OLIVER DOWNES - CD AT THE END

Popis - AT THE END:
The debut EP from Australian singer-songwriter Oliver Downes, 'at the end' brings together four songs that celebrate the beauty of the ocean, vividly blend soaring melodies, percussive piano and precise lyrical musings. Described as 'genuinely melodic' (Chris Evans, The Curve Ball, UK Radio) and compared in sound to Ben Folds or Rufus Wainwright, Downes takes his cue from artists as diverse as Leonard Cohen, Kate Bush, St Vincent and Radiohead, to create songs by turns melancholy, uplifting and opaque. The songs approach the idea of water from radically different angles: through the series of images, dreamlike and exact, orbiting around some oceanic epicentre in 'Ship in a Bottle'; or the implied narrative of 'Blue Skies', a housewife spending her days trapped in unhappy marriage next to the ostensible paradise of Sydney harbour. Written in the months following the Japanese tsunami of 2011, 'Keep Calm, Carry On' seems to look as much into the future of a warming world as it does offer a lament to the victims of natural disaster, while the title track offers something close to prayer, acknowledging the ultimate irrelevance of human will within the natural scheme of things. With songs cherry-picked from several years of work, 'at the end' was produced with input from inimitable Sydney artist Wyatt Moss-Wellington and recorded with renowned sound engineer and singer-songwriter Brian Campeau at The Plex Studio. The EP also features some of Sydney's finest musical talents: Kieran Ryan-Colton (Takadimi) on guitar; Eden Ottingnon (Dereb the Ambassador; Crusty Suitcase Band) on bass and Dan Kennedy (Mister Ott) on drums. The haunting sound of Felicity Clark's (Aliquot) shakuhachi is featured on 'Keep Calm, Carry On', while Hollie Matthew (Swamp Fat Jangles) provides backing vocals on 'Ship in a Bottle', Campeau providing featured backing vocals on 'At the End'. Meanwhile, notorious Renaissance woman and bon vivant Alita Graziano was enlisted to create the stunning cover artwork.