Broken Hearts & Madmen | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 20 September 2011 | |||
Recorded | The Canterbury Music Company, Toronto, Ontario, Canada | |||
Genre | Pop, World music, Latin American music | |||
Length | 48:08 | |||
Label | Analekta | |||
Producer | Roberto Occhipinti | |||
Gryphon Trio chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
Broken Hearts & Madmen is an album of pop music, World music and Latin American music recorded by the Juno Award-winning Canadian chamber music ensemble the Gryphon Trio and the Canadian singer Patricia O'Callaghan that was released by the Analekta label in September 2011. [2]
Produced by the Toronto-based jazz musician Roberto Occhipinti, the album gained a four-star rating from the AllMusic website. It contains a combination of "dark" (or what AllMusic termed "nocturnal") modern-day Anglo-Canadian folk and pop songs (Nick Drake's "River Man", Leonard Cohen's "The Gypsy's Wife", Elvis Costello's "I Want You") and mainly traditional Latin American folksongs sung (in Spanish and Portuguese) by O'Callaghan.
The AllMusic reviewer James Manheim commented: "It's not easy in this eclectic age to juxtapose musical items that have never been in proximity before, but Canada's Gryphon Trio and soprano Patricia O'Callaghan manage to do so on this recording, which proclaims itself unlike any previous chamber music album … What's striking is how well the combination of rock-era English-language music and Latin song works." [3] The WholeNote reviewer Dianne Wells described the arrangements on the album as "brilliant", the Gryphon Trio's playing as "superb and complex", and O'Callaghan's singing as "gorgeous" and her "expert facility with languages … remarkable". [4]
A music video of the recording of "River Man" appears on the Gryphon Trio's and O'Callaghan's official websites. [5] [6] Broken Hearts & Madmen was produced with financial assistance from the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage's Canada Music Fund. [7]
Declan Patrick MacManus, known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, author and television presenter. According to Rolling Stone, Costello "reinvigorated the literate, lyrical traditions of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison with the raw energy and sass that were principal ethics of punk", noting the "construction of his songs, which set densely layered wordplay in an ever-expanding repertoire of styles." His first album, My Aim Is True (1977), is widely regarded as one of the best debuts in popular music history. It spawned no hit singles, but contains some of Costello's best-known songs, including the ballad "Alison". Costello's next two albums, This Year's Model (1978) and Armed Forces (1979), recorded with his backing band the Attractions, helped define the new wave genre. From late 1977 through early 1980, each of the eight singles he released reached the UK Top 30. His biggest hit single, "Oliver's Army" (1979), sold more than 400,000 copies in Britain. He has had more modest commercial success in the US, but has earned much critical praise. From 1977 through the early 2000s, Costello's albums regularly ranked high on the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll, with This Year's Model and Imperial Bedroom (1982) voted the best album of their respective years. His biggest US hit single, "Veronica" (1989), reached number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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