Ceres Records

Loveletter
San Francisco, August 2003
Dear Julie,
-------- It was an experience I don't often have anymore. I opened the package [containing the SEPIA CD] and saw your photograph and was struck by what you might call the "male sin drome." I didn't know beforehand how you looked, but I never imagined you looked like that! Naturally, that set me up for what was to come, so that when the music began, the combination of music, lyrics, and picture left me in a euphoria I don't want to describe. Not a music critic, although I thoroughly enjoy the art, I'd prefer to leave some things unsaid right now, except to tell you that there was a spiritual sensitivity about your work that reached me deeply, though this is not music with which I am familiar, and your voice had just the perfect quality for it. Thank you for being so dear as to send me the volume. I would like to say a lot more but don't seem to have the words right now.
Love, Al
----------- Dear Al,
Julie Dalia and Ceres Records thank you so much; more than you can know.

now available on CD!
It's not a "one way ticket" for Carl Vigilante after all. Now living in Ashland, Oregon, in the beautiful Rogue River Valley, Carl is performing songs from his newly-released CD, One Way Ticket, as well as new songs performed for the first time. Carl is often joined by one of the musicians on the CD, guitarist Tom Reddick. If you're in the area be sure to catch one of his concerts! If not, you can hear his beautiful songs right here! [Click to listen]

Ceres Adds Custom Music Services
Although we've been doing this for years, finally (thanks to Isabella Issassi, our demure Publicist) we have now described the other Services offered by Ceres Records. If you need audio clips made & encoded for streaming, or other help for your website; if you are a Motion Picture Producer; or if you would like to commission a beautiful, compelling piece of music for a special occasion or accompaniment for other arts (video, plays, spoken word projects, radio shorts, an art opening, sculpture exhibit, memorial service, etc.), check us out: Ceres Custom Music Services.

Ceres Announces Auditions
Ceres Records Artist Julie Dalia seeks Musicians:

Julie Dalia is seeking a new band to rehearse, play, and record with. As you may know, her sound is a crossover sound, and she works with other players in a cooperative and co-creative environment.

Bass Player: Able to play fretless & fretted, and outside the groove; knows jazz harmony and other styles. Think Jaco Pastorius.
Lead Guitar: Thinks as much in terms of treatments and textures as in rifts, and who knows what counterpoint is. Think Studio Guitar Player as much as *Performer*.
Percussion: A person comfortable with time signatures such as 7 against 8, but who can also do just a big, fat, acoustic or ethnic "groovola", as in the song THE ANGELS HAVE GONE by David Bowie. Hopefully can play both hand drums and trap set.
Synth: NOT SURE ABOUT SYNTH!! If you are a synth player who likes Julie's music, and who is interested, please send a tape.

Most musicians who have worked with Dalia have remarked that she stretched them, gave them a lot of creative space, and they had fun, too! If you are interested, please contact world@ceresrecords.com. At this time Dalia is traveling the Deep South, Southwest, and Texas, but, says Dalia, "If I met players and we communicated, that could all change." She also says "I want to do some modern covers, and I will always consider songs from others. I also hope other members will sing. The sound will incorporate various elements. Expect some out-of-time, delicate, airy acoustic music, and also some electric, rockish sounds and textures. If you listen to SEPIA, you will get an idea of a starting point." She closes with, "Please contact the [Ceres] record label; it's important and could be satisfying to you, to create some music with lasting value."

AUSTRALIA ROCKS

In the world of Australian entertainment and groove writers, there are probably none more, well, unique than these. They are Kami McInnes and Dann Lennard, of Edwardstown and Sydney, respectively. More like colleagues than fans, we didn't know where else to write about them, so here it is:

These blokes [we hope that is a flattering term] have raved about Julie Dalia's SEPIA, and have requested more. Of the "down under" feedback, which has been great, their writings have been the most informed and eloquent. Kami, writing for Xero Tolerance, even named SEPIA a "Top CD of the Year." Parts of each of their reviews are on the REVIEWS page (imagine that). [Dann's is the Betty Paginated review.]

McInnes and Lennard are committed to reviewing independent music, yet also are devotees of much further on the wild side. However, whether they are covering professional wrestling, jazz or heavy metal recordings, or a straight-ahead skin flick, it is clear that they have been reading more than cereal boxes. It becomes quickly obvious that they both are jazz and rock mavens, and musically very eclectic, as well as both very talented, poetic reviewers. Ceres will go so far as to say that these gentlemen [we hope that is a flattering term] should be writing "liner notes" (which aren't probably called 'liner notes' anymore) - but to quote the movie Corrina, Corrina, where the lead guy says to Whoopie Goldberg "You are just so…inside the music." Well, Dann and Kami live there, too.

Dann Lennard is a source of apparently easy, irreverent, uncontrived, side-splittingly witty comments, reviews, and articles, which appear in his magazine Betty Paginated. Kami also writes prose, such as his SF&T* (*Which we can't translate here), a dark, realistic novella published by Paroxysm Press of Adelaide. Though chock full of in-your-face sexual drama, this work poignantly and insightfully illustrates the intent behind our species' more raw behaviors. Kami also wrote the below preface to the most recent issue of "Funhouse," his 'zine which both compiles and covers music, poetry, prose, and sometimes film we think:

"Yes, art is short but we hope to help you rediscover some of it.
This is an attempt to stop the mediocrity spreading,
the mediocrity of music, art, fiction that the media and all its tentacles
promotes, spreads, sells and forces upon us.
Here are musicians, writers, poets who do what they do
because of the need to.
It's not money that makes their world turn, its art, their art."
Kami McInnes

Ceres News Page

Funhouse:
funhousezine@hotmail.com;
Betty Paginated:
danhelen@idx.com.au;
Paroxysm Press:
www.pobox.com/~paroxysm

Recently, both Kami and Dann again wrote about Ceres Artist Julie Dalia; here are some excerpts:

From Betty Paginated (Dann Lennard): "Recently, on a whim, I contacted Julie…to see what was happening. Much to my pleasant surprise, she responded. Says Julie, 'I am releasing another CD, I just don't know when. I just know it'll have some beautiful and unusual songs.' "

From Funhouse (Kami): "…I received a compact disc called "Sepia" by Julie Dalia. . .With a touch of Joni Mitchell, spiritualism, native America and late night chanteuse all mixed in to create a unique and beguiling sound of her own, Julie was a step forward for me. A discovery in fact of a gentler side of myself…"

Kami then published the following Julie Dalia interview, excerpted here:

Funhouse: The American Indian seems to be an influence…at least on Sepia…is there a story there?
Jdalia: Yes. I have long studied native cultures. But the actual story around much of Sepia was the result of time spent on an almost unoccupied barrier island on the Atlantic coast of the USA. There, I could feel almost tangibly the presence of tribes who had lived there. There was beach with sharks breeding and giant sea turtles, and jungle, thick with bugs, alligators, and black snakes jumping ahead of where one walked. There was also a small settlement of very proud, gentle African Americans who lived there, to whom the island had been bequeathed after the Civil War, by the outgoing plantation owner to whom they had once been enslaved. It was so compelling a place that these songs just spontaneously emerged, and I put them on tape when I got back from the trip. The song "Daughters" has the line: "Can you see them/in the morning light/can you hear them when the day goes down?" Well, that refers to the presence of the historic African/Native American culture. I treasure that memory and those people; I wish I could see them again…

Funhouse: What else is on the agenda?
Jdalia: Well, the website is #1 priority. I hope to have any new recordings available via the site. After that, there will be some rehearsal time, followed by auditioning a new band. Then some shows in the Southern U.S. And then trying to contract for an Australian tour.

Funhouse: Really? Why Australia? Besides the fact that you'd have at least two fans at your gigs.
Jdalia: Australia is the #1 place that I would like to tour. I believe that Australians are more musically mature than other places, more ready to accept music which doesn't fit into the carefully circumscribed "groove" that, unfortunately, modern audiences have come to expect. The question I most hate answering is "What kind of music do you play?" - Yet the frequency with which I am asked it illustrates how pattern-oriented our modern Western world has become. I hope to break some of that, and soon.

Funhouse: We can only hope she does.

***

Thanks, Kami and Dann. Although you are probably "brilliantly mental," Ceres Records more than loves you. We will send that Australian Contingent as soon as possible. --------------Isabella Issassi/cr

Coming Soon!