Artist: Choir of Young Believers
Title: This is for the White in Your Eyes
Label: Ghostly International
Genre: Alternative : Indie
Release Date: 8/18/09
UPC: 804297908908
Territory: Americas
The latest Danish export to throw something new into your musical rotation is Choir of Young Believers, an extremely unique and passionate project headed by Jannis Noya Makrigiannis, a 26-year old member of the Copenhagen indie scene.
From Ghostly International:
“When listening to Denmark’s Choir of Young Believers, it’s hard not to imagine an army of white-clad singers with arms outstretched, their voices raised in holy polyphony. After the breakup of his old band in 2006, Makrigiannis moved to the Greek island of Samos and began developing his own solo material. Jannis returned to Copenhagen and, gathering musicians and friends around him, formed Choir of Young Believers, an orchestral-pop project marked by magisterial melodies, dark lyrical concerns, and a healthy dose of cathedral-grade reverb.
The songs on Choir of Young Believers’ debut album This Is for the White in Your Eyes mix modest folk arrangements with ambitious, grandiose indie pop, cooled with a stoic Nordic distance and glowing with an inner light. Musical nods to Roy Orbison, The Beach Boys, Pixies, and Hank Williams abound, but Jannis and his Choir of Young Believers have forged their own neck-tinglingly singular sound. Live, the Choir takes many different shapes and sizes. Jannis often performs as a duo with a guitar or a piano and cello; other times, up to eight people fill the stage, playing everything from strings and horns to percussion and bells. The one constant is Jannis’ voice: clear, mournful, stretching to the heavens.”
An honest and accurate description if we may say so! His church-reverberated sound invokes cinematic sequences of passionate intensity. It’s very appropriate he called his group a “Choir,” because the overall effect is a drawing in of the listener, pulling them towards some personal experience that’s based around Makrigiannis’s voice, but delivered by a group of voices which have the effect of an omnipresent musical congregation. A definite up-and-comer, the future looks very bright for this young talent as his singles, EP’s, and preliminary singles have harbored serious press from indie-review outlets from all corners of the music publication universe (Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Under the Radar, NPR, MOJO, Magnet, the list goes on). If you’ve been looking for something unique and powerful to move you, search no more.
Choir of Young Believers
“Next Summer” (mp3)
from “This Is For The White In Your Eyes”
(Ghostly International)
Buy at Rhapsody
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