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About:
Chris Letcher is a London-based, South African-born songwriter and film composer. His debut solo album Frieze has received glowing reviews since being released in Europe and the US, and Chris has performed with his band at festivals and venues around the world. He has recently signed an international publishing agreement with Warner Chappell and is in the process of completing a full-length follow-up to Frieze, recorded in London and Belgrade, due for release in September 2010.
Frieze has recently appeared in both The Sunday Times and the Mail & Guardian’s ‘Albums of the Decade’ lists, and has received extensive radio play not only reaching the top 20 in the US on College Radio charts, but also featuring on the influential Morning Becomes Eclectic show on California’s KCRW, Australia’s JJJ, BBC 6 Music, and BBC Radio 3 in the UK.
Chris has performed with his band at Austin’s South by Southwest, Toronto’s North by Northeast, and at festivals and clubs in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and South Africa.
Chris’s work as a film composer has also received good press in recent months, with the Sunday Independent making My Black Little Heart – a film by Claire Angelique and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire), scored by Chris – one of their top films of 2009. He is currently composing a score for Angelique’s follow up film, Palace of Bone, scheduled for release at the end of 2010.
The forthcoming new album was recorded at both Digimedia Audio Studio, Belgrade, and The Garden, London, with Finn Eiles (Futureheads, Mystery Jets, Fionn Regan, Klaxons, The Dears). On it, Chris and band explore a variety of musical directions with an unlikely combination of sounds and instruments: guitar, mbira, bass clarinet, orchestral percussion and musical saw.
Chris achieved his first critical and commercial success with Urban Creep, one of South Africa's biggest rock bands. He has continued to release stunning solo and collaborative projects – recently working with Dave Matthews, Xavier Rudd and Vusi Mahlasela – as well as creating music for films and documentaries. He is currently studying towards the completion of his Doctorate in Music Composition at the Royal College of Music, London.
Playing live with Chris are Victoria Hume (keyboards/voice), Andrew Joseph (bass), Phil Wakeman (guitar/voice), David Eugene Webb (drums/glock) and Quinta (Bat for Lashes) on viola/saw.
Praise for Frieze:
“Keenly intelligent, musically dense, utterly memorable” Billboard
“Chris Letcher crafts songs that sound like dawn: low and creaky, slowly building to a big burst of light.” Rolling Stone
“A sense of luminous menace... further proof of the pleasure-potential of the disquieting and disturbed.” Guardian
“Letcher has created a world that feels somehow more real than the one we're living in, and when the album is over, our own world doesn't feel quite the same.” Etan Rosenbloom, Prefix Mag
“Dense, gorgeous pop” Maura Johnston, Idolator
“The most sophisticated rock album ever made by a South African Artist.” FHM
“An intricately orchestrated, sincerely sung and often humorous offering... disquieting, electro-flecked, intricately composed revenge ballads.” Critics’ Choice, London Time Out
“A lush orchestrated soundtrack.” Editor’s Picks, Blender, US
Press Contacts:
info@letchermusic.com
US: beckicarr@yarrrpr.com
FRIEZE OUT NOW. BUY  OR 
Reviews:
“Letcher has created a world that feels somehow
more real than the one we're living in, and when the album is over, our
own world doesn't feel quite the same.” Etan Rosenbloom, Prefix Mag
“A sense of luminous menace... proof of the pleasure-potential of the disquieting and disturbed." Guardian UK, June 2007
"Diese Album ist ein hörenswerter Gegenbeweis; Da hat jemand viel gewollt und viel geschafft." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 2007
"Fascinatingly delicate textures that enhance the somber narratives." Ken Barnes, USA Today
“Dense, gorgeous pop.” Maura Johnston, Idolator
“Makes the earnest mopes of miserable bastards like David Gray and Damien Rice look like laundry lists.” - GQ (April 2007)
“A lush orchestrated soundtrack in search of a
film - you know, something big budget and with lots of expensive crane
shots and boyfriends in the rain calling up to their girlfriends
illuminated windows. John Cusack needs to hear this.” Mike
Errico, Senior Editor - Blender Magazine, USA June 2007
"The most sophisticated rock album ever made by a South African Artist." FHM (February 2007)
"A écouter d'urgence." - Indietronica
"The album Frieze
illustrates that Chris Letcher is one of the greatest songwriters to
grace the shores of this southern-most tip of Africa." Lloyd Gedye, Mail & Guardian
"This is simply a great album. Truly world class.
Intricate, complex, melodic, ambitious, funny, literate and so damn
listenable it will make you gasp" - Jeremy Daniel, The Star
"Keenly intelligent, musically dense, utterly memorable, always sliding through any attempts to nail it down to a genre." Diane Coetzer, Billboard/Entertainment Africa
"Une grande réussite, un grand moment de bonheur simple à découvrir d'urgence..." - Mur de son
...more reviews here
Cover design: Tamsyn Adams
FRIEZE RECORDED AND MIXED BY HOWARD 'FINGERS' BARGROFF and the band.
  
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