Shakespeare Music! The Young Scamels Debut Album

ft74-cover From the press release: The Young Scamels "Tempest" continues a collaboration that has been going for almost 20 years. The album was written by Christian Frederickson, Greg King and Jason Noble (who have performed together in the Rachel’s band and Shipping News). When they were offered a chance to score "The Tempest" at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2007/2008 they jumped at the chance. Opening with the softly layered violas of "Bring Forth a Wonder" the album shifts into the unkempt "Tempest" – finding the band resorting to hitting scuba tanks and going for a Peter Gabriel-tribute drum sound. Next is "Full Fathom Five", the first of several tracks with Shakespeare’s words, using more electric guitar, keys and a dissonant vocal cloud and bruised melody. As the album progresses, the quiet "I’ll Drown My Book" moves on to haunted landscapes of bells and synths, light-hearted beats, viola, vibes and guitar. The closing track, "A Contract of True Love," brings the many characters together in a final celebration, forgiveness being offered to all while strident drums, multiple voices and strings bang out an upbeat farewell message. The album is coming out on September 21st via File 13 Records.
From Duane:  I’m listening now, and I have to say I quite like the “Full Fathom Five” single.  Nice strong female lead.  I was not crazy about “Be Not Afeard,” which ends up as more of a spoken word piece.  Some of the others are very slow, and mostly instrumental as the press release notes.  I’ve not yet been through them all.  Always fun to see what people do when putting Shakespeare’s words to music.  You can’t really explain it, you have to hear for yourself and decide if it’s your cup of tea.

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