Lisa in the Media

[Daniel]

being interviewed at the moment, a lot of talk about the Petite 9-90 typewriter.
now playing a version of a white Christmas with Donagh.

[Gatsby]

Originally Posted by Daniel

being interviewed at the moment, a lot of talk about the Petite 9-90 typewriter.
now playing a version of a white Christmas with Donagh.

i remember those. i think my sister got one for xmas years and years ago. no coincidence that she turned out to be a journalist. they dont make em like they used to!

[Daniel]

What....sisters. journalists or, typewriters?

[Daniel]

Lisa appeared last night singing Christmas Past with Mick Flannery for Alison Curtis' Christmas Special show (Today FM) broadcast live from Whelans (?).

[Wheels]

She seems like like to keep her media appearances as a surprise?!

[RonjaGirl]

You can listen to the Christmas song she did with Donagh at the Ian Dempsey Breakfast show on Tuesday here...

[eva_arg]

thanks for the links

[cuuliem]

first videos from her set in seattle are uploaded. more to come i hope this weekd end

lille


splishy splashy


sea song


ocean and a rock

[RonjaGirl]

Here you can listen to a 30sec clip of Lisa's version of Diana Ross' Upside Down' from 'Even Better Than The Disco Thing', if you haven't heard the song yet...

[Cerque]

Originally Posted by srahman24

So this is definitely one week where I'll have to pick Grey's over The Office...

Pretty exciting news for her though! Grey's usually gives a huge bump to the artists they feature (they've sort-of featured Lisa before, yes? With 9 Crimes and Some Surprise?)

When is it on?

[Wheels]

Originally Posted by Cerque

When is it on?

If you scan down from that quote you'll see the info. Was on Nov 20 in the US.

[Cerque]

I will have to keep an eye out for it. i love it when they play british and especially irish artists on shows like that.

[Daniel]

with some massive overlooking of copyrights, everyone's favourite (except #Ian#) One Day International have created a list/ mixtape/ Winter Compilation of songs for the festive season (ok I'm a bit late with this one). They suggest and offer Lisa's Teeth and have their own live cover of Joni Mitchell's River (with bells and such)

Winter is one of my favourite seasons.. when you`ve got the right jacket on. I`d like to experience the extremities of a winter,a real winter,like Rocky Balboa training in USSR in Rocky IV. It can be a very beautiful thing and more peaceful seemingly. The following songs make more sense to me on a cold winter day or night, they have a bite or an edge, but the capability to send a warm tingle through your body. We have another two months of winter to bare,i hope these songs help to embrace it!

1. Julee Cruise - Falling
2. Lisa Hannigan - Teeth
3. Mariah - Shinzo No Tobira
4. Cocteau Twins - Fifty Fifty Clown
5. Beirut - Venice
6. Nico Muhly - Hudson Cycle
7. Mark Hollis - The Gift
8. Valgeir Sigurasson - Winter Sleep
9. Beach House - D.A.R.L.I.N.G
10. Mantler - Togethernest
11. Arthur Russell - A Sudden Chill
12. Grouper - Disengaged
13. Burial - Shell of Light
14. The Redneck Manifesto - Hibernation Statement
15. Nick Drake - Horn
16. Popol Vuh - Wo Bist Du,Der Du Uberwuden
17. Dave Bixby - Waiting For The Rains
18. The Band - Acadian Driftwood
19. The Walker Brothers - The Electrician
20. Air - Alone In Kyoto
21. Sebastien Tellier - Le Long De La Riviere Tendre

Bonus Track!
We did a cover of Joni Mitchells`River for the Phantom Christmas show..It turned out quite nice.
22. One Day International - River

Merry Christmas!

Ross.

[RonjaGirl]

There's an artical about Lisa in HotPress Annual 09...She is featured as New artist of the year

[RonjaGirl]

Lovely Una posted a new blog on Lisa's myspace...

pistachio on brothers and sisters

hello myspacers,

happy happy new year to everyone and i hope this finds you all well and happy, saying goodbye to two thousand and great and welcoming in two thousand and fine with a smile your noggin.

it's una here, just writing a quick note to let you all know that lisa's song pistachio will be used on ABC's brothers and sisters on jan 11th for anyone that would like to check it out.

let us know how it goes... me and the hanniganizer have no tele!

best,
una

[zaphir]

Not sure if I was to make a new thread, but this should be here..

Anyone seen the Brothers and Sisters episode last night with Lisa's Pistachio playing in the background? I thought they put it really well with the scene.. When things were getting better between the characters, comes the nice and fresh tune of the piano intro to the song... really nice.

[srahman24]

Yep, and they used a fair bit of the song too

[borneoman]

cannot find it online is it on youtube???

[RonjaGirl]

Here's and artical from NYDailyNews.com...

Spectral Irish singer Lisa Hannigan steps out of the shadows


Lisa Hannigan performs in support of her "Sea Sew" release at the Greek Theater.

Lisa Hannigan started her recording career as a ghost. She hovered around the edges of songs written and performed by one of Ireland's most promising young stars, Damien Rice, haunting his music with her spooky, wounded moans.

Hannigan made the ideal companion for Rice, who's not exactly a party animal himself. She even sang the first and last lines on Rice's latest CD (late 2006's "9"), framing his sullen phrases with her own broken cries.

Yet anyone entranced by Hannigan's sound had to eventually wonder: Could a singer who merely roamed the edges of a song ever hold its center? Could a cameo artist become a star?

Hannigan probably had to pose the question to herself sooner, and more urgently, than she would have wanted. Two years ago, Rice fired her from his band without warning and with little explanation - at least not one Hannigan has offered to the press.

Now she's making the case for her own talents on her solo debut, "Sea Sew." Happily, it not only proves Hannigan worthy of the star slot, it places her firmly in the company of a whole clique of emerging young Irish acts, from the Frames to the Thrills to Bell X1 to a project called Cake Sale, which involves members of all three.

Listeners drawn to Rice's hesitant, acoustic ballads won't be disappointed by anything on Hannigan's debut. She's still singing in hushed tones, though in far more varied ones than Rice's music allowed. In fact, Hannigan's music shows how many different ways a person can sing softly.

In "I Don't Know," her voice has an expectant quality, with a hint of flirtation. In "Ocean and a Rock" there's great yearning in her long, lingering phrases, while for "Keep It All" she sings into her chest to create a sense of mystery.

The music - all originals, save a take on Bert Jansch's "Courting Blues" - also involves more instrumentation than Rice's. But it remains understated and uncluttered. Hannigan proves herself a poetic lyricist, making eager use of Ireland's literary bent for alliteration and onomatopoeia (see "Splishy Splashy," "Sea Song"). Even so, Hannigan's words manage to convey clear meaning.

She writes mainly encouraging and romantic songs, in contrast to Rice's somber broods. In "Ocean and a Rock" Hannigan pledges eternal allegiance to a long-distance lover, while in "I Don't Know" she composes a virtual personal ad of a song, fired by more anticipation than wariness, which shows the durability of her hope. But here's the best news: Hannigan hasn't just crawled out of Rice's shadow so she can imitate him. Instead she gave his introverted sound her own concentrated allure.

4/5

-Jim Farber

[Cerque]

Originally Posted by RonjaGirl

Here's and artical from NYDailyNews.com...

That is a really good review, thank you.

[zaphir]

just a short review about sea sew from the SF Chronicle.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...PK8N154CJ6.DTL

It's the question that follows Damien Rice everywhere he goes: "Where's Lisa?" On the soul-searching Irish singer's breakthrough 2003 album, "O," and its follow-up, "9," released two years ago, Lisa Hannigan's fragile voice served as the sweet, even-tempered foil to his bitterly tortured wailing. The official reason for the duo's split was that their creative relationship had run its course, but you suspect there was always something deeper at work. Together, each songwriter sounded positively unearthly, their voices and temperaments swirling together in search of emotional catharsis. On the songs he recorded without her, Rice sounds a little more pedestrian. In turn, on her first solo album, Hannigan has lost the drama and despair that made her voice sound like a ray of sunshine cutting through it. In fact, songs such as "Keep It All" and "Lille" are unashamedly pretty, adorned with swooning strings, twinkling glockenspiels and gently plucked acoustic guitars. There are tender choruses and clever lyrics, but the floating tunes are unlikely to connect with the people who came to her looking for the same spellbinding melodies she spun out with Rice. Although, Hannigan does occasionally come close, particularly on the hushed "Splishy Splashy," a song so gorgeous that it should provide her former employer plenty of angst for his next project.

[RonjaGirl]

From lisahannigan.ie

Lisa's music on 90210

Tune in to the CW (Global in Canada) for tomorrow's episode of 90210. Lisa's song, "Venn Diagram" will be featured on the iconic teen drama.

Music supervisor for the show is none other than KCRW's Nic Harcourt, who featured Lisa on his show "Tuned In", back in December.

The CW site features music from the show, as well as a link to their Last.fm channel. Check back to see if Venn Diagram gets added. 90210 airs at 8 pm/7 Central in the US, and at 9 pm Eastern in Canada. Check your local listings for air times.

[srahman24]

^ Sigh. I don't think even Lisa could make me tune into that horrible, horrible show.

[mariaoran]

^haha me neither! but good for her, she's getting some mainstreem teen play. :P

[borneoman]

well at least she gets some tv exposure... weird that Nic Harcout has something to do with 90210

[fishwife]

from Newstatesman

BACK TO OUR ROOTS
David Cheale

Lisa Hannigan is one of the innovative artists taking folk music into the 21st century


At some tantalisingly unspecified point later this year, Lisa Hannigan's first solo album, Sea Sew, will finally get a UK release - it came out months ago in Ireland, her home turf. Hannigan, a singer and songwriter best known for her vocals on Damien Rice's two albums 0 and 9, is a bright new voice in popular music. Sea Sew is full of memorable melodies and richly textured arrangements, while her singing ranges from pure girlish sweet*ness to something altogether darker. Her performances alongside Rice, both on record and live, won her a considerable fan base: her husky timbre became more than backing vocals, often taking the lead on Rice's controlled explosions of emotion.

They were a team from the early days of Rice's career, bumping into each other in a bar in Dublin, where Hannigan, who at school had ambitions to become an opera singer, was studying art history at Trinity College. She told Rice she was a singer, so he went to hear her in a classical music competition and hired her for his band. They lasted seven years together, and then one night a couple of years ago they were about to go on stage in Munich when Rice told her abruptly that he would no longer be needing her services. A businesslike announcement was issued saying that their "professional relationship has run its creative course" - and that was that.

Since then, Hannigan has been working on her solo career, and Sea Sew is the result. It's lighter, breezier, more whimsical than her material with Rice, though it does have its melancholy moments. It's an album that has been categorised within the the broad spectrum of music that now goes under the heading of "folk". The instrumentation is almost entirely acoustic - double bass, drums, acoustic guitars, banjo, fiddle, cello, glockenspiel, harmonium - while her voice has a natural, unforced quality.

And yet there's almost nothing here, apart from the lilt of her accent, to suggest that she is an Irish folk singer; though there are fiddles and a banjo, this is a million miles from the boisterous revelry of The Dubliners, let alone The Pogues. Nor do her songs fit in with the folk tradition of narrative songwriting, being more personal meditations on love and relationships, with the sea as a recurring theme.

So what is it about her music that makes it folk? Chiefly its acoustic nature; the sounds you hear are natural, earthy, genuine - crucial qualities in the world of folk, which values authenticity over artifice. The guitar, the banjo, the strings and the harmonium mesh together in a way that's not folksy, but certainly folky. This hand-crafted flavour extends to the sleeve art, which was knitted and sewn by Hannigan herself. And amid the self-penned tunes, there's a version of "Courting Blues", a song written by the veteran Scottish folkie Bert Jansch, as if to say: this is where I'm coming from.

As a folk singer, Hannigan is in good company, because this year folk music is a big sound. This month's BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, presented by Mike Harding, a veteran of folk's Seventies boom time, will reward artists singing and playing in a dizzying spectrum of styles. At one end, trad-folk stalwart Chris Wood is nominated for his album Trespasser, on which, as well as lamenting the enclosures of common land and the ruin they caused to agricultural communities, he sings of modern-day rural blights such as 4x4s in the lanes of Gloucestershire. At the other end is Jim Moray, nominated for his Low Culture album, which sees him moving on from the electronic sound of his laptop-folk to a more African-influenced style.

Also among the nominees are Eliza Carthy, daughter of old folkies Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson; Carthy, with her bleached-blonde hair and prominent piercings, cuts a distinctive figure in the folk scene, and is nominated for her Dreams of Breathing Underwater album. Meanwhile, the buff and hunky Seth Lakeman, who has helped bring folk music into the mainstream and even on to daytime television, is nominated for the best live act award.

Elsewhere, the thriving Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow (which ends 1 February), celebrates music from all shades of the folk-roots spectrum; among the star attractions are Kate Rusby, a key figure in the folk revival, and Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, one of last year's big breakthrough folk acts. Based around two sisters from the north-east of England, Rachel and Becky Unthank, they play a beguiling and often creepy (lots of their songs seem to be about dead babies) mixture of traditional tunes, self-penned songs and striking cover versions. They were nominated last year for the Mercury Prize, and in many ways epitomise the contemporary approach to folk, with their sparse, spacious, eerie arrangements and heavily accented voices.

Today's folk scene, then, is a vibrant, shifting thing in which tradition is respected but inno*vation is also admired. The re-emergence of folk perhaps ties in with the boom in live music: people are hungry for real musical experiences, and folk, with its emphasis on authenticity, is about as real as it gets.

Such is the proliferation of folk sub-genres that folk is beginning to look like the world of high finance, with its countless derivatives: among the niche scenes are nu-folk, folktronica, neo-folk, folk noir, and freak folk - the latter a mostly North American offshoot practised by neo-hippies such as Devendra Banhart and Sufjan Stevens. In Germany, there's even a folk-metal scene.

Lisa Hannigan's style is perhaps best described as "indie folk", and this was borne out by a show I saw her performing at the end of last year at St John's Church in Smith Square, London. The crowd was youngish, metropolitan, well- dressed, the music was strikingly original, and Hannigan, in a sparkly blue dress, sang to us in her wide-ranging voice. Warm, dark, rich and full of unexpected twists and turns: this was folk music for the 21st century.

"Sea Sew" is available from Lisa Hannigan's website: http://www.lisahannigan.ie

[srahman24]

An article and snippets from an interview with the San Diego City Beat

Who's that girl?

With a new album and a voice you may already know, Lisa Hannigan is ready to step out from her old music partner’s shadow

By Seth Combs

Lisa Hannigan has a lot on her mind these days. Mostly, she’s contemplating the songs on her debut album, figuring out new ways to present them on her first U.S. headlining tour. She’s also trying to come up with answers for those nosy journalists who ask her what, exactly, happened between her and her former music partner.

But right now, on the phone from what she describes as a “very cold” Ireland, Hannigan lets me know exactly what she’s thinking about.

“I must ask you, can you recommend a nice sushi restaurant in San Diego?” she inquires in a bewitching accent.

“We’re going to be there on my birthday. We have a couple of places in Ireland, but we don’t have any proper ones.”

The sushi query is as animated as Hannigan will get over the phone. The 27-year-old’s shy demeanor could be seen as a defensive result of wanting to talk more about her present circumstances than her past accomplishments. Even if most music fans don’t know her by name, chances are they would recognize her voice. Over the course of six years and two albums, she was featured prominently alongside Irish troubadour Damien Rice. She’d often steal a bit of his thunder with the emotional range she brought to songs like “Volcano,” “The Blower’s Daughter” and “9 Crimes,” and many people began to see them as more of a duo, rather than Hannigan simply being part of Rice’s band.

While it wasn’t completely unexpected when the couple parted ways in 2007, many fans still had a hard time envisioning one singer without the other. And after a seemingly unemotional post on Rice’s website stating that it was his decision to end the relationship, many fans rallied around Hannigan, who, until then, had commented only that she wished to pursue her own music.

Whatever the circumstances of the split, Hannigan remains as diplomatic about it as ever. So much so that it almost seems like she has the answers down to a science.

“I don’t really know what happened. It ran its course, I guess.”

Fair enough. Yet, there were other questions being asked. Fans knew she had the vocal chops, but could she write her own material? All doubt was removed with last year’s European release of Sea Sew (released this week in the U.S.).

Fans and critics went mad over the album and Hannigan’s new up-tempo, pop-friendly sound. The songs are a window into Hannigan’s mindset these days, sounding more playful, yet no less serious, than her material with Rice.

“The response was all very supportive,” she remembers. “I was worried, but I knew that it was time and people seemed to agree.”

But Sea Sew isn’t all sugar, spice and everything nice. Songs like “Pistachio” and the brilliant, heartbreaking “Teeth” (sample lyric: “When my salt was my own / My teeth bared for battle / Till love made me dull”) finds her channeling the same raw passion she brought to Rice’s lyrics. Even the words of the otherwise poppy single “I Don’t Know”—about the pensive emotions that come with having a crush on someone—read like they could have been a sad song had they been performed a different way.

“I never thought of it that way, but now that you say that, it makes sense,” she says. “That particular song is certainly quite joyful, and it was intended to sound that way. I always have an idea and a melody in my head.”

If her new U.S. tour schedule has revealed anything, it’s that Rice’s fans were obsessive enough to learn Hannigan’s name. Many of her shows sold out immediately, and Hannigan is pleasantly surprised to find this out. When asked about the future after this album and tour, she replies with the predictable answer of “more touring and recording” but then opens up just enough to play it safe.

“I’m just really enjoying what I’m doing now and really couldn’t ask for anything more,” she says, adding, “I’m just hoping I can continue doing it with the lovely people I now have around me.”

Lisa Hannigan plays with Gavin Glass on Wednesday, Feb. 11, in the Delta Room at
House of Blues. www.myspace.com/lisahannigan.

[srahman24]

Lisa's going to be on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno!

We 2/18: Charlie Sheen, Lisa Hannigan

[mariaoran]

I don't like Leno but i'll watch it just for Lisa. Awesome she's getting some tv time!!

[srahman24]

Interesting interview with the San Francisco Examiner

Celtic folkster Lisa Hannigan rolls the dice

By Tom Lanham
Special to The Examiner 2/12/09
SAN FRANCISCO – When her employer recently bid her adieu after seven years of service, says Celtic thrush Lisa Hannigan, there was no severance package.

“I don’t think there was any gold watch offered as a parting gift, either,” she laughs. It was a cold kiss-off when temperamental folkie Damien Rice axed his longtime duet partner mere minutes before a concert in Munich.

“We’d had blowups within the band before that, because for any group that’s lived and worked together in a small space, seven years is a long time,” reflects this good sport.

“So it wasn’t a particularly pleasant way for it to end, but things just came to the end of a cycle, and it was time to start over for everyone involved.”

Hannigan did begin again. “I’d always wanted to make a record, so when that happened it was like ‘OK, I have got to get my songs finished, I’ve got to get going!’” says the newly minted solo artist, who plays San Francisco’s Independent Tuesday backing her ATO debut, “Sea Sew.”

The spotlight suits her. Her glowing voice heats up quirky folk-rooted originals on the album, such as “Venn Diagram” and the first single, “I Don’t Know,” in which she lists unknown variables of a potential relationship before blindly leaping into it.

This lovably eccentric outlook extends to the album cover art, a patchwork quilt of dice hand-sewn by the artist herself. “There’s something magic about dice — they’re filled with possibility and adventure,” she says.

But Hannigan, 27, has always viewed her world with wonder. Growing up in rural Ireland, she spent her spare time playing in the family flower and vegetable gardens, she says, “Just amusing myself by making things up in my brain, using my imagination and inventing stories.”

Her universe expanded when she attended college in Dublin. She took up drawing, painting, even acting when she launched her own company, the Cowardly Lion Theatre Group.

“But I always knew that I wanted to sing,” adds the Renaissance woman, who first accompanied Rice at the city’s Temple Bar in 2001 before joining him on his ’02 debut “O.”

Now, Hannigan has her own backing band. “And I have a sewing kit on tour, so I can fix the boys’ suits,” she reveals. “I mean, somebody has to look after their stage clothes, right?”

Not angry about being pink-slipped, she never saw Rice again. Of the experience, she says, “If that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be where I am now. I’m feeling really good about my life, and it’s just a waste to be bitter."