Mark Northfield profile picture

Mark Northfield

About Me

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Mark Northfield is a pianist, songwriter, arranger and occasional singer from Berkshire, England. Ascendant is his second album and is available to buy at CD Baby (US) and Rough Trade (UK). Also available as a digital download from emusic, amazon.com, iTunes and others you've probably never heard of.

If it does well he may consider releasing the first one, because timing is everything.
To join his (suitably occasional) mailing list, simply send a request via myspace or the marknorthfield.com contact form.

JUNIOR'S CAVE ONLINE MAGAZINE are running an interview with Mark - April 2009.
REVIEWS ETC:
'Northfield takes art-pop Chamber music to a new level.' WILDY'S WORLD
'Intelligent and literate... A fine debut.' MUSIC MUSINGS AND MISCELLANY
'Like a Tim Burton movie for the ears - quirky, detailed, immaculately produced...' BLUESBUNNY
'...deserves its place in the same pantheon as Aqualung, Antony and the Johnsons, Damien Rice or anything by Andy Partridge.' MUSICZEITGEIST
'Ascendant is, in turns, loving, clever, surprising and just plain weird.' OVERPLAY
'The cat has no web site to the best of my knowledge.' FINGERTIPSMUSIC
..

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 03/02/2007
Band Website: www.marknorthfield.com
Band Members: Mark Northfield
Vocalists on Ascendant (in order of appearance):
Matthew Crutchlow
Christopher Killerby
The Pearsall Consort
Bryony Lang
Paul Cozens
Ellen Jakubiel
Mark Northfield
Jon Payne
Jamie McCarthy
Alex Howlett
Influences: This Mortal Coil
Radiohead
Kate Bush
Faure
ABBA
Bjork
Beethoven
The Divine Comedy
The Magnetic Fields
Pink Martini
Lambchop
Ghostland
Poulenc
REM
Wilco
kd lang
Tom Waits
Tindersticks
Kirsty MacColl
Pet Shop Boys
Gavin Bryars
Philip Glass
Underworld
Iain Archer
Nick Drake
Tori Amos
Sigur Ros
Stereolab
Brian Eno
David Byrne
Ulrich Schnauss
Simon & Garfunkel
Kronos Quartet
Dead Can Dance
Sounds Like: File under: ALT-POP/CLASSICAL/HUH?
Ascendant is a collaboration of pianist, composer, arranger and occasional singer Mark Northfield with eight other singers from a variety of musical backgrounds.
The arrangements are dark and lush, referencing the bleak atmospherics of 4AD acts such as This Mortal Coil and Dead Can Dance, as well as the romantic stylings of Kate Bush, Rufus Wainwright and The Divine Comedy. Ghostly fragments of themes contained on the album link the songs together into a near continuous whole.
The complex lyrics reflect the subdued nature of the music and deal with themes of memory, time, loss and mystery. Even in the surreal satire of Sleeping Beauty and the numb, rock lurch of Decidedly Dumb there is a poised thoughtfulness at work. The closing trio of major key songs gradually lift the listener away from the tension, finishing with the serene (if resigned) duet of Luco and thus reintroducing the theme which began the album.
Substantive recordings was set up by Mark Northfield in 2008 and Ascendant is the first release for the label. The album cover art is taken from a painting entitled 'Lightly Attached' by Tamara Dubnyckyj. Reproduced with permission.
TRACKLISTING waiting for green/resistance/the calm/sleeping beauty/decidedly dumb/weight/zero/our father/luco

RUNNING TIME 52:36
Record Label: substantive recordings
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Junior's Cave Online Magazine.

Hi de ho. Just a quick note to inform anyone curious to know more that there's a fairly in depth interview with me now available, discussing the inspiration behind Ascendant, major influences and, er,...
Posted by on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:23:00 GMT

Step in my spring.

Update time (with slight Northfieldian rant in the second half).I'll confess to being a tad irritable this year so far - ill far beyond the call of duty with coldy/fluey stuff and have belatedly reali...
Posted by on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:11:00 GMT

Music Zeitgeist and nocturnal notation.

Another little blog expose / questionnaire thing for your select delectation. This one is at http://musiczeitgeist.com/artist-profile-mark-northfield/ - Sonicbids to thank once more. The writer of the...
Posted by on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:33:00 GMT

Fingertips Q+A

I'll keep this moderately short and sweet for a change... :)If any of you lovely blog readers wish to read my ramblings on music and the industry of music, head right on over to Fingertips Music and c...
Posted by on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 09:05:00 GMT

To perform or not to perform?

Goodness me, it's been a while... So much for my good intentions of regular bloggery! Procrastination, procrastination, procrastination. It doesn't help that there seems to be a problem affecting Mysp...
Posted by on Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:12:00 GMT

album review

Shall try to curb my rambliness today - I’m on holiday oop north and want to get out on the bike whilst the weather is being vaguely kind (in between the mini blizzards).I merely wish to draw at...
Posted by on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:41:00 GMT

Presentation, presentation, presentation.

So then, I posted out a couple of dozen copies of the album for review at the weekend; waiting to hear from a couple of dozen more whether they might, perhaps, just, almost be interested and would the...
Posted by on Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:40:00 GMT

rough trading and mercury schmercury

The plot thickens. In the absence of a distribution deal (as yet) I thought getting Ascendant into Rough Trade East might be a good start. With a certain amount of trepidation I ventured over and had ...
Posted by on Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:15:00 GMT

Album released.

Where to begin? Hmmm... Let's start with punctuation.I was going to give this blog entry an exclamation mark, but seeing as the process of getting an album out there into the wide, wild world has prov...
Posted by on Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:26:00 GMT