Combine the violin mastery of Nigel Kennedy, the voice of an alien Siouxsie/Bowie hybrid, and the looks of a post-apocalyptic Marie Antoinette, and what do you get? Emilie Autumn. The pink-haired princess of "victoriandustrial" has already morphed her way from classically trained violin prodigy to extreme rock performer with the ability to shred on a fiddle à la Yngwie, and with a cult following to match.
After spending a summer in France recording with Courtney Love at Ms. Love's express command, Emilie was invited to join Love's touring band,"The Chelsea," and was appropriately dubbed the "anarchy violinist" by Love. Next thing you knew, she was performing live on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and on national television with Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame, while appearing on the solo debut albums of both Corgan and Love. Emilie quickly gained attention as a solo performer in her own right, and was chosen as one of Interview Magazine's "14 To Be," a pictorial featuring 14 up-and-coming young female stars. Shot by famed fashion photographer Kelly Klein, and wearing a Helmut Lang gown while sprawled on a large wooden tea crate, Emilie was chosen as the magazine's centerfold posing with her signature electric violin. Now, EA is setting her sights on the rest of the world with the release of her new album, "Opheliac" on the Trisol Music Group label, released in Europe on the 1st of September 2006, and worldwide on the 22nd.
BACKGROUND:
Brought up as a concert violinist since age four, and trained in conservatoires around the world as a performer, composer, conductor, and music historian, EA's bizarre background is the element that makes her music so exceptional. The blending of authentic baroque strings, harpsichord, and factory-derived industrial beats with vocal techniques from soul-searing belts to snarling screams creates an positively dangerous feel, only compounded by EA's dark and uber-literate lyrics.
After walking away from her first major label contract at age 17, EA returned to her classical roots and released her solo violin debut album, "On a Day...," with the label she created and still controls, the aptly titled Traitor Records. Since the creation of her own production company, EA has branched out to create a number of side projects (The Jane Brooks Project, Ravensong, Convent), and is delighted to be collaborating with other artists including Detroit techno legend DJT1000, UK industrial giant, Attrition, fellow Chicagoans, Die Warzau, and many more creative entities ranging from industrial legends to television shows (EA frequently contributes her violin playing to the hit American TV series "Metalocalypse," a cartoon about a ficitional metal band airing weekly on Adult Swim).
With Enchant a proven success in the indie world, Emilie returned from two years of touring and recording with Love to begin production on her second full-length non-classical offering entitled, "Opheliac." Written in the style EA calls "victoriandustrial," her new heavily industrial sound takes "gothic" to a whole new level - sinister, witty, and combining her trademark violin pyrotechnics with growling vocals, virtuosic harpsichord, and electro-industrial beats. A concept album about "women, water, and madness," song titles include, "Gothic Lolita," "Dead Is The New Alive," "The Art Of Suicide," "I Want My Innocence Back", and "Misery Loves Company."
EA's previous releases include the solo violin debut album, "On a Day...," recorded at age 17 and showcasing her mastery of the baroque violin, "By The Sword," her charity single in response to the 9/11 attacks, "Chambermaid," her first goth-rock EP, and of course, "Enchant." Emilie also appears on Courtney Love's 2004 release, "America's Sweetheart" on Virgin Records, and is a featured guest on Billy Corgan's 2005 solo release, "The Future Embrace" on Warner Records.
OTHER ACTIVITIES:
When EA is not recording or touring, she designs for "Mistress," her own fashion and fragrance line for her own indie-couture company, WillowTech House. Notorious for her own visionary "punktorian" stage costumes, EA's design skills were put to use when she was asked to design and create all of the costumes for the music video for "Walking Shade," Corgan's first single off his 2005 album, directed by P.R. Brown.
EA is also a prolific writer and illustator, releasing and quickly selling out of her first volume of poetry in 2001. 2005 saw the release of her second poetry edition complete with audio version entitled, "Your Sugar Sits Untouched," offered by WillowTech House Publishing. EA is currently putting the finishing touches on the illustrations for her gothic children's book for adults only, "The Alphabet Book of X-Boyfriends."
Originally from Malibu, California, EA is now a proud Chicagoan, and can most often be found at nightspots such as the Metro, Neo, and DoubleDoor as well as cavorting around the city's downtown in her Victorian bustle skirt, corset, and combat boots, attracting a ridiculous amount of attention.
The End.
For now...
Enchant Era Biography
Voices calling from across the sky, singing stars, towers scaled by the aid of a maiden's hair... To most, these are the figments of fairy tales. To one, once upon a time is real. To Emilie Autumn, once upon a time is now.
Richly talented, multifaceted, innovative, eclectic and unconventional - singer, songwriter, producer, pianist, and world class violinist Emilie Autumn is that rarest of musical breeds...a true original.
This is a singer with the power to change the world of rock music as we know it. Whether she is writing and performing original songs that bring together an extraordinary mix of sounds and styles; performing concerts in the great classical music halls of Europe and the US; or bringing down the house with her own electrifying violin rock creations, 22-year-old Emilie Autumn makes music that defies categories, breaks down barriers and builds a bridge to a new era of music with a truly globe-spanning sound.
The proof is on glorious display with Emilie Autumn's dazzling debut album "Enchant", featuring such standout tracks as the hip-hop "How Strange", a rapid-fire view of mankind's lack of respect for the supernatural; "Chambermaid", a scathing rock track utilizing renaissance imagery and backed by Emilie's electric fiddle wizardry, and the haunting ballad "What If", featuring a heartbreaking violin and piano performance.
Along with Emilie's distinctive vocals which fluctuate between preternaturally mature soul singer and sultry siren, her debut album highlights her mastery of several instruments including an array of violins, piano, harpsichord, and electronics. Also an accomplished visual artist, Emilie's work is featured on the album sleeve which includes the Enchant Puzzle, the first ever album-based mystery puzzle of its kind, complete with a magnificent prize for the first person to solve it. With 14 tracks of groundbreaking variety Emilie Autumn's stunning new album heralds the arrival of a major young artist and the very beginning of a brilliant career.
That career was fortold virtually from the cradle when Emilie, a native of Malibu, California, was raised in a highly unconventional family that stressed artistic freedom and self-expression. Attending school only up until her ninth birthday, she educated herself, making her knowledge of literature and her formidable abilities as a writer and poet even more astounding.Evincing an early and impressive ability on the violin, playing everything from a wide classical repertoire to electric Hendrix-influenced jazz, Emilie enrolled in the prestigious Colburn School of Performing Arts at age ten. It was during this period that she began to experiment with a free form improvisational approach to her instrument, taking her cue from internationally renown virtuoso Nigel Kennedy, who later met and became friends with the fledgling artist.
Far too free-spirited for the formal strictures of school, Emilie began playing professionally at age 12, touring the UK. Although she attracted critical and popular raves for her mastery of classical violin, Emilie was already moving into new musical realms, polishing her vocal skills by listening to Jo Stafford and writing songs that recall the sophisticated styles of Annie Lennox and Sting. At the same time, she began her lifelong exploration into medieval, renaissance and baroque music, becoming one of the youngest champions of the period performance movement and earning a classical recording deal by age 18.
Never content to sit still, this young prodigy had already formed her own renaissance rock band, Ravensong, and regularly pack house on the Hollywood club circuit. At 15, Emilie won a place at top music conservatory, Indiana University, but eventually left school when her unorthodox music and by now notorious fashion sense, a disturbing mix of corsets and combat boots, clashed with the university authorities. Refusing to cut her knee-length red hair, Emilie went on to further explore and expand her musical vocabulary, writing rock, jazz, and symphonic originals and, on occasion, even conducting the orchestras that would perform her work.
Lending her compositional talents to film scores, Emilie recently started to bring her music to a wider audience. Prodded by friends in the recording industry to record some vocal demos, Emilie went into the studio to record three songs and emerged with the beginnings of ''Enchant", her self-produced debut album available from Traitor Records. The music remains as paradoxical as Emilie herself, blending electronics with instruments from the 16th century, celestial imagery with ferocious outbursts. Emilie sings, "See beyond the moment, think beyond the day...", and, with this collection of songs penned while still in her teens, cleverly combines the angst of her generation with the transcendental philosophies necessary for growth. The result announces, in no uncertain terms, the arrival of a mesmerizing young artist with creative horizons that enchant listeners and reach to the stars.
Emilie Autumn: a new season of great music has arrived.
~Information from Battered Rose
Videos from YouTube:
Opheliac
Shalott
Violin Solo
Toolwood - Interview (Part 1)
Toolwood - Interview (Part 2)
Rule No.2
Rule No.3
Rule no. 4
I Want My Innocence Back
Thank God I'm Pretty
Unlaced, Live
Let The Record Show (Live)
Post Cast II
Marry Me
God Help Me
The Art of Suicide
I Know Where You Sleep
Let the Record Show
306
4 O'Clock
Goodbye (poem)
How to Break a Heart [poem]
I Didn't Mean You (poem)
Ghost (poem)
Faces Like Mine
In the Lake
Maniac Depression
Ever
Mad Girl
With Every Passing Day (cover)
Liar
Castle Down
What If
.:~ <3 ~:.
Are you suffering?
