alice despard CD out today on wampus multimedia

Wampus Multimedia announces the release of Vessel, the new CD from Washington, D.C.-based singer-guitarist Alice Despard. Despard's songs are like New York City rock 'n' roll played on an old Harmony acoustic guitar -- like Patti Smith interpreting the work of Neil Young. Despard fuses her intuitive, poetic observations with a warm mysticism, producing sparse, intellectually muscular songs that resemble nothing so much as four-minute pop hymns. Blending the stark realism of the Velvet Underground with the oblique optimism of early R.E.M., they play as fresh and original while touching some of the most significant bases in modern rock.

Add to this mix the influences of Van Morrison, the Beatles, Mission of Burma, East River Pipe, Vic Chesnutt, and the Sea and Cake, and you find you're listening to a songwriter as distinctive as any in alternative pop. Swinging between poles of urban angst and alt-country pastoralism, Despard fuses the external and the internal, the physical and the spiritual. From her formative years leading the group Hyaa! to a solo career spanning four albums, she has carved out a unique vantage point. With each record, her perspective resonates more deeply.

Vessel brings Despard's expressive voice to the fore. Comprised of original material both old and new, it reinvents her traditional indie aesthetic as a sort of unamplified melodicism, the abrupt beauty of a singer left standing after all the Marshall stacks have blown. While Despard's recent solo efforts, Push Me Pull You (1999), Alice Despard Group (2000), and Thinning of the Veil (2003), were rooted firmly in the whir-'n'-blur of indie pop, Vessel relies on the arresting candor of her unadorned voice.

While Despard makes what The Washington Post called "lush, ethereal country rock," the music's heady spiritualism is difficult to classify. Whether accompanied solely by her acoustic guitar, or by inventive collaborators Evan Pollack (drums), Philip D'Ambrosio (bass), and Bobby Birdsong (lap steel), Despard leaves sonic fingerprints not found in the recordings of other artists. From the Velvet-esque "The Well" to the soulfully plaintive "By the Way" to the sweetly sparkling "Hold You Up," Vessel speaks to a rich inner life.

Produced at Wampus Sound Studio, Vessel is part of the Wampus Multimedia Sessions series, featuring literate singer-songwriters captured in the studio over the course of a single day. The focus falls on the intimacy of performance, evoking the mood of a live show in the context of the studio.

Vessel is available at Amazon, CD Baby, Tower Records, iTunes, and other fine stores.

http://cdbaby.com/alicedespard

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Jordan Zevon Contributes Track to Warren Zevon Tribute Disc

Jordan Zevon, son of songwriter Warren Zevon, teams with singer Simone Stevens on the new Wampus Multimedia tribute CD, Hurry Home Early: the Songs of Warren Zevon, to recreate a previously unheard entry in the Zevon canon. "Warm Rain" is a tuneful slice of post-summer-of-love California pop.

"This is a song my dad wrote in the late '60s that I discovered in a box of reel-to-reel tapes that were sitting in a storage bin," says Jordan Zevon. "I've had the sheet music for years, but never heard the song until a few months ago and it's one of my favorites. He re-recorded it several years later as 'Steady Rain,' but that was also never released. This version is a combination of the two. It has the tempo and feel, as well as the bridge, from 'Steady Rain,' but the lyrics and instrumentation of 'Warm Rain.'"

Wampus Multimedia started the Zevon project in 2001, after it released its first tribute CD, If I Were a Richman: a Tribute to the Music of Jonathan Richman, and was working on its second, After Hours: a Tribute to the Music of Lou Reed.

Contributors besides Stevens and Jordan Zevon include: Phil Cody, who toured with Zevon; Matt Cartsonis (Zevon, Van Dyke Parks, Peter Himmelman), guitar on "Splendid Isolation"; Rami Jaffee (Wallflowers), organ on "Splendid Isolation"; Chris Butler (Waitresses), bass on "Reconsider Me"; Last Train Home, who recently appeared on CBS-TV's Late Late Show; Neil Luckett, now working with Nirvana producer Jack Endino; Gary Eaton (founding member, Continental Drifters), guitar on "Mr. Bad Example"; and Robbie Rist (L.A. power-pop producer known in a past life as Cousin Oliver of The Brady Bunch). Jordan Zevon has also just released a new EP.

Hurry Home Early was mastered by Eamon Loftus at C&C Studios (www.candcstudios.net) in Sterling, Virginia.

Wampus Multimedia is donating one dollar from the sale of each copy of Hurry Home Early to the American Cancer Society.

Track list:

Hurry Home Early is available at Amazon, CD Baby, Tower Records, iTunes, and other fine stores.

http://wampus.com/warren.html

http://cdbaby.com/hurryhome

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Wampus Preps New tvfordogs Disc

Following 2003's acclaimed Heavy Denver, London's tvfordogs return to crunchy, melodic rock with Roller. Densely layered guitars and soaring vocals guide this sophomore effort, which features Nirvana producer Jack Endino's mix of the title track. Release date: October 28.

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Your Alternate Universe: Releases from Wampus

http://localmusicstore.com

Prefer downloads to CDs? Wampus titles are now available from Buy.com, iTunes, MusicMatch, and many others!

Alice Despard / Vessel

Patti Smith meets Neil Young -- with a little Mission of Burma to boot.

Johnny J Blair / Treadmarks

Imagine if Raymond Chandler and Sam Cooke were street musicians busking with David Bowie's beat-up 12-string guitar.

Various Artists / Hurry Home Early: the Songs of Warren Zevon

Emerging artists interpret the literate, modern songcraft of the "poet of Gower Avenue."

Arms of Kismet / Cutting Room Rug

Brooding and poppy, funny and foreboding, it's toe-tapping, tragicomic rock 'n' roll.

Casey Abrams / Like a Mirror

Reflecting folk, jazz, and the American songbook, it takes Paul Simon and Don McLean back to their roots.

Cafebar 401

Brimming with darkly sweet pop hooks, it calls to mind Coldplay, Radiohead, and Queens of the Stone Age.

Arms of Kismet / Eponymous

Literate and insidiously catchy, it's postmodern pop for the savvy, ironic streetcrawler.

Various Artists / After Hours: a Tribute to the Music of Lou Reed

Emerging artists tell the story of an artist unencumbered by popular expectations, yet... popular.

Various Artists / If I Were a Richman: a Tribute to the Music of Jonathan Richman

A wildly entertaining ride through the repertoire of one of rock's most original and eclectic songwriters.

tvfordogs / Heavy Denver

Definitive modern rock from London-based trio.

Kowtow Popof / Kowtow Drops the Pop Off

Powerfully nuanced postmodern rave-ups that set the car radio ablaze. "Preternaturally surrealist post-pop." --Eve Zibart, The Washington Post

Amateur God / Near Life Experience

Dark gothic-semi-vocal-ambient music in the tradition of Mylene Farmer, Art of Noise, and Voivod.

Mitch Renault & Arms of Kismet / Ted's 12: Original Soundtrack

Snappy songs and snippets from the film.

Various Artists / Glass Flesh 2: a Tribute to Robyn Hitchcock

Twenty-one great ways to skin Robyn Hitchcock's cat.

Wampeters / Murder Your Darlings

It's the end of the line... until the line starts again. "A great narrative album. The last great mainstream release that exemplifies this method of development of style and sound is Wilco's Summer Teeth." --Heidi Drockelman, IndieMusic.com

Mark Doyon / Bonneville Stories

Crisp fiction from Arms of Kismet's Mark Doyon that's as dark as optimism gets. "A brilliant collection of beautifully written stories that made me cringe, grimace, and laugh, while sometimes moving me to great pity.... There just aren't any flaws here, and I can't possibly do this book justice in a review. No one could, really...." --Laurie Edwards, CultureDose.net

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1929763093/qid=1034199246/sr=8-7/ref=sr_8_7/102-8551637-2399362?v=glance&n=507846

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Coming in 2005-07

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