Laura Arkana met Peter Broderick

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3...according to our Clinton on Fri 16 Sep, 2011.

"It was late March in Paris when Peter Broderick was standing by the stage selling his music after an afternoon performance at an arts center. This is when Laura Arkana met Peter Broderick for the first time...." so bleats the ridiculously over hyped press release, preposterously later claiming "any record label would do well to add Broderick to its A&R staff, having established a canny ability for attracting and spotting musical talent". It's this kind of hyperbole that puts you off an artist such as Peter Broderick. I mean what is wrong with just a producer credit on the back of the record? It's unfair to put all the spotlight onto Broderick when this is Laura Arkana's album. All Broderick does is record, produce, play violin, piano, percussion, keyboards, clay whistle, bass guitar, musical saw, sing a bit and personally distributes the records to the shops. The result is very pretty fingerpicked acoustic pop that sounds better when it delves into darker territories such as 'Het Vuilinis', Arkana has a nice if indistinct voice, some of the textures are beautiful yet you sometimes wish Broderick would man up a bit and get some really stellar instrumentation on this and we could get something akin to Kristin Hersh's 'Hips and Makers' album rather than the pretty if fey whimsy on show. I think the use of Dutch as the singing language is preventing me from connecting fully with the songs. Very pleasant though. Initial copies come with a DVD of the movie 'Twice' starring Sam Riley as Peter Broderick and Zooey Deschanel as Laura Arkana in a heartwarming tale of the meeting of music and minds at a French Arts Center.

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It was late March in Paris when Peter Broderick was standing by the stage selling his music after an afternoon performance at an arts center. This is when Laura Arkana met Peter Broderick for the first time.They became fast friends, strolling through the streets of Paris sharing stories and later sharing songs, passing a guitar back and forth. Broderick recounted: " I was blown away by her songs. She sings in dutch, these beautifully crafted haunting melodies, over the most steady and gorgeously fingerpicked guitar. I was in love with the music, but she was so shy about it, saying she'd hardly played the songs for anyone and had never recorded anything before." A fortnight later, Arkana flew to Berlin. They rode bikes, ate and cooked amazing food, watched movies, and in a very casual way, recorded eight of Arkana's songs, six with guitar and voice, two for solo piano.

Later, Broderick added his touch: "Since she left i have fallen in love with the songs more and more, listening to them on repeat all day and working on different arrangements with instruments around the house." This is when Laura Arkana met Peter Broderick for the second time. In music. Shortly thereafter Nils Frahm mixed the album, and HUSH enthusiastically agreed to release it. The recordings are warm and unfussy. For her part, Arkana paints specific details into her song-vignettes and sings with a conversational lilt. Her finger-picking--clean, and anchored--gives rhythmic flight to a sophisticated melodic sensibility. It were as if she arrived fully formed. For his part, Broderick combines a wealth of experience with his signature restraint and sensitivity, letting the songs breathe while enhancing their textural depth and dynamics with stringed instruments, vocals, and percussion. With a discography that contains over a dozen solo titles, half a dozen collaborative titles, and appearances on well over sixty other recordings (Efterklang, M. Ward, She & HIm, Balmorhea, Laura Gibson, Loch Lomond, Blitzen Trapper, Heather Woods Broderick to name but a few) within in a time frame of five years, Broderick has demonstrated he is in a class of his own as a musician, composer, and producer. Further, any record label would do well to add him to A&R staff, having established a canny ability for attracting and spotting musical talent. From his early work as a duo with folk icon Justin Ringle of Horse Feathers, to championing neoclassical über pianist Nils Frahm (after meeting him in much the same way as Arkana a couple years ago) Broderick has proved to have something of a golden ear. With Laura Arkana met Peter Broderick (the word "met" here fulfills an international double entendre which translates to "with" in Dutch) listeners are delighted to discover song-scape like so many sprouting vines and stems intertwining with the relentlessness of Springtime in Paris, in Berlin, in where you are now.

Produced by Peter Broderick who also plays and sings.

TRACKLISTING:

1. Huilen
2. Luchtballon
3. Souvenirs
4. Prelude I
5. Het Vuilnis
6. De Mooiste Tijd Van Het Jaar
7. Prelude II
8. Koos

Joe Borreson said:

I actually think this album is fantastic and a hidden gems of classic contemporary 'folk' music that is only heightened in the subtlest ways by Peter Broderick's contributions. Starting with 'Huilen' the first track, it stars a bit plain but Peter's addition of piano, string arrangements colors the track and moves it along with a lovely rhythm only hinted at initially. The short but sweet 'Souvenirs' is honestly one of the most beautiful circling acoustic ditties with i have heard this year, it's undulating violins propel the song from just good, to one of the most lovely 3minutes and seventeen seconds I have heard in a very long time.

So, what do you think? Best reviewer each month gets £10 off their next order!