Member Since: 8/7/2006
Band Members: Marisa Allen - Violin, Vocals, Loops, Field Recordings, Percussion; Dave Bell(recordings) - Drums, Percussion, Odd Noise; Arron Bool - Guitar, Bass. Bremen Town Musician are currently seeking booking agent/managment for the band and solo work of Marisa Allen - this would include her published works and various art projects. Suitable persons should send enquiries to The CEO, brementownmusic(at)yahoo.com.au
Influences: Find your copy of Bremen Town Musician's new album, 'no one is holding a gun to your head (Songs to Run To)' featuring album art by Australian artist Daniel Brinsmead and a poster by fine artist Helen Celeste, at this link!The album is also stocked in Rockinghorse Records, Brisbane, Australia, Red Eye Records, Sydney, Australia and 12 Tonar, Reykjavik, Iceland. You really must get a copy of this album!Review by Graham Nunn poet and co-founder of Small Change Press publishers http://wordpress.com/tag/bremen-town-musician/ 'Bremen Town Musician are a three-piece experimental folk-blues freak-out. No One is Holding a Gun to Your Head (Songs To Run To) is the second album and charts new sonic territory for the band. This album smoulders, opening with the instrumental tracks Song to Run to and Governor Wren. The introduction of vocals on Steady lifts the intensity again and segues perfectly into Sailor Song; Marisa Allen’s voice bristling above the swirl of violin, drums, guitar/bass. Each song takes on its own character - the ethereal Love; the abrasive Disco Frogs and Shooting Stars Under Midnight; the delicate You Don’t Have To. No One is Holding a Gun to Your Head is one of those rare albums that demands high rotation. Every listen takes you somewhere new, uncharted… so throw away the map; this is an album of discovery.' Graham Nunn. ............................................................
..........................................Rave Magazine - BREMEN TOWN MUSICIAN – No One Is Holding A Gun To Your Head (Songs To Run To)
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
(Independent)
http://www.ravemagazine.com.au/content/view/13442/181/An account of beauty and doomNo One Is Holding A Gun To Your Head (Songs To Run To) is a fairytale woven tightly in to a sense of romantic fatalism. Marisa Allen wrings a desolate and luscious howl from her violin, easing the world into wreckage on the back of strings beautiful enough to give you hope anyway. Dave Bell employs a sparse drumming approach, cementing the perimeter of each song so that Allen’s swooping, howling poetics can at once filigree and soar with the assurance that nothing will be lost once they return from above. Much of this album is instrumental, but the music is compelling enough to see it through and there is no descent in to the self-indulgent drudgery so often associated with such compositions. While Allen’s voice is comparable to Corin Tucker’s, ...Songs To Run To is better suited to fans of Bat For Lashes and her ilk.PAULIE STONE
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......Timeoff - Issue 1407 14/01/09BREMEN TOWN MUSICIAN
No One Is Holding A Gun To Your Head
(Independent)
Thankfully not consisting of a donkey, cat, dog and chicken, this Bremen Town Musician is the moniker or one Marisa Allen, whose violin leads the album through a modern folk journey. Opening with the clang and clamour of ‘Governor Wren’, an instrumental song that starts unassumingly and builds to a fiery peak, it’s clear that BTM is going to arouse constant Dirty Three comparisons. Minus the beard and electricity.
Immediately afterwards, Allen introduces her vocals to the stomp of ‘Steady’; with different instrumentation it could almost be a Yeah Yeah Yeahs track. The self explanatory ‘Sailor Song’ floats along at a gentle pace, instrumental ‘Love’ does also, and is beautifully constructed. The fury is re-introduced in ‘Trouble’ and ‘The Hawk’: the former a minimalist piece built from lone violin and voice, the latter a carefully layered stop-start tune with rolling repetitive lines and odd timing. ‘The Sad High Seas’ revisits the nautical theme, while the field recording laden ‘You Don’t Have To’ is a quiet yet intense piece, a collection of odd disharmony that still manages to work. Rounding out No One is Holding… is the ambient track ‘Be Still Now’, a suitable closer.
Put together without overdubs in a single studio session, this album certainly captures the atmosphere of three very accomplished musicians gelling on a common goal. Allen’s stringwork dips between vicious and subtle, while her voice drips with personality. Drummer Dave Bell and guitar/bass man Arron Bool work perfectly together, matching Allen’s dynamics well. While not without its awkward or ill-formed points, this record is a great example or experiments going right.
HHH Tal Wallace ............................................................
.........................http://www.grapevine.is/default.asp
x?show=paper&part=fullstory&id=1314..
for the full story...... Bremen Town Musician - Silent Arrows Worth Four Beers.
by Sindri Eldon Published in: Issue 10 on Friday, July 14, 2006
Silent Arrows is a secretive work. Forlorn, hypnotic and ethereal, it is blessed with the rare ability to experiment without being pretentious, consisting almost solely of gentle, yet insistent violins playing to random taps of percussion, only occasionally broken up by the wandering, unsure vocals of a woman that sounds almost too hesitant to speak, let alone sing, and in fact the entire album sounds shy and delicate, but not naturally so, more reminiscent of an embittered and scarred, albeit curious, recluse than a bashful child. It is a sonic mystery, intriguing, exotic and impressively roomy and atmospheric for something so basic in construction. SE - The Reykjavik Grapevine
Outsider Press has published a chapbook collection of poems (selected works 1995-2006) and images by Marisa Allen, 250 copies. It's called 'Fire in the Head'. It is $15rrp or send a message to order one directly. Pick up a copy from wherever you are lucky enough to find one. (Queensland Art Gallery - Gallery Store, Brisbane, Australia; 12Tonar Records, Reykjavik, Iceland; City Lights, San Francisco, United States; Rockinghorse Records-City, Brisbane, Australia; Polyester Books - Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia; Imprints Booksellers, Adelaide, Australia; Bailey's Books - Murwillumbah, Australia; The River Read - Noosaville, Australia; Written Dimension, Noosa Heads, Australia; Berkelouw's - Eumundi, Australia; Collected Works - Melbourne, Australia). You can also borrow a copy or 3 at Noosa Library and the State Libray of Queensland. This book is now registered on the major book databases so request your local bookshop to order it! "Fire in the Head is a call to arms to the caged artist in all of us who wants to run the night naked, fight for the rights of strange beauty and who dreams big whilst living a small town. This is the poetic equivalent of Joy Division's Love will tear us apart...." David 'Ghostboy' Stavanger (Editor and Poet)
Sounds Like: the nervous system of a thoroughbred racehorse
Type of Label: Unsigned