MP3 City of No Winters - POP: Folky Pop

"Tom Waits meets Sting and has brunch with Leonard Cohen." Lou Black music is for people who appreciate that great songs connect your heart and mind. Soulful and personal with a few counter-culture songs thrown in for good measure.

13 MP3 Songs
POP: Folky Pop, ROCK: Modern Rock



Details:
"A supremely well-produced tortilla of sound....The album is chock full of beautiful songs that ease one into a state of blissful relaxation. A nice change from much of the agro stuff going on these days in popular music....Want some new pop music? Then this is the place to go. City Of No Winters is a joyous trip through a musical land full of intense beauty and varying landscapes. Black's vocals are brilliant and lend an even more intense depth to what is already a solid musical foundation."

--- L. Keane, Hybrid Magazine

"City of No Winters" deserves ample success as it is easily much better than nearly everything that makes up our top 40 these days. The album's opener "Searching for a Land Love" and the title track are beautiful crafted songs...and not only are the lyrics instantly memorable, they are also touching.

---Adam Harrold, Music Shoppers Forum (UK)

"With most of today's cookie-cutter pop the lyrics are unremarkable; in Black's songs THE LYRICS STAND OUT - you can't help but pay attention to the message."

---Kenny Hart, Indie-Music.com

"...has that multi-faceted quality that will rank it among the best in the singer/songwriter genre. On one level, this is music that demands your attention..Yet on another level it has an even, relaxing tone, and could comfortably be played in the background at a cocktail party."

--Duncan Glenday, Progressive Ears

"Lou Black is a purveyor of sophisticated pop tunes allied to a mixture of socially aware lyrics and more straight ahead, but intelligent love odes."

--Jeremy Searle, Americana UK
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Peruvian born Lou Black (alias Lou Schwarz alias Luis Eduardo Schwarz) has spent much of his life cultivating his creative urges and artistic talents in a variety of ways, from painting to cartooning to film making to interior design. Prodded by friends who were discovering music, he was asked to help them with their songwriting, and at a later date developed his own interests in synthesizer based music. Many years later, a chance meeting with a poet, Richard Hess, encouraged him to focus on songwriting and to develop music, melodies, and arrangements for his friend's poems. Encouraged by the success of these compositions, he was inspired to create more and more songs, original lyrics, and to collaborate with other poets (Enid Holden from South Africa and Laura Dean Meek). His music reflects his wide interests in various musical styles and his roots in melodic Western pop music. Throughout his childhood and adulthood, he has traveled throughout much of South America, Western and Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia, developing a broad world view and being influenced by the subtleties of each country's local music. Lou Black's debut album reflects the culmination of years of musical and lyrical development, experimentation with a multitude of musical arrangements, and collaborations with like-minded poets with a shared vision for the "new pop." This album was recorded with the help of Bill & Dana Bailey, JR Hartley, PJ Tracey, and Katy Thomasberg, all legendary musicians from Minneapolis' underground and avant-garde music scene.

Each song on the album has a special story and most are derived from the personal experiences of the lyricist(s). At times even political and philosophical issues are hidden in the subtext of what appear to be pop lyrics. The title track, "City of No Winters," while cleverly disguised as a soft love ballad is a song about Enid Holden's native South Africa. The lyrics of City of No Winters refer to a re-visitation of South Africa during the first few years of democracy. Ironically, even though the city of Durban is exotic, with a balmy climate and exquisite greenery, it still had echoes of the apartheid era­ poverty, disease, people living in shacks, high unemployment. Thus the 'quiet screams' refer to people suffering in remote areas. No longer the passionate cries for freedom, as the apartheid era has totally ended and a new government and constitution have replaced the old. Rather, the aftermath of silent weeping, as people whose lives had been oppressed, live out the heritage of poverty and limitations, as well as the prolific loss of loved ones as a result of the Aids epidemic. A parallel personal loss of love is also expressed which is evoked by this city to which one is compelled to return.