Artist:
JENNY DALTON
Label:
GLOSSY SHOEBOX PRODUCTIONS
Video:
“CADENCE vs. HUGO VARVOGLIS”
Director:
Justin Staggs
Add Date:
October 23, 2007

Hello once again to all of you, my cherished programmers. It’s Andy Gesner and the staff from HIP Video Promo bringing you yet another mesmerizing clip that your viewers will surely embrace. What makes Jenny Dalton’s music so attractive to remixers? It could be because of her voice – a supple and precise instrument that communicates clinical cool and emotional heat. It’s a bewitching voice, one that gets lodged inside the heads of listeners, and Dalton has a knack for penning concise, probing lines that become all the more provocative through repetition. Then there’s her songwriting, which is flexible, much as Tori Amos’s was on From The Choirgirl Hotel. Her songs beg for reinterpretation and alteration, and their fluid structures probably make them irresistible to enterprising sonic pioneers. Finally, there’s Dalton’s piano: sharp and percussive even when she’s playing a subtle passage, strong and durable even on mid-tempo ballads. For a remix artist or deejay, she’s the perfect, rewarding subject – every signal she generates is clear, and her irreducible personality is stamped on each note she sings.

Her unadulterated material is no less compelling. Fleur de Lily, her piano-driven debut, has made Dalton the talk of the Minneapolis singer-songwriter circuit, and has brought her music to the attention of a national audience. Comparisons to vintage Natalie Merchant, Kate Bush, Bjork, and even Evanescence have followed, but Jenny Dalton is very much her own woman, and the singular path she’s been walking has been broadly illuminated by her distinctive songs. Writing in the All-Music Guide, Jason MacNeil emphasizes Dalton’s difference from her peers, citing her haunting singing, her playfulness, and her promise. Many of these tracks are powerful and articulation explorations of a relationship torn by war, danger, extended separations, and the perils of overseas deployment. These are songs of heartbreak and longing, but Dalton demonstrates a genuine sociopolitical understanding – and, perhaps more importantly, compassion – on the dazzling “Iraqi Sky”.

Cadence vs Hugo Varvoglis”, the cut that closes Fleur de Lily, has been transformed into the ghostly centerpiece of theCarbon Lily Remixes by Greek dance-music auteur Hugo Varvoglis. This set of inspired reinterpretations of Fleur de Lilysongs features mixes from nations all over the world – an appropriate gesture, considering Dalton’s timely subject matter. Varvoglis is the star of the set, though: he’s reworked four Fleur tracks, and it’s his ethereal and propulsive drum and synth programming that gives Carbon Lily so much of its delicate-yet-dangerous character.

Justin Staggs (NOFX, The Soviettes, Strike Anywhere) makes videos that are dark fantasies – he loves to set iconic images against black backdrops, and juxtapose these with images of attractive performers in action. Here, the winsome Dalton provides the beautiful face, and Staggs does the rest. Well, that’s not entirely accurate – Dalton has lovely hands, too, and the “Cadence vs Hugo Varvoglis” clip contains plenty of over-the-shoulder shots of the young pianist at work. The room around her is abuzz with sinister and enchanted life: cardboard moths flicker around a suspended lightbulb and a single candle, marionettes shake to attention and then hang, hunched over and poised for their strings to be pulled by an unseen hand. Stuffed animals float from the floor to the ceiling, and surround a masked ballerina as she pirouettes in place. It’s all a bit like a young girl’s toybox gone mad: childhood memories animated by ghostly rhythms.

We are very excited to be working directly with Jenny Dalton herself to bring you this spectacular new video, and Justin Staggs is a directorial favorite of ours as well. We have lots of copies of Carbon Lily Remixes for your on air giveaway needs, so give us a shout.If you need more info, call Andy Gesner at 732-613-1779 or e-mail us at  info@HIPVideoPromo.com . You can also visit www.GlossyShoebox.com, or www.JennyDalton.com to find out more about Jenny Dalton.

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