Simonne Draper - Fairytale The Jon Kennedy Remix
feat. Jon Kennedy Remixer
UPC 783970970251
ISRC: CZCG32400023
I'm absolutely thrilled to announce that the remix of my composition "Fairytale" from the new album "Silence of Eclipse" (Bongo Boy Records) will be released on July 23, 2024! The new remix, in a downtempo/trip-hop style, is my second collaboration with Jon Kennedy, who already created a remix of my song "Eclipse" last year. That remix was accepted for the first round of the 66th Grammy Awards® and released on the "66th FYC Album" compilation by various artists. It's an absolute joy to collaborate with Jon again and hear my music in an entirely different style! - Simonne Draper
1.Eclipse 3:30
2.Fairytale 5:04
3.Avantgardance 3:50
4.Ricordiana 3:37
5.Canzonetta dell’ Acqua
(Classical Guitar Duet)3:24
6.Finallegro 3:59
7.Jazzmine 3:15
8.Glissandante 3:35
9.Accordiana 3:10
10.Fantasia For My Love 3:17
11.Eclipse (Jon Kennedy Remix) 4:37
Guitars and Electronic Orchestra:
SIMONNE DRAPER
Mix: PAVEL BOHATÝ (Richman Music)
Mastering: TIM DEBNEY (Fluid Mastering)
Package Design: MARCUS FLETCHER
Recorded 2020-2023 in Prague
ALL COMPOSITIONS BY SIMONNE DRAPER
© ℗ 2024 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
UNAUTHORIZED DUPLICATION IS A VIOLATION OF APPLICABLE LAWS
Bongo Boy Records, 945 State Route 94, Blairstown, NJ 07825 US
Made in USA
It is our pleasure to introduce you to the very talented composer and guitarist Simonne Draper. She is classically trained and has worked with some amazing other composers in Prague and around Europe. Simonne Draper’s new album ‘Silence of Eclipse’ just recently dropped and it’s some of her best work yet. Her first album was in 2019, and it was called ‘Portraits In Guitar’. This new album, is a real work of art and a masterclass on guitar composition.
The new Simonne Draper album, ‘Silence of Eclipse’, includes 10 original new tracks, plus a second remix of the track ‘Eclipse’. This album is all instrumental, featuring Simonne Draper’s iconic classical guitar throughout. Plus, layered with other orchestral strings and instruments to create a truly full symphonic sound. The classical contemporary album was released through the label Bongo Boy Records and it dropped June 21st, 2024. The album is available everywhere worldwide. Listen below via Spotify and enjoy the beautiful ride the album takes you on!
Having initially been introduced to Simonne Draper via the exquisite single Accordiana, this first taste left me wanting more. And that is precisely what any single worth its salt should do. It seeks to entice the audience and tests the water for a full album to follow. That album, Silence of Eclipse, is now here, and if that first single promised something rather special, even its grace and gentle majesty didn’t quite prepare me for what was to follow.
Simonne Draper is a sonic explorer, it’s what she does and does brilliantly, creating contemporary pieces for the classical guitar, but even that description is a vague approximation of what is at work on this latest release. Across ten compositions and one remix, she weaves those six strings through musical landscapes draped in classical grace and folk sentiments, world music traditions and otherworldly sensations, delicate sonics and orchestral grandeur, graceful lulls and anthemic swells.
The opener, Eclipse, sets the tone for the album, with a flurry of arabesque guitar work dancing over a wash of strings that ebb and flow with the ever-changing intensity and atmosphere required. It is a piece that demonstrates the skill of her playing whilst also that Simonne Draper is all about serving the song rather than blowing her own trumpet, although I suspect she would be able to do that instrument justice too, if she chose too
There are understated pieces such as Avantgardance (there is some fine wordplay to be found in the song titles), which seems to merely glide along on the sonic winds; the ethereal beauty of Ricordiana, which is threaded through with graceful piano lines and vocals used as instruments; and the darker and delicious moods of Glissandante.
There is room for a duet in the form of the intertwined, ornate yet somehow spacious guitars of Canzonetta Dell’ Acqua and even a remix of the opening track by Jon Kennedy, which reimagines it as a downtempo, chill-out piece, which is brilliant as it is perhaps unexpected.
And this last piece sums up Simonne’s attitude toward music. She may come from a world of formal training, classical composition and orchestral groups, but the boundaries she is pushing are more interesting than the journey that brought her here. Albums such as Silence of Eclipse prove that there is a beautiful space where classical grace meets world music traditions, where folk deliveries meet cinematic grandeur, where the formal world meets the exploratory one, where the past meets the present and where the purely analogue dances with digital dexterity.
And we find Simonne Draper making such excellent music in these beautiful thresholds and overlooked, liminal spaces.
Release Date 04.12.24
ISRC CZCG32200006 - UPC 783970970176
The first single from "Silence of Eclipse" the new album by Simonne Draper.
"Accordiana" is composed by Simonne Draper.
All Guitars and Electronic Orchestra by Simonne Draper
The Sound engineers:
Mix by Pavel Bohatý (Richman Music), Czech Republic
Mastering by Tim Debney, (Fluid Mastering), United Kingdom
I get so used to talking about guitars in terms of the brash and the bombastic, the effect-laden and the over-driven, that it comes as quite a shock, a pleasant one, naturally, when I hear the sound of said instrument played in the way that God, and by God, I, of course, mean the Great Segovia, intended.
Taken from Simonne Draper‘s forthcoming album, Silence of Eclipse, this Czech Composers Society member deftly and delicately pulls and picks cascades of notes from her Spanish Guitar and bids them dance across the washes and waves of strings as they ebb and flow behind her.
Rather than the usual sound of man and machine battling for a common cause (and indeed effects) to combine human skill and electronic manipulation into a pop or rock sound, here we find the skill all in the human hand, the instrument itself, though finely wrought is merely a tool to be turned to the players will. And the sound, that innocent, pure, and untampered with acoustic sound, is a joy to behold—the sound of the artist playing the instrument when all too often it feels like the instrument is playing the artist.
Created at a place where the down-tempo sound of the chillout breaks up against more stringent classical vibes, where exploration and discipline work hand in hand, Accordiana is a gorgeous piece of music, meditative and relaxing, ornate in its creation yet somehow feeling spacious and understated (if such a concept isn’t too much of an oxymoron).
Simonne Draper’s story is about following your dreams and pursuing your passions. After studying and pursuing a career in law for much of her life, she decided to return to her first love and to the music world to study classical and orchestral music composition. Having been classically trained on the Spanish Guitar from a young age, she later studied under renowned classical guitar composer Milan Tesař at the Conservatoire in Prague. Her further musical studies and performances have seen her collaboration with other guitarists in Prague churches and local concert halls, and her debut album, Portraits In Guitar, was commercially and critically well-received in 2019.
Accordiana shows just how able Simonne Draper is at blurring the lines between traditional classical sounds and a more contemporary fusion sound, and not so much hopping genres to achieve those ends but rather by creating whole new ones in the spaces between.
If anyone ever tells you that the classical form is stuck in the past, that unadorned guitar sounds are unexciting, or that the electric version of the instrument is where it’s really at, then just play them Accordiana or anything from Simonne’s back catalogue until they come to their senses.
TV Spot URL: https://vimeo.com/933482266
Official Website: https://simonne.info/
Single Available worldwide: http://linkmysong.com/63988
If Route 66 is an iconic route through the American landscape, offering a procession of changing vistas and extraordinary experiences where memories are made and new adventures await, then this, the 66th FYC album from Bongo Boy Records, is undoubtedly its sonic equivalent. For those wondering about the title, this compilation series features only artists who made it through to the first voting ballot For Your Consideration (FYC), which eventually made it to the nominees of the Grammy Awards®. How much more iconic can you get?
As this release is a double album, I approach each disc separately.
To do justice to all of the great music on this twin album set, rather than presenting the reader with something erring towards the length of War and Peace, two reviews seemed the way to go. So, welcome to part one.
The Jon Kennedy Remix of Simonne Draper’s Eclipse takes us on a musical journey through blends of arabesque progressions and Middle Eastern spice. It is a slow sonic meander through exotic landscapes captured through equally mystical soundscapes, reminiscent of the sort of magic the likes of Loreena McKennitt weaves through her music.
Published Review for The 66th FYC Album Featuring Simonne Draper
Accomplished acoustic guitar maestro Simonne Draper presents “ECLIPSE (Jon Kennedy Remix).” And with her virtuosity on full display, I would say her playing eclipses the attempts of all others. See what I did there?
Bongo Boy Records is a Full Stack Music Company with a creative spin and a growing roster. Launched a growing syndicated Television Show and owns iSpin Radio Station. Distribution and Promotions of Music. Where Your Success Is Our Business.
P.O. Box 152
Blairstown, NJ 07825 USA
908-455-1576
info@bongoboyrecords.com