Esbe - Under Cover - CD
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£12.00
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With five albums of her own compositions released just within the last three and a half years, prolific London-based singer, producer and composer Esbe has consistently demonstrated rare talents for composition, poetically deep lyrics, and innovative original arrangements. As a self-releasing musician insistent on the freedom to choose exactly what and how she records, Esbe's music has always manifested as an eclectic blend of her many influences - from her early training as a classical guitarist to her affinity for drawing on a diverse, multi-cultural array of contemporary, world music and film scores - while she's simultaneously continued to resist easy categorization and submission to the music industry's usual creative constraints.
So, when one of her former guitar students suggested she record some covers of her favorite pop songs during the COVID-19 lockdown last year, Esbe took the challenge as an opportunity to harness that background and defiant creative philosophy to put into practice her belief that pop music shouldn't be pigeon-holed by either instrumentation or harmonic construction.
The resulting album, Under Cover, taps into Esbe's classical training, disparate influences, and her visionary pop sensibilities, to reimagine ten of her personal favorite classic pop songs, interpreted through a broader range of harmonies not typically considered to be part of the pop harmony-bank. By releasing this inspired collection of unexpected arrangements for a set of songs, already so globally familiar in one guise, Esbe hopes these classic tracks can reach a new audience and shine in a new light.
Before Esbe embarked on Under Cover she knew that, for these songs to have a renewed meaning for a contemporary audience, the arrangements, approach and production would have to be substantially different from the original recordings. After all, these are all perfectly formed songs by iconic musicians with distinctive arrangements - classics that everyone knows and loves. This was both a subconscious and conscious decision.
In producing the album and choosing the construction and instrumentation, Esbe wanted to make use of both orchestral arrangements (most evident on the tracks Summertime and Amazing Grace) and her bank of atmospheric sampled sounds (showcased prominently on Sound Of Silence and Bridge Over Troubled Water). Having accumulated much experience in the craft of orchestral string arranging, she feels that, with careful and sensitive programming, sampled instruments can make the listener feel they're in an auditorium. This is mainly because the instruments she uses from Spitfire Audio's sound-bank were all recorded at London's Air Studios, famously founded by Beatles producer Sir George Martin.
So, when one of her former guitar students suggested she record some covers of her favorite pop songs during the COVID-19 lockdown last year, Esbe took the challenge as an opportunity to harness that background and defiant creative philosophy to put into practice her belief that pop music shouldn't be pigeon-holed by either instrumentation or harmonic construction.
The resulting album, Under Cover, taps into Esbe's classical training, disparate influences, and her visionary pop sensibilities, to reimagine ten of her personal favorite classic pop songs, interpreted through a broader range of harmonies not typically considered to be part of the pop harmony-bank. By releasing this inspired collection of unexpected arrangements for a set of songs, already so globally familiar in one guise, Esbe hopes these classic tracks can reach a new audience and shine in a new light.
Before Esbe embarked on Under Cover she knew that, for these songs to have a renewed meaning for a contemporary audience, the arrangements, approach and production would have to be substantially different from the original recordings. After all, these are all perfectly formed songs by iconic musicians with distinctive arrangements - classics that everyone knows and loves. This was both a subconscious and conscious decision.
In producing the album and choosing the construction and instrumentation, Esbe wanted to make use of both orchestral arrangements (most evident on the tracks Summertime and Amazing Grace) and her bank of atmospheric sampled sounds (showcased prominently on Sound Of Silence and Bridge Over Troubled Water). Having accumulated much experience in the craft of orchestral string arranging, she feels that, with careful and sensitive programming, sampled instruments can make the listener feel they're in an auditorium. This is mainly because the instruments she uses from Spitfire Audio's sound-bank were all recorded at London's Air Studios, famously founded by Beatles producer Sir George Martin.