World's Fair

Headless Heroes’ The Silence of Love, the collections of lost classics and unearthed gems sung by emerging folk star Alela Diane, is out tomorrow, May 19.

For some, listening to The Silence of Love will be a process of discovery or rediscovery of songs that may otherwise have been lost in time, inspiring deeper delvings back to the original sources. The Headless Heroes’ interpretations, however, are gloriously fresh creations in themselves. All bittersweet and of love and loss, the songs chosen by executive producers Hugo Nicolson and Eddie Bezalel (with a few thrown in by David Holmes) span over 40 years of time — from Daniel Johnston, The Jesus & Mary Chain and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds back to Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs and The Gentle Soul.

Stream the entire record (courtesy of Paste and Imeem) here.

“Nobody’s Baby Now,” the Nick Cave cover recently featured on Pitchfork, can also be streamed or downloaded here.

And RecordStoreDay.com is featuring the Pocketknife Remix of “Just Like Honey” on their site.

For any travelers heading to the Seattle, Portland, Palm Springs, or New York City areas soon, beginning this Friday, May 22 and lasting until Friday, May 29 (or until supplies last), complimentary copies of The Silence of Love will be available at ACE Hotel.

In collaboration with Amie Street, 25% of all sales will benefit Housing Works, a New York City community-based not-for-profit organization committed to ending the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness.

This release marks the latest installment in AmieStreet.com’s Download To Make A Difference campaign, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Food Bank for New York City, Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, and other organizations—by bringing together artists and charities to give fans more than one reason to pick up a new album.

Check out the video for the cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” on YouTube and Vimeo.

The artist Keith Loutit also made a video for “The North Wind Blew South,” which you can check out below.
http://www.vimeo.com/1953467

Artist: Headless Heroes
Album: The Silence of Love
Label: Headless Heroes
Street Date: May 19, 2009
Order: Amazon | Insound | Amie Street
mp3: “Nobody’s Baby Now”

CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace | Website

Though the concept of Headless Heroes’ The Silence of Love, out May 19, was dreamt up by a chap named Eddie Bezalel and produced by Hugo Nicolson, its immediate focus is the voice of one Alela Diane. It’s a simple, beautiful collection of lost classics and unearthed gems sung with arresting clarity by Diane, Nevada City’s emerging folk star, whose Rough Trade debut, To Be Still, was released this past February.

DOWNLOAD “True Love Will Find You In The End”

For some, listening to The Silence of Love will be a process of discovery or rediscovery of songs that may otherwise have been lost in time, inspiring deeper delvings back to the original sources. The Headless Heroes’ interpretations, however, are gloriously fresh creations in themselves. All bittersweet and of love and loss, the songs chosen by Nicolson and Bezalel (with a few thrown in by David Holmes) span over 40 years of time — from Daniel Johnston, The Jesus & Mary Chain and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds back to Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs and The Gentle Soul.

Says Bezalel, “I just wanted to make an album with great musicians and great songs…the rest would work itself out.” Inspired initially on hearing Terry Durham’s “Crystal Telephone” at LA’s Amoeba Records, Bezalel got producer Hugo Nicolson on board, who then sifted through his record collection and started to put the musicians together. It was Bezalel who found Alela; he came across her online, and upon hearing her voice, he instantly knew she was the one to carry the tunes. Alela, whose self-released album, The Pirate’s Gospel, was Rough Trade Shops’ Album of The Year 2007, was excited about using her her voice in new ways, as well as the fact that the project was not based around her own material. “It was quite liberating to just sing! And not worry about it being my record, or it being different from the type of music that I’m used to making.” Describing The Silence of Love as pure fun, she notes, “I was able to use all different parts of my voice, from what I do in my own songs, to what I learned while singing in the school choir.”

Headless Heroes will be performing live in the US in late Fall 2009.

DOWNLOAD “True Love Will Find You In The End”

The video for “The North Wind Blew South,” features some amazing tilt shift/timelapse photography by Keith Doutit. You can see it below.
http://www.vimeo.com/1953467

Full-Album Embeddable Stream

 
 
 
What the press has been saying about The Silence of Love:

**** – MOJO

“Rich, dark and warming like heavy velvet curtains against a cruel winter night.” – Guardian Pick of the Week

“The Silence of Love is actually a small but perfectly formed jewel of a record.” – Q

“…the musical possibilities raised among the talents involved make this a memorable reinvention and retrospective of popular and rare American music.” – Evil Monito

“Given the prowess of Diane, the quality of the covers chosen and the high degree of uniqueness of the covers themselves, this is clearly an album worth tracking down.” – Citizen Dick

Artist: Headless Heroes
Album: The Silence of Love
Label: Headless Heroes
Street Date: May 19, 2009
mp3: “True Love Will Find You In The End”

CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace | Website

The Silence of Love is a beautiful themed album of covers, dreamt up by a chap named Eddie Bezalel, helped and produced by Hugo Nicolson, who pulled together the songs and a bunch of great musicians (Josh Klinghoffer, Woody Jackson, Joey Waronker, Leo Abrahams and Gus Seyffert) to play on it, all topped off with the voice of one Alela Diane. The record is a simply beautiful collection of lost classics and unearthed gems sung with arresting clarity by Nevada City’s emerging new folk star Alela. The motivation for making the Headless Heroes project was really music for music’s sake, a record to be accepted and enjoyed on its own terms, without being an overindulgent or boastful statement.

(And listen to a full stream of the album below)

Says Bezalel, “I just wanted to make an album with great musicians and great songs…the rest would work itself out.” Inspired initially on hearing Terry Durham’s “Crystal Telephone” in a local record store, Bezalel got Nicolson on board, who sifted through his record collection and started to put the musicians together. It was Bezalel who found Alela; he came across her online, and upon hearing her voice, he instantly knew she was the one to carry the tunes. Alela, whose self-released album, The Pirate’s Gospel, was Rough Trade Shops’ Album of The Year 2007, and whose highly anticipated Rough Trade debut, To Be Still, was just released this February, was really excited about using her her voice in new ways, as well as the fact that the project was not based around her own material. “It was quite liberating to just sing! And not worry about it being my record, or it being different from the type of music that I’m used to making. Describing The Silence of Love as pure fun, she notes, “I was able to use all different parts of my voice, from what I do in my own songs, to what I learned while singing in the school choir.” Says man at the controls Hugo Nicolson, “Alela’s silky voice and Josh Klinghoffer maxed out their abundant talent on this album, along with Woody’s virtuosity, and created what was for me an amazing record to make and a pleasure to be a part of.”

For some, listening to The Silence of Love will be a process of discovery or rediscovery of songs that may otherwise have been lost in time, inspiring deeper delvings back to the original sources. The Headless Heroes’ interpretations, however, are gloriously fresh creations in themselves. All bittersweet and of love and loss, the songs chosen by Nicolson and Bezalel (with a few thrown in by David Holmes) span over 40 years of time — from Daniel Johnston, The Jesus & Mary Chain and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds back to Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs and
The Gentle Soul.

Headless Heroes will be performing live in the US in late Fall 2009.

**** – MOJO

“The Silence of Love is actually a small but perfectly formed jewel of a record.” – Q

“Rich, dark and warming like heavy velvet curtains against a cruel winter night.” – Guardian Pick of the Week

Artist: Headless Heroes
Album: The Silence of Love
Label: Headless Heroes
Street Date: May 19, 2009

CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace | Website