April 27, 2009

Slept late today, we were up late, celebrating the release of the Cheval Sombre CD. Sunday night was the record release party at Mercury Lounge; Cheval Sombre (joined by Britta on keys and bass, myself on electric guitar and Sonic Boom on the Casio) opened for Psychic Ills and Spectrum.

Cheval Sombre is a pseudonym of course; it is French for dark horse. After sending the record out to press a couple of months ago, one reviewer asked me if Cheval Sombre was in fact just Sonic Boom under a different name (and Time Out NY suggested he might be Jason Pierce). No, he’s a real person, which was proven at the live show – there he was for all to see, playing his acoustic guitar and singing in his unique, and very American, voice.

The Cheval Sombre disc was several years in the making, the whole thing started when he sent some of his demos to Sonic Boom. Next step was a recording session at Nick Kramer’s studio in Jersey City, NJ. Then Britta and I were invited to play on a few tracks, a few songs were mixed for a few 7” singles (now out of print).
The album was finally completed late in 2008.

The self-titled (with great cover art by UK-artist Ben Javens) is available in stores, or direct from our website, and is also downloadable on iTunes and Amazon. I love this album; it reminds me more of the early recordings by Opal (the band that became Mazzy Star), and is one of those rare records that captivates from the first track to the last. Here’s a review from the people at 17 Seconds:

http://17seconds.co.uk/blog/2009/04/25/album-review-cheval-sombre/

Click here to order Cheval Sombre

Cheval Sombre will be opening shows for Dean & Bitta on June 4, 5, & 6 -

CLICK HERE FOR SHOWS DETAILS

Dean & Britta
PMB 303
341 Lafayette St.
NY, NY 10012
www.deanandbritta.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 1:01 pm and is filed under Britta's Blog, Dean Wareham's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.