Harry Marte
Little Prayers
HQ-Vinyl LPLP CCA 2014
EAN 4014924020149
2017
A1 I Will
A2 Roaming
A3 Give Me A Night
A4 Holy Blood
B1 Moonchild
B2 Black Tainted Heart
B3 Kissed By You
B4 Rosemary Tree
B5 The River
HARRY MARTE – vocals & guitar
MARCO FIGINI – guitar
CHRIS DAHLGREN – bass & viola da gamba
ALFRED VOGEL – drums & production
A CCR Productions Recording
SHACK MEDIA
Tom Redecker
Phone +49 4791-980642
Fax +49 4791-980643
E-Mail: info@shackmedia.de
www.shackmedia.de
An Americana album from the Alps
The acoustic guitar plays a little melody, it sounds a little bit like border music from the Texan-Mexican frontier. Then the beat groans and rumbles and the band embraces the voice of the singer.
Harry Marte sings I Will:
For my pretty love
I will pray, I will pray.
For a whore
I will sing, I will sing.
And for all that money
I wouldn’t kill.
The acoustic guitar plays a little melody, it sounds a little bit like border music from the Texan-Mexican frontier. Then the beat groans and rumbles and the band embraces the voice of the singer.
Harry Marte sings I Will:
*His songs reflect more than half a life that has seen ups and downs. The songs are clear and authentic, they appear straight and physical, fragile and filigree; at the same time they breathe the serenity of a self-confident freethinker, for whom sixty is not an age and whose voice contains all the facets that apply to his songs.
And America has always been in this musician who grew up with Dylan and Woodstock, and who just disappears from Vorarlberg, Austria for a few months and travels the highways of the USA.*
Harry Marte uses his guitar to find the music for his songs. What he plays sounds stripped to the bone, limited to the bare essentials, and this is where a friend comes into play. “I have left everything else in Alfred's care,” says Marte. Alfred Vogel, drummer and producer, has formed a band with guitarist Marco Figini and Chris Dahlgren on bass and viola da gamba. Harry Marte gave this band the same name as his album,' Little Prayers'.
Little prayers. The music retains the rudimentary character of the creator. The music remains the soundtrack to Marte's poetry, concentrating on the essentials, the accompaniment and illustration.
Three cool Jazz musicians, who know their way around Appalachian roots music – dark voodoo sounds ticking, then the guitars sound almost soft. Crooked elements are always lurking; beautiful melodies are desired in Harry's sound universe, but his vocabulary always needs a little bit of distortion. It is better to let the strings creak a little bit and beat the drums a bit off than to let the pure sound of beauty come to light. A polka drifting slightly drunk through the bars.
While Marte ignites in the apocalyptic The River Old Testament phrases in full force to capture his anger about nature-destroying profiteering, his band piles up destructive sound cascades – the only time that the music of the Little Prayers remains speechless and wordless for a few minutes.
The vinyl album comes with a download code for all songs, including the two bonus tracks on the CD. All lyrics are reprinted on the cover of the album/in the CD booklet, including the translations of two songs into German.
Reviews CCA 2014 HARRY MARTE & LITTLE PRAYERS Little Prayers
Für ihn sind wettergegerbte Americana-Songs das Kerngeschäft. Mit Dylan und Woodstock im Blut schreibt er seine Lieder und gibt ihnen vom Leben beglaubigte Texte. Neben dem schrundigen Gitarristen Marco Figini komplettieren Vogel und Dahlgren seine aktuelle Band auf seiner wunderbar erdigen neuen CD 'Little Prayers'.
Sie machen das delikat und im Dienste der Sache, die von Männerschmerz, Albträumen, Unterwegssein und der Suche nach Liebe handelt. (…) Gar nicht aufgesetzt wirkt das, sondern vielmehr authentisch beseelt. Das Südstaatenfeeling wird getragen von schwelgerischer Musik.
Leipziger Volkszeitung
10.12.017
Ulrich Steinmetzger
Weit ist der Horizont dieser Songs, und groß ist das Herz dieses Songwriters. Harry Marte ist eine Entdeckung. Der Staub der Prärie weht durch diese Songs, da heult eine Gitarre wie ein Kojote, und die markante Stimme von Harry Marte, brüchig, stark und filigran zugleich, erzählt Geschichten von Liebe und Verlust. „Little Prayers“ (CrossCut Records) nennt der Singer/Songwriter aus dem Voralberg ganz bescheiden sein hörenswertes Album mit elf kunstvoll arrangierten Songs in der Americana-Tradition. (…) Das sind starke, charaktervolle Songs aus dem Geiste des American Songbook und der Roots Music. (…) Hörenswert.
Focus
06.11.2017
dpa
Der Staub der Prärie weht durch diese Songs, da heult eine Gitarre wie ein Kojote, und die markante Stimme von Harry Marte, brüchig, stark und filigran zugleich, erzählt Geschichten von Liebe und Verlust.
«Little Prayers» (CrossCut Records) nennt der Singer/Songwriter aus dem Voralberg ganz bescheiden sein hörenswertes Album mit elf kunstvoll arrangierten Songs in der Americana-Tradition.
Stern
06.11.2017