behind Hecate's Angels - she sings, writes, and plays keyboards and a mean theremin for the band, who reside on Sierra Madre-based Birdcage Records. Wexstun is quite fascinating, both musically and existentially. 'It all began many light years ago, in another galaxy.' Wexstun reflects. I've had a lot of intense experiences. Part of it is having grown up on two continents. My father is from Italy. He's a poet and professor of Italian literature. He'd read Dante's Inferno and Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience to my brother and me as bedtime stories. My mother is American. She was an opera singer. That's where all the early musical stuff comes from. When I began listening to the radio and hanging out with friends at school, I began rebelling against the classical straightjacketing and got into a lot of folk, blues, and rock stuff. I used to drive my mom crazy with my Carter family records. I listened to Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles first, then all the psychedelic bands like Country Joe and the Fish, the Doors, and, of course, Hendrix. When I got to college, I began listening to a lot of avant-garde composers like Luciano Berio. He was a sound collagist who would juxtapose lines from Beckett plays against Mahler symphonies, and then throw in people screaming. It was an early form of sampling. 'I had a band in college called Uncle Daddy and the Moon People. (laughs) We called it 'Appalachian Nightmare Music.' It had the Cramps' creepiness fused with a lonesome hillbilly sound, like people up in the hills drinking too much moonshine and hallucinating. Then I joined the short-lived, but legendary Neptune Society - all we did were John Barry covers. He's the guy who wrote all the music for the James Bond films. We had to 'cease and desist' when lawyers from the cremation and burial service we took the name from showed up at a gig.' Wexstun then explained the genesis of her long, fruitful friendship with another less than ordinary figure - Stan Ridgway. 'Stan and I met at a Charlie Musselwhite concert at the Troubadour. A friend of mine knew the doorman there, and he used to let us in. My friend was dating Stan's roommate, who also wo

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