john crosby

music publicity/PR

 

 

Content of pages last revised Saturday 7 November 2009

 

The Unthanks            Photo credit: Alex Telfer

Here's The Tender Coming (EMI) is the brand new album by THE UNTHANKS (formerly RACHEL UNTHANK & THE WINTERSET). The new album sees not only a band name tweak since their 2008 Mercury Prize-nominated album The BAIRNS (EMI) but also the group expanding to a 5-piece core with another additional 5 musicians added on the road to make a 10-piece unit. They appear on Later...With Jools Holland (BBC 2 TV) on 30 October (having already been on the live segment of the show on 27 October). The Unthanks are currently on a 41-date UK tour.

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John Crosby is a leading specialist music publicist/PR, handling UK national press campaigns for such artists as Mariza, Camille, Yasmin Levy, The Unthanks, The Imagined Village, Chumbawamba, Alasdair Roberts, Bill Callahan, Thomas Mapfumo, Natacha Atlas, Los De Abajo, Värttinä, Oysterband, Tito Paris, Sara Tavares, Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill and many others over the past twenty years

 

"(Mariza)...has a fabulously effective publicity machine"
THE INDEPENDENT (Friday October 31st 2003)

 

"As a profession, promotion rests somewhere between craft and art, balancing subtlety and persistence. John Crosby has the knack of seeming to be almost invisible, while gently nudging the media into bringing his artists to the surface and into the limelight" CHARLIE GILLETT, BBC LONDON

 

 

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john crosby

music publicity/PR

PO Box 230

Hastings

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TN34 3XZ

 

Tel: 0845 108 7811

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Yasmin Levy            Photo credit: Ali Taskiran

"the next world music superstar" THE GUARDIAN****

"Aside from her stunning looks, Levy's biggest asset is her voice, which is versatile, sensuous, and brimming with emotion" THE INDEPENDENT

In Yasmin Levy’s music there is an undeniable tension between the purity of Ladino (the Judeo-Spanish music of Spain) and the fiery heart of flamenco. As she explained to David Honigmann of the FINANCIAL TIMES ’There’s a very traditional way of singing Ladino. I learnt it…listening to women singing and it’s beautiful, but I missed the passion. Flamenco is nothing but passion.’ She first successfully explored the fusion of these two in her second album La Juderia (Connecting Cultures) but then, with her third album Mano Suave (World Village), returned to, deeply and powerfully, rediscover her Ladino roots. For her brand new (and fourth) album Sentir (World Village) she has finally found a vision that integrates effortlessly these various musical directions. With Sentir, Yasmin’s music truly becomes ’of the world’.

Produced by the acclaimed Javier Limón (who has worked previously with the likes of Portuguese fado star Mariza), the album’s programme draws songs not only from Ladino (’Mi Korason’, ’Londje de Mi’) and flamenco (Javier Limón’s ’Nos Llego El Final’) traditions but also contemporary material (by Javier, Yasmin) and even Leonard Cohen (in a remarkable and fresh version of ’Hallelujah’).

An important factor in Yasmin’s life and musical direction has been the legacy of her father Yitzhak Levy, who died when Yasmin was only one year old. ’Una Pastora’ allows Yasmin, by the miracle of modern technology, to duet with him. As she says ”This is one of the most beautiful songs my father ever recorded…His singing is something holy for me and I was afraid to touch it…until I realised that it was my own fears I needed to overcome.”

For those new to the music and its language and history, Ladino is the collective term for the Judeo-Spanish languages spoken by the Jews of Spain: these languages infuse the original ancient Spanish with other languages including Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Slavic languages, Portuguese, French and Italian. The geographical spread of communities in North Africa, Turkey, Greece and the Balkans, each with distinct dialects and religious customs, is reflected in the musical variety of Judeo-Spanish folk songs carried down to the present day.