Beautiful exquisite songs; eerie, haunting vocals; lush, unusual orchestrations for a chamber orchestra.

12 MP3 Songs
POP: Chamber Pop, ROCK: Post-Rock/Experimental

Details:
About Jonny Rodgers:

Jonny Rodgers is half of the brothers-duo that make up the band Mighty Purple. Hailing from New Haven CT, they toured and released albums for most of the 1990s and are still making fabulous recordings and touring every year

Jonny has also been releasing amazing and compelling solo albums since 2002. His first, The Sound Of Birds, was a beautiful and intense piece of indie-pop with quirky songs and bare-all lyrics. The critically acclaimed song Summer Fades has been a mainstay of modern alt-chamber-pop.

After releasing The Sound of Birds, Jonny immersed himself for a year in the world of âserious musicâ. Inspired by band-mate Shara Worden, the front-woman of NYCâs Awry (now My Brightest Diamond) Jonny began studying with Yale composer Padma Newsome (Clogs, The National). Within the span of a year he had written most of The Aviary, and was performing the album entire as a live show with a 9-piece chamber orchestra. Doing select performances over the next 3 years, Jonny and his group honed the material and finally recorded The Aviary, along with a few additional songs that will be released later in 2008.

Sometimes exquisite, sometimes bubbling up to a breathtaking intensity, The Aviary is a beautiful and wonderful ride. Bringing moments of softness and beauty into a difficult world, and with irony present but refreshingly subdued, the songs are a breath of fresh air in todayâs musical climate. Jonny is as apt to sing about linen on the line or the quiet hush of an ice storm as he is about the passing away of all things. Jerusalem is a perfect and delicate song, a gem, which is about tiny things and large issues all at once.

The combination of Jonny's intricate, finger-plucked guitar melodies and his story-telling vocals is one that feels ethereal and almost unearthly, somewhere between a lullaby and a myth - (The Advocate)

The Aviary is lead as much by classical strings as it is by guitars. Tuned wine glasses sing long arching melodies. Jonny Rodgersâs voice is described as a strikingly beautiful instrument; soft and clean; eerily pure. The drums often evoke the stylistic choices of someone like Bjork, while using no electronic sounds. Every sound on the album was made by an âacousticâ instrument.

âThe Aviaryâ is a set of 12 quiet tunes that combines the structures and instrumentation of classical music with Rodgersâ pop background. Itâs an understated record filled with lovely arrangements that more closely approximate baroque than pop⦠(The New Haven Register)

The Aviary combines eclectic instrumentationâa small chamber orchestra, Rodgersâ eerily pure voice, tuned wine glasses, steel drums and the dulcimerâinto his own self-proclaimed minimalism. Though classical minimalism is, in its most rigid interpretation, a sterile affair, Rodgers customizes the genre into a lush wave of sound, translating the term âminimalismâ to mean not sparseness but intimacy⦠(The Advocate)

The Aviary is a must-hear for anyone who yearns for more than the usual fare⦠Keep your eyes open for Jonny Rodgers, touring in 2008

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